Moms prefer privacy over politics
Few Americans are attracted to the political arena, largely because they feel "the press in this country pries too much into the lives of public officials," according to a recent survey of 800 mothers of newborns conducted by Attitude Measurement Corp., Southampton, Pa. Nearly three-quarters agreed with the statement; almost half strongly agreed with it. A fifth disagreed. Agreement with the statement was inversely proportional to the respondent's level of education.
Americans play as hard as they work
The typical American spends an average of 40 hours a week in leisure activities. Of these 40 hours, six are spent in recreation and sports activities like boating or fishing, bicycling, bowling and exercise and aerobics. The rest are allocated to social and entertainment activities like watching TV or videos, socializing and going to movies, concerts, plays or sports events, according to a recently released study by Irwin Broh & Associates, Des Plaines, Ill.
The study also found that people felt they had less free time, on average, than a year earlier. The perceived decline in free time cut across regions and income groups. Women aged 18 to 34 were particularly sensitive to a loss of free time. Less time was spent on eating out, sports participation and physical fitness, among other activities that lost out. Other study findings include:
- About one in four people eat at a restaurant during a typical weekday.
- Men 18 to 49 years old spend about 1.5 hours per week preparing meals and doing laundry, compared with more than 7 hours women spend in the same activities.
- More time in the fall is spent walking or jogging than any other sport or recreation.
- People in the western United States are a third as likely to go boating or fishing in the summer as those in the Midwest or South.
- People over 65 spend more time walking or jogging than any other age group. They spend an average of almost two hours per week in the summer, slightly less in the winter and fall.
"Boys of summer" still boast loyal fans
Despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the state of baseball, a third of Americans still said they were fans of the game. More men (42%) than women (25%) identified themselves as fans, and the Northeast and North Central regions had a slight edge over other parts of the country. The telephone study of 2,000 adults was conducted in July by Bruskin Goldring Research, Edison, N. J. Forty-four percent of the fans had incomes of at least $40,000.
Of the 664 self-identified fans, 22% thought the San Francisco Giants would win the World Series this year; the Atlanta Braves came in second, with 11%, and the Philadelphia Phillies third, at 8%. Other teams chosen were the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, the Toronto Blue Jays, and the Chicago White Sox. The Milwaukee Brewers received no votes. (The 1993 World Series teams were Philadelphia and Toronto. Toronto won.)
A third of the fans had gone to a major-league game this season. Attendance is highest in the Northeast (41%) and North Central region (40%), and lowest in the South (25%). About 55% favored interleague play during the regular season, and favored designated hitters in both leagues. About the same proportion opposed the new "wild-card" post-season playoff system. Almost three-quarters thought brawling had no place in the game. And 63% thought artificial turf had no place on the field.
Generation X want their interactive TV
Adults in America - particularly young adults - think the future will be televised, according to a recent Chilton poll investigating public reaction to the leading-edge technology.
For the "MTV Generation," interactive TV appears to be the latest innovation. Interactive TV will let viewers choose from hundreds of movies or programs, and provide services like banking, shopping, registering opinions, playing along with game shows and responding directly to advertisements. Over half of those surveyed (56%) said they would be interested in such a service.
Three out of four 18- to 30-year-olds (who have grown up in a high-tech world) expressed interest in the new technology. By contrast, people over 60 are much less enthusiastic: only 35% would consider having such a service. Of other adults, 63% of the 31- to 44-year-olds and 54% of the 45- to 60-year-olds were favorably inclined. People with a college education are also more likely (65%) to be interested.
Most of those interested would be willing to pay for its services; half the respondents would pay as much as $20 extra to receive interactive television's benefits.
The telephone survey was conducted July 22 to 26, 1993, among a random national sample of 500 adults. The results have a margin of error of plus/minus 5 percentage points. Chilton Research Services is based in Radnor, Pa.
