Stats & Storylines

The month is off to a great start for us here at Wakefield Research, but it may not be so hot for some women.  This morning, a Wakefield Research survey for 1-800-Flowers made the front page of the Life section of USA Today, showing that 25% of women think that Valentine’s Day is the most disappointing holiday.  

The survey reveals that 30% of women chose their birthday as the most disappointing holiday, followed by a tie of Valentine’s Day and their anniversary (both 25%), and 21% who chose Christmas as their most disappointing.  Our fingers are crossed that those disheartened women find some joy this Valentine’s Day and get hit by Cupid’s arrow!

A new article by Bloomberg demonstrates that a good survey can stay relevant, no matter how much time has passed since it was fielded. Wakefield Research worked with Motorola last spring to release a PR survey surrounding smartphone users’ work/life balance. Results showed that nearly half of Americans (43%) have been woken up at night by a work call, text or email. 

The statistic is significant since Brazil just passed a new law declaring afterhours emails and calls eligible for overtime. This is a story that’s getting a lot of traction in the U.S., as cable commentators are hashing out whether there’s an appetite for a similar law here. Considering how many Americans are groggily responding to work emails and calls, overtime could skyrocket if this legislation were adopted.

Contact us to learn more about how to develop a PR survey with staying power.

A new study from the Pew Research Center has found that the number of U.S. adults who own tablets and e-books nearly doubled over the holiday season - leaping from 10% to 19% for both devices.  Pretty huge, right? This finding goes hand-in-hand with the results of a recent survey commissioned by Motricity and conducted by Wakefield Research on the trends of mobile shoppers over the holiday season.  

After surveying 664 smartphone or tablet-owning U.S. adults, Wakefield found that 93% had a positive experience using their smartphones and tablets when holiday shopping. What’s more, 64% expect they’ll be using their mobile devices to shop more frequently in 2012 than they did before the holidays.  

Mobile shopping trends will likely continue, and pick up adoption pace, as the price of tablets goes down and a greater variety of them enter the marketplace. 

While it’s only been a few days, 2012 is off to an awesome start here at Wakefield! Having a Wakefield survey featured in a USA Today Snapshot is a great way to jumpstart the new year, don’t you think? 

The survey, commissioned by Hunter PR, found that eating more whole grains (25%), drinking beverages with less sugar (23%), paying more attention to food labels (21%) and eating more locally grown/raised foods (18%) were the most popular nutrition-related resolutions for 2012.  

You can learn more about the survey findings here.

We must be on the Nice List because there are Wakefield holiday stats splashed across the pages of USA Today this week!  It’s only mid-week and Wakefield PR clients have been featured in two, I repeat, two, USA Today Snapshots.

HomeGoods struck Snapshots gold, snagging the front page with the timely stat highlighting that more than half of Americans (54%) have re-gifted an item. PediaSure (Abbott Nutrition) sparked editors’ interests by drawing attention to the 55 percent of moms who have a harder time getting their kids to eat healthfully during the winter months.

Stay tuned to Stats and Storylines for our more of our top holiday hits!

With the holidays in full swing, many of our clients are making headlines with creative and newsworthy surveys developed by the great minds here at Wakefield. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be posting some of those top hits.

Today, we’re giving a shout out to HomeGoods, whose PR team secured a hit with Reuters. The creative and fun survey found that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were the top celebs Americans want at their dinner table this holiday season. Awkward, anyone?

You can read the full syndicated article here.

Keep checking Stats and Storylines for other top holiday hits! 

The hits keep on comin’ for Wakefield clients. Today we’re shining the spotlight on Motricity, a mobile Internet service provider.

Motricity worked with Wakefield to position its brand as the mobile shopping trend authority during those all-important holiday shopping events – Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The study found that 70% of smartphone users made more purchases on their device this year and more Americans are increasingly likely to opt out of long lines and conduct their shopping from their smartphone or tablet this holiday season.

Motricity’s industry expertise is on display on NBC News affiliates around the country, as well as PCWorld, Technorati, GigaOm, ComputerWorld and CIO.

Contact us to learn more about how you can position your brand as an industry thought leader with survey research.

Decades have passed since The Muppets were deemed cool.  Previously thought of as outdated and past its prime, The Muppets have reinvented themselves with their new movie. Glowing reviews and box office success have made an impression on old and new fans, alike, and proved that some brands can evolve with the times. So, how’d they do it?

The brand embraced the fact that they were considered outdated and integrated it into the storyline. While many brands are unwilling to poke fun of themselves, The Muppets were in on the joke, peppering 70s and 80s references throughout the film.

We applaud The Muppets brand for embracing their brand evolution and hope that others can follow in their footsteps.

PCMag.com is one of the go-to sites for tech product reviews and comparison shopping. What better way to get a new product in the hands of editors than to provide them with data illustrating the urgency and need for the product?

The good folks at Ruder Finn and Carbonite did just that. Their survey outreach helped PCMag.com’s Michael Muchmore understand the importance of protecting digital assets.

Or as Muchmore put it, “the need for online backup services such as Carbonite… couldn’t be clearer. A recent survey conducted by Wakefield Research and Carbonite showed that even though ’51 percent of Americans have experienced a computer crash where they lost all of their digital files, more than one-third (39%) admit they have never backed up their computers, or haven’t do so in more than a year.”

To learn more about the survey findings, you can read the full text of the article here.

Pssst: to all you procrastinators who didn’t heed our advice in the “Christmas in July” blog series for long-lead holiday coverage, don’t fret – there’s still time to secure holiday short-lead coverage, but you have to move fast.

Now that Halloween has come and gone, PR pros will be in full force pitching their winter holiday stories. Editors will be bombarded with pitches about finding the perfect holiday gift, making a delicious holiday meal, de-stressing around family and ways to make holiday travel more affordable. What will differentiate your brand from all of the other pitches that editors will receive?

Make your pitch stand out this holiday season with a relevant, newsworthy PR survey designed by Wakefield’s Editorial Panel. Comprised of members of the media, PR executives and expert researchers, our Editorial Panel knows how to use data to tell a story that will resonate with your media targets. Check out how brands such as Western Union and HomeGoods used compelling survey data to break away from the rest of the holiday pack in 2010.

Will your pitch rise to the top of editors’ inboxes this holiday season or will it be relegated to the trash can?