Marketing Forecast from Ad-ology

U.S. sales of stereo headphones priced above $100 more than doubled in 2011, according to The NPD Group. While models under $100 make up the majority of headphone sales, models priced above $100 have doubled their unit share to 6%, and now account for more than $342 million in sales through November of 2011. Products emphasizing brand, sound quality, and celebrity endorsements have driven much of this growth.

According to new consumer research from Leichtman Research Group, 69% of households in the United States have at least one high definition television set, up from 17% in 2006. Over the past five years, 52% of US households adopted HDTV. In addition, 21% of all households purchased a new TV set in the past 12 months, and 19% of all households plan to purchase a new TV set in the next 12 month.

Today’s students are truly carrying a digital backpack, as college students own a wide range of digital devices compared with the overall adult population. The vast majority of undergrads possess a laptop and an iPod or MP3 player. In fact, nearly a quarter (27%) of students surveyed listing their laptop as the most important item in their bag – almost three times the number of students who chose textbooks (10%), according to new research from CourseSmart and Wakefield Research.

New data from GfK MRI reveal that women are 52% more likely than men to own an eReader and men are 24% more likely than women to own a Tablet. Drilling down to the brand level, women are 63% more likely than men to own an Amazon Kindle and twice as likely to own a Barnes & Noble Nook. Men, on the other hand, are 16% more likely to own an Apple iPad. Evidence suggests that men’s affinity for Tablets may be a reflection of the way they view ownership of technological gadgets with respect to their peers.

According to a new report by The NPD Group, kids’ inclination to use consumer electronics devices, and their desire for the content they can access using them, helps to drive the household purchasing of these products. When looking at devices purchased in the past year, there are signs that many were purchased specifically so that kids could use them. Pricing is the most important driver when it comes to choosing a retailer for CE device purchases made at both a physical store or online, but pricing was notably more important for online purchases.

The digital age is affecting more than how America communicates, it is also shaping parent-child relationships in striking new ways. Barna Group recently completed a study about the influence of technology in families and discovered parents are just as dependent on technology as their tween and teens. While many assume that families are fed up with technology, by nearly a two-to-one ratio parents think of technology like computers, cell phones and video game systems as making their family life better rather than worse (32% to 18%).