21st-century schools top moms' concerns
Parents are most concerned about the quality of schooling that awaits their newborns. A recent survey by Attitude Measurement Corp., Southampton, Pa., found more than a third of the 800 mothers of newborns polled listed educational concerns as their top priority, followed by concerns about crime and violence (30%), adequate health care (29%), substance abuse/drugs (26%), economic concerns (20%), the environment (15%) and AIDS (15%). Women over 25 are more likely to worry about the environment. Despite worries about the economy, most women still think their child will be better off when he or she grows up than the current generation is now. This outlook bespeaks a cautious, rather than enthusiastic, optimism, however.
In other findings, the survey found that more than half the working mothers surveyed turned to family members or friends for day care. A fifth arrange care via an informal setting at someone else's home (non-family or friend), and 14% use a commercial day-care facility. Only 6% use an au pair or nanny; a scant 1% use a company day care center, possibly because few such facilities exist.
The study also found that more American mothers are bottle feeding their infant than breast feeding, by about a 3 to 2 ratio. A fifth said they sometimes switch methods. The study also found that women over 30 were more likely to breast feed than their younger counterparts (40% of over-30 mothers, compared with 30% of mothers 25 to 29 and 18% of those under 25).
Judgment Day taken seriously
Close to 90% of Americans think God will eventually judge all people is strong among Americans; 74% strongly believe this. Nowhere is this belief stronger than within American Christianity, according to a February 1993 survey conducted by the Barna Research Group Ltd., Glendale, Calif. Regular church attenders, members of the major Christian denominations and "born again" Christians all agree significantly more than American adults as whole that God will judge all people. Barna defines respondents as "born again" if they say they have confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior, and will go to heaven because of this belief.
Christians tend to believe that the God who judges universally also forgives completely. Yet the correlation between God as judge and God as forgiver is surprisingly weak. Among un-churched adults, 40% believe God is not able to forgive all sins. People are hearing messages of judgment at church, but few messages of forgiveness, which may be one reason church attendance continues to drop.
American's view of God's justice and mercy appears to be skewed along educational and economic lines as well as religious lines. Belief that god cannot forgive some sins is strongest among the poor and weakest among the rich. It is stronger than average among Americans with no experience in college and weaker than average among college graduates.
The data were drawn from Barna's semi-annual OmniPoll study.
Americans expect health reform to raise costs
The majority of Americans (51%) expect to pay more out of their own pockets for health care under President Clinton's new health-care reform package; nearly half (44%) believe the quality of health care will remain unchanged, according to a national public opinions survey released by Prevention magazine, Emmaus, Pa. Only 7% of respondents expect to spend less on health care under the new plan.
Americans are divided on how the president's health care plan will affect the nation's economy. Forty-three percent think the plan will be bad for the economy, while 45% disagree. Another 43% believe the quality of health care will decline under the new plan.
The survey found strong support for preventive care coverage, however; 54% of Americans would be willing to shell out a week's pay each year for such services, including mammography, cholesterol testing, annual physicals, and smoking-cessation, substance abuse and stress management programs. Only 39% thought diet counseling should be covered, however.
More women than men thought preventive care would reduce health care costs. But almost a fifth of the respondents said they had not sought preventive services in the past 12 months because they couldn't afford it. Of this group, women outnumbered men by almost two to one.
Nearly three-quarters thought employers should have to provide health coverage for their workers. Wealthier (and white) respondents (incomes over $35,000) were less likely to agree with this, however.
L.A. continues to grow
The Riverside, Calif., and Los Angeles metropolitan statistical areas (MS As) ranked first and second in absolute popu-lation growth in the 1990-93 period, according to Claritas/NPDC's annual Demographic Update. The Riverside area grew by nearly 355,000 people, while Los Angeles grew by about 278,000. Other top-ten population gainers were Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Dallas, San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Las Vegas grew by the highest percentage, witha 17.4% increase; Riverside came in second, growing by 13.7%
Population losers were Boston; Stamford, Conn.; Killeen-Temple, Texas; Jacksonville, N.C.; the Wheeling, W. Va.-Ohio area; Shreveport, La.; Bridgeport, Conn.; Johnstown, Pa.; Pittsfield, Mass, (losing 2.7% of its population); and Enid, Okla.
