Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

Retail industry sales (which exclude automobiles, gas stations, and restaurants) will increase 4.1% in 2014, up from the preliminary 3.7% growth seen in 2013, according to the National Retail Federation. The association’s 2014 economic forecast calls for online sales to grow between 9% and 12%.

A number of factors contributed to NRF’s 2014 economic forecast, including:

Canton, Mass. -- For the eighth consecutive year, Dunkin' Donuts has been ranked number one in customer loyalty in the coffee category by the Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index. Dunkin' Donuts was also ranked number one in customer loyalty in the packaged coffee category for the second consecutive year.

Washington, D.C. – Fewer U.S. consumers will celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, but will spend a little more than last year. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2014 Valentine’s Day spending survey conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics, 54% of Americans will celebrate with their loved ones in 2014, compared to 60% in 2013.

The average person plans to spend $133.91 on candy, cards, gifts, dinner and more, up slightly from $130.97 last year. Total spending is expected to reach $17.3 billion.

On the heels of a healthy yet modest holiday shopping season, cautious consumers aren’t quite ready to splurge on Valentine’s Day this year, continuing to keep their budgets in check.

Unilever U.S. has teamed up with the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management master's degree program to explore “the changing face of the beauty consumer.”

Amazon did a bit of Valentine’s Day data mining of sales of romance novels and sexy music to come up with its fifth annual list of the nation’s top 20 romantic cities. And people are worried about the NSA’s activities?

Reston, Va. -- comScore has entered into a partnership with the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) to expand its cross-platform measurement service that provides a continuous view and measurement of media usage across TV, radio, desktop, smartphone and mobile.

This next phase will allow media companies, marketers and advertising agencies the opportunity to measure things such as multi-platform advertising, mobile video, time-shifted viewing such as DVR playback and children’s viewing.

General Mills is adding a new line of products to its roster. Consumers in the United States can find more than 50 new items from the company on store shelves, with dozens more to launch in international markets.

Some of the new offerings include:

A proliferation in the ways shoppers engage with retailers and consume content across platforms has transformed traditional marketing and spawned new approaches to measuring advertising effectiveness.

This week digital measurement leader comScore said it had joined with the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) to expand a cross-platform measurement service that provides a continuous view and measurement of media suage across TV, radio, desktop, smartphone and mobile.

Facebook just reported record levels of user engagement along with fourth quarter sales and profits that blew away forecasts, but a new study offers a more measured view of the social media network’s longer term prospects.

The director of the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future Jeffrey Coles and the research firm Bovitz conducted a survey last fall in which one third of respondents said they will be using Facebook less in five years.