The Hollywood Reporter details PSB research on Oscar host choice

PSB President of Media & Entertainment Research Jon Penn and his team in our Los Angeles office continues their partnership with the revamped Hollywood Reporter this week, with a poll examining Americans' response to the choice of Anne Hathaway and James Franco to host this year's Academy Awards.

We conducted two surveys - one before the choice was made, and one after it was announced, and found that Americans are overall very positive about the choice. “Awards-show watchers give the
surprising Franco-Hathaway pairing two thumbs up,” says Penn. “Oscar is on his way to being more accessible, fresh and cool.”

Key findings of the poll include:

• 86% of respondents think that Hathaway and Franco make for a good co-host pairing
• 7 in 10 viewers remember that Sandra Bullock won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in The Blind Side last year, but just 4 in 10 could recall that The Hurt Locker won Best Picture
• 81% think the Oscar broadcast is too long
• Now that Hathaway and Franco have been named the hosts, 39% of respondents think the Oscars will be "fun" - a 25% increase over the pre-announcement figure

For more information, see the PDF of the poll as it appeared in the Hollywood Reporter here.

Jon Penn talks to Automotive News about The Great Late-Night Poll

The Hollywood Reporter's Great Late-Night Poll, released last week and conducted by PSB's Media & Entertainment Group, continues to garner widespread coverage. Jon Penn was interviewed yesterday by Automotive News, who were particularly interested in what late-night viewers' choice of talk show says about their taste in cars. You can find the video here. The poll has also been covered by Gawker and New York Magazine's Vulture.

Mark Penn and Karen Hughes on C-SPAN

Two weeks ago, Mark Penn and Karen Hughes spoke at the George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management on the probable outcomes and impacts of the upcoming Midterm elections. NBC News' Political Director Mark Murray moderated. You can view the entire exchange on C-SPAN's website here. And if you're in the Washington D.C. area, you are invited to join us on Thursday, November 4th, when Mark and Karen will discuss the actual results of the election, and the outlook for Congress and the Administration.

Stocks Up, Consumers Still Down: Navigating the Global Disconnect

 A new survey conducted for the Confederation of British Industry shows that activity in the UK financial services sector in the last three months has grown at its fastest rate since June 2007. For the fifth quarter in a row, profitability improved in the financial services sector, and is expected to continue growing over the next three months. This improving sentiment has been reflected in the buoyant performance of the UK’s stock market. The FTSE 100 is up approximately 12% since July of this year,  in spite of the abject performance of BP, one of the index’s largest companies.

However, a separate economic confidence report  released at the same time for the European Commission shows that UK consumer confidence fell in September.
Overall, a global disconnect between improving global stock markets and shaky individual consumer confidence remains. The story also holds true for the US, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up around 10% since July, while consumers remain unconvinced by the recovery.

Our recent poll for POLITICO highlights this trend further, and reveals that DC Elites remain significantly more optimistic about the economy than Main Street. In our survey, 54 percent of voters said they believe we are headed for a second recession and only 25 percent believe we will avoid a double dip. D.C. Elites however, believe that the economy is not headed for a second recession by an almost two to one margin.

Reconciling this disconnect remains stubbornly elusive for all observers of the economy, above all businesses, whose major operating decisions around investment and hiring continue to be affected by all this global uncertainty.

PSB specializes in providing clients with the insights necessary to understand conflicting indicators, and make informed judgments about the future direction of market sentiments.  This knowledge in turn allows our clients to navigate the current climate and retain their competitive advantage in today’s challenging global economic environment.

As Online Polling Reaches Mainstream, the Future is Mobile

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that online polling is becoming a necessity for reputation-conscious brands,  describing how companies facing crises are increasingly engaging in daily online tracking polling to focus on their  corporate reputations. According to the WSJ, even polling firms who have previously shunned the use of online research are now increasingly incorporating it alongside their phone operations.

Online polling has been an integral part of PSB’s offering for more than a decade; we have long believed in its fundamental ability to capture swift, accurate quantitative results. But while we are pleased to see that the online polling revolution is getting some attention, our focus remains on the cutting edge… and innovation in the industry is by no means only taking place online.

PSB recently launched Mobile Pulse, our new mobile research platform. Mobile Pulse allows our clients to reach the 4.1 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide and capture real-time feedback and insight. 60% of the world now has access to mobile phone technology, versus the 26% who are on the Internet – and this high penetration goes a long way to address some of online polling’s limitations. In addition, mobile research offers much higher response rates than other forms, (95% of text messages are opened, versus only 25% of emails), making it ideal for Point-of-Sale polling.