The update is conducted every year for every U.S. neighborhood, drawing on more than 1,600 public and private sources for local and national demographic data.
Marketers spending more on PR measurement
Marketers are allocating more dollars to measuring results, according to an August survey of 88 marketing professionals, conducted by The Delahaye Group, Newington, N.H. More than half the respondents said they would increase spending by 1% or more of their budget. On average, companies spend about 3% of their public relations budget on measurement. In this year's study, 38% said they would spend more than that in the future. Last year only 23% said they would spend more than the average.
In other findings, 71% of respondents said general PR would become increasingly important in the next three to five years. Two-thirds said international PR would become more important. Over half thought advertising's role would increase. Trade shows, on the other hand, appeared to be on the wane. Perhaps correspondingly, respondents felt more dollars would go toward trade show measurement results next year.
In an era of smaller budgets and tighter integration of activities, it isn't surprising that many of the respondents have responsibility for more than one area. Overall, 77% are responsible for public relations, 58% are in charge of trade shows, 45% manage advertising and 34% do event sponsorships; 36% manage direct mail and internal PR.
TV forecasts are usually right on target
Advertising agency and network pro-fessionals are usually accurate when predicting network TV prime-time audience shares for forthcoming seasons. Their preseason audience share estimates were off by an average of only 1.7% share points, according to arecent analysis by Gallup & Robinson Inc., Princeton, N.J.
In other findings, the analysis showed:
- Network professionals consistently estimated higher audience share for their programs than did agency professionals. The latter's estimates, were, however, closer to actual share.
- Overall program share prediction errors were significantly larger for new programs than for established programs, with network estimates accounting for the bigger disparity. Networks specifically overestimated share for "Picket Fences," "The Hat Squad." "Beverly Hills 90210," "Major Dad," and "Bob."
- Both agency and network combined forecasts underestimated share for "Roseanne" and "America's Funniest Home Videos." On the other hand, they both overestimated "Different World," "Rhythm and Blues." and "Here and Now."
Docs prefer IBMs
Twice as many physicians own IBM computers than Macs; 17% of all physician-owned computers are made by another manufacturer entirely. These are among the findings in a new database released by BMI. Oak Brook, Ill. The data are derived from questionnaires mailed to more than 500,000 doctors across 106 different specialties to collect information on specific treatment patterns and practice characteristics. The surveys were mailed with the Physicians' Desk Reference.
The survey found that more than 120,000 of the respondents owned and used a personal computer; 53% of this group have one at home and at work. About 16% have a computer at home but not at work. The most popular use for the computer was word processing, followed by personal education, office management, billing, database access and patient records. Other uses included billing insurance programs, research, claims authorization, drug interaction and issuing prescriptions.
Kids want fast food that tastes good
Trinkets can lure some youngsters into fast food establishments, but mainly they choose one burger joint over an other for a simple reason: the food. This preference was one of 70 categories covered in Simmons 1993 Kids Study, which surveyed children aged 6 to 11, and 12 to 14. In the survey. Both groups listed "good-tasting food" as the top factor in their fast-food choice. However, unlike their younger counterparts, the older children turned a deaf ear to the siren song of toys and prizes; they're more influenced by where their friends go. "Have most fun" was the third most popular reason for the younger group, fourth most popular for the older. Unsurprisingly, "lowest prices" and "best value for the money" came in ninth and tenth for the grade-school children. These financial concerns had moved up to No. 6 and 7, respectively, for the older group, however. Other reasons for choosing a fast-food included: "best playgrounds," "best meal packs," and "best birthday parties" (for children under 12). Children could select multiple reasons.