Attitudes About E-mail

According to eMarketer, e-mail volume in the US will rise from over two trillion messages this year - personal, commercial and spam - to almost 2.7 trillion by 2007. The chart below shows what e-mail users think about having and using e-mail.

Downtrend in Career Ambition

American workers of most age groups are not wanting jobs with greater responsibilities, according to the Families and Work Institute. The following table shows how this attitude about work has changed.

Most Recognized Advertising Slogans

Many consumers find commercials annoying and tune them out - in fact, more than four in 10 (41%) consumers channel surf during them. However, many still make their way into consumers' memories. The top 10 most recognizable ones are listed below.

Americans' Weight and Height Trends

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, Americans are, on average, an inch taller today than they were in the 1960s and almost 25 pounds heavier.

MarketingSherpa's 10 Best Blogs for 2005

Blogs, personal Internet journals, have taken the Internet by storm. They are frequently updated and written in a personal tone, where the writer or "blogger" writes his/her observations on the world or provides links to useful websites. MarketingSherpa surveyed marketing execs at medium-large businesses and the agencies who serve them. The sites were rated based on personality of the writer, usefulness/enjoyable, writing style, usability/design, likeliness to revisit.

Ten 10 Best Blogs for 2005

1. Best individual's blog on the general topic of marketing and advertising
   Seth Godin's Blog http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/blog.html
2. Best group weblog on the general topic of marketing and advertising
   MarketingVOX http://www.marketingvox.com
3. Best PR-topic blog
   Media Guerrilla
   http://mmanuel.typepad.com/media guerrilla
4. Best B-to-B marketing-topic blog
   Guerrilla Consulting http://guerrillaconsulting.typepad.com
5. Best blog on small business marketing
   Duct Tape Marketing http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php
6. Best blog on online marketing
   Chris Baggott's Best Practices in Email http://exacttarget.typepad.com/chrisbaggott
7. Blogs on Search Marketing
   Search Engine Roundtable http://www.seroundtable.com
8. Best Blog on Niche Marketing (tie):
   Ypulse - Media for the Next Generation http://www.ypulse.com/ WonderBranding - Marketing to Women http://michelemiller.blogs.com/marketing to women
9. Best non-English-Language Blog
   MarketingFacts (completely in Dutch) http://www.mediafact.nl/weblog.php
10. Top readers' choice write-in vote
    Easy Bake Weblogs http://easybakeweblogs.com
    
    Source: MarketingSherpa
    

Bullets

• Nine in 10 US households have bank accounts; of these, 93% have at least one electronic funds transfer feature such as direct deposit, ATM or debit cards, or computer banking.
• Almost two-thirds of all US employees have their pay deposited directly into their bank accounts. More than four in five Social Security recipients have their money directly deposited.
• More than four in 10 employed Americans age 25-40 (41%) have had a romantic relationship with someone at the office. Close to one-half (45%) of men have, compared to 35% of women.
• Online Americans who live in rural areas are 16% more likely than city or suburb dwellers to visit shopping sites on the Internet.
• More than four in 10 US colleges (44%) say a campus visit by an applicant is a plus in the admission decision.
• Three-quarters of US employees are looking for a new job - 35% actively and 40% passively. Top reasons are to find better compensation (43%), to find better career opportunities (32%), and dissatisfaction with opportunities at their current job (22%).
• Children with parents who immigrated to the US in the last 10 years are Hispanic (55%), non-Hispanic White (20%), Asian (16%), non-Hispanic Black (8%) and other (1%). By comparison, children of native-born parents are White (71%), Black (16%), Hispanic (8%), Asian (1%) and other (3%).
• Almost three-quarters (72%) of Americans age 65+ in 2003 had graduated from high school and 17% had obtained at least a Bachelor's degree in college. In comparison, 17% of this age group in 1950 had graduated from high school and 3% had graduated from college.
• More than one-half (57%) of middle and high school students participate in some type of organized activity outside of school each day or almost every day. Another 37% do so twice a week. Three-quarters (75%) of students say their schedule is just about right, with 22% calling it too hectic and 3% saying they have too much free time.
• About one-quarter (28%) of air travelers think of a flight as an opportunity to meet a potential new friend or acquaintance, 24% to meet a potential spouse or other romantic relationship, and 14% to meet a potential business contact.
• The average luxury consumer spent an average of $33,188 on luxuries in 2004, a growth of 33% over their spending of $25,010 in 2003. While spending in all categories of luxuries rose in 2004, increased spending on luxury automobiles resulted in the greatest boost overall. On average, they spent $46,394 for an automobile, a 31% increase over the $35,300 paid in 2003.
• In 1997, males made up 65% of all Internet users. Today, females make up 51.6% of the US online population, which closely resembles the US population at large where 51% of the population is female.
• In 2004, workers over age 55 accounted for 918,000 of the 1,810,000 (50.7%) rise in employment.
• When answering the question "Am I interested in trying new foods?," 93% of Asian Americans responded positively, as did 63% of Hispanics, 60% of African Americans and 50% of Whites.
• On a national basis, 9.3% of Native American and Alaskan women are entrepreneurs, compared to 8.5% of Asian or Pacific Island women, 6% of White women, 4.2% of Hispanic women, and 2.8% of African American women.
• The typical American has sex 111 times per year, spending an average of 19.7 minutes on foreplay.
• Some 53% of moviegoers who've seen the TV-like commercials currently shown in movie theaters say the advertisements shouldn't be shown. Twenty-seven percent say the ads make them less likely to go to the theater.
• Obese people are nearly 4 times more likely than the non-obese to have been hospitalized in the past year.
• The average American eats chicken about 10 times per month. This includes six times in home-prepared meals and four times in restaurant meals.
• Forrester Research estimates that 400,000 virtual communities exist on the Internet today. Many are built on shared allegiance to a brand such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Palm Pilots.
• The number of Americans age 55+ categorized as self-employed in non-agricultural industries increased 22 percent from 2,136,000 in May, 2000 to 2,598,000 as of May, 2005. These older entrepreneurs now make up nearly 27% of all self-employed workers, which is second only to 45- to 54-year-olds who make up more than 27% of the self-employed.