Mobile Pulse is the next step in PSB’s commitment to providing our clients with cutting-edge insights- there will be many more innovations to come.

As Social Media Grows, Marketing Spend Increases

A recent Bellwether Report of 300 UK marketing executives reveals that companies tended to cut their marketing budgets in Q2 of this year. A waning of business confidence and general optimism amongst the executives seemed to be the main explanation, which confirms that the economic recovery remains tentative at best.

The survey also found that direct marketing and the internet are the only marketing budgets likely to have seen an increase – demonstrating the continued attraction of social media as a marketing tool for a broad range of organizations. From a research perspective, the fact that social media marketing is data-driven offers a level of measurability and accountability that is particularly valuable to executives grappling with stretched marketing budgets. 

PSB ‘s A More Social Future survey found that social media is becoming ubiquitous, even though it’s still driven by mainly younger users.  Given its increasing prevalence and the increasing comfort of all age groups with the concept – 57% of those aged 50+ surveyed in our poll had social media accounts – it is hardly surprising that businesses are using these platforms to market their products and brands. 

Though the Bellwether study is focused on the UK, it's likely that this trend is also affecting marketing budgets in other developed countries. Furthermore, with internet and social media marketing still in its infancy, it will be fascinating to find out whether certain industries find the tactic to be more effective than others in delivering a greater bang for their marketing buck.

Economic Confidence among Elites is up, but What of Spending?

The New York Times  reports that affluent consumers, whose increased spending last year was largely credited with reviving hope in the US economy, may have now entered another period of retrenchment.

In November 2009, PSB released a report  which looked at the general American population and identified a trend of increased spending among high income consumers. The headline result then was that Americans earning more than $70,000 a year planned to increase their holiday spending by 27% over the previous year, while those earning less than $40,000 a year were planning to reduce their spending by 14%.

The relative upswing in consumer sentiment forecast in our study, particularly among high income consumers, continued into the first half of 2010, and the article confirms that affluent consumers’ spending  was on the up until very recently– hence the increase in sales of Mercedes and high end properties in the Hamptons and Manhattan mentioned in the Times article.

Indeed, for some time the hopes of US retailers, and the US economy in general, have been pinned on the continuing willingness of affluent Americans to maintain or increase their spending in 2010. The latest data, therefore, is likely to leave many businesses nervous about the ongoing unpredictability of the American consumer.

The picture becomes even more nuanced when one considers today’s Politico poll, also conducted by PSB. This survey suggests that 45 percent of “Washington elites” feel the country and the economy are headed in the right direction, while only 25 percent of the general population feels that way. What is not clear, however, is how the spending patterns of Elites will be affected by these higher confidence levels.

In such a perplexing environment, companies may need to take the temperature of their customers more often than they have historically. One month of disappointing data, particularly if it emanates from higher end consumers, is proving itself able to undermine confidence everywhere, so companies should be looking to research their customers’ spending patterns, as well as their general sentiments, as often as possible.

Pew poll: more evidence of A More Social Future?

A new Pew report on the future of social networking reveals that most tech experts believe that the Internet has been a mostly positive force, but that social networks can be used in harmful ways.This view supports the findings of PSB’s own study on the growth of social media from earlier this year, entitled “A More Social Future”. 

Overall, the data clearly suggests that social media is here to stay, with 85% of respondents to the Pew survey agreeing with the prediction that by 2020 the internet will have been a mostly positive force on their social world.This chimes well with the findings of our study of the general US population, which revealed that 6 in 10 respondents, and 3 in 4 of the 18-34 year-olds we polled, believe that social media networks will become more integrated into our lives. Furthermore, 56% of the Americans we polled feel that they will make friends in the future because of social networks.

So, with such a consensus believing in the pivotal role of social media in people’s lives, which networks will build lasting, profitable business models?

One clue comes from the question we asked about social media’s impact on purchase decisions; 80% of 18-34 year olds think that recommendations received from a social media network are the same or better than recommendations from traditional methods.

The winning social media sites in the future will be those which can build an enthusiastic community of users who believe in social media as a long term concept. It is within this environment that social-context advertisements (where data is collected on the preferences of other members of the network and displayed as an effective word-of-mouth tool) can gain traction. Companies will be very keen to pay for these advertisements if they feel that the endorsements of fellow users will lead to a greater ROI.

The American Constitution Survey 2010

The American people are solidly behind the basic principles of the Constitution. But they are deeply divided as to how it should be interpreted, and they're frustrated with its current implementation. Penn Schoen Berland's June 2010 poll of 1000 Americans (presented today at the Aspen Ideas Festival) addresses their attitudes toward the past and future of the Constitution - as well as the changes they want to make to give people more power.