The responsive consumer is back (but not to 2008 levels)

Responsiveness to marketing among consumers has risen for the third month running, the first such consecutive period rise since May 2008. According to The Marketing Response Index tracking study carried out as part of The British Marketing Survey, part of DataTalk Research, responsiveness in December 2009 stood at 83.7. The tracker is indexed at 100 for May 2008, before the recession hit spending.

The lowest point hit by the index was 72.4 in September 2009, but there have been monthly rises since then. Men reached the lowest level of responsiveness seen with an index of just 69 in August last year, but have now recovered to 85. By contrast, women dropped to 71 in September 2009 and are now indexed at 82.

For singles, responsiveness has been dropping like a stone, however. By December, the index for this group had fallen to an all-time low of 41. Families have seen the reverse, reaching a responsiveness of 97.5 – nearly equal to pre-credit crunch levels.

Surveying was carried out face-to-face in home with 1,000 consumers representative of the UK population taken from The British Population Survey.

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