The Chinese economy has surprised bankers by bouncing back rapidly from the financial downturn.
Between April and June, gross domestic product expanded by an annual 7.9 per cent, meaning the country is likely to hit its target of eight per cent annual growth.
GDP growth was 6.1 per cent in the first quarter, but [...]

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The 12th annual Top 500 Superbrands survey, identifying the UK’s strongest consumer brands by polling the British public, has launched and reaffirms the success of the fast food chains and multiple supermarkets in the economic downturn.
Some of the brands showing the strongest year-on-year improvement in the survey include McDonald’s, which rises 227 places, Burger King, [...]

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 Experian’s consumer classification system – Mosaic UK – has been updated to reflect demographic and social changes in British society since 2003.
Additional data sources have been added to encompass a more detailed understanding of the ageing population, changes in household composition, the growth in ethnic diversity and the impact of the Internet.
Mosaic UK 2009 draws [...]

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Hundreds of US-based direct marketers, agencies and service providers are offering glimmers of hope for direct marketing jobseekers, according to the latest Bernhart Associates employment update.
“It appears the direct marketing job market is scraping the bottom,”  reports Jerry Bernhart, principal of Bernhart Associates Executive Search, a direct marketing recruiting firm which has been issuing quarterly [...]

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Young Australian consumers are increasingly switching off the Internet and reining in their spending in favour of more traditional pastimes, a study from Lifelounge shows.
The annual Urban Market Research report, which analyses the lifestyle choices of 18 to 30-year-olds in Australia, has revealed that the age group’s overall consumer spending dropped AU$5 billion year-on-year to [...]

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Global advertising expenditure across television, newspapers, magazines and radio has recorded a drop of 7.2 per cent for the first quarter of 2009 compared to the first quarter of 2008, according to a global advertising trends report released today by research company Nielsen.
The report, Global AdView Pulse, reveals that the global economic crisis is taking [...]

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When it comes to pinpointing the population which most enjoys social networking, new research from conScore shows the Russians to be world leaders.
Visitors in the market spend 6.6 hours on social networks, viewing more than 1,300 pages each a month. The country’s leading social networking site is Vkontakte.ru, which has 59 per cent reach among [...]

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The UK Call Centre & Customer Management Expo is being held September 22-23, at Birmingham’s NEC. Here’s a preview:
Issues of offshoring and outsourcing are once again making headlines, with industry commentators suggesting that more companies are looking to outsource their marketing fulfilment and customer services in order to provide a more flexible, scalable solution.
The benefits [...]

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Editor’s Leader column, July 2009
Can anyone tell me if this is a first – a television commercial to promote advertising on the telly? The ad currently running on UK screens shows a man on a psychiatrist’s couch breaking out of a trance-like regressive state to sing snippets of old TV ad jingles: ‘Nuts, whole hazlenuts, Cadbury’s [...]

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Liane Dietrich, UK managing director of affiliate network, LinkShare, assesses the rise in international online shopping and the marketing strategies brands need to employ to increase their revenue.
With the recession in full swing and high street sales continuing to tumble across much of the western world, the last 12 months have seen consumers turn to [...]

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