Mark Dolliver's Takes: Mixed Blessings

It has been a mystery that a notoriously sedentary population spent so much money on activewear. Now, a report from The NPD Group indicates that consumers' purchases are swinging more into conformity with their behavior, at least where athletic footwear is concerned. The "running" sector continues to lead the athletic-shoe market in total sales, but its sales slipped by 2.5 percent last year, to $4.9 billion. Meanwhile, the delightfully named "low-performance" classification rang up a gain of 4.4 percent, to $4.8 billion. NPD notes that "style and comfort, not performance," have become the chief factors guiding consumers' purchases. In other words, the overall athletic-footwear category is, increasingly, "athletic" in name only.Who regards baby boomers as fonts of wisdom about products and services? Fellow boomers, naturally. A poll by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research asked boomers whether and how often people seek their advice and recommendations about consumer matters. Fifty-seven percent said they're asked for advice of this sort. These respondents claimed to field an average of 1.74 such entreaties per week. The majority of requests (61 percent) come from other boomers. Just 26 percent said they are asked for this sort of guidance by younger people, which might indicate that most folks in the youthful cohorts look on the boomers as older but not necessarily wiser.In an age when technology has made some things easier, people seem to relish the thought that other things are more difficult than ever. Aspects of family life (notably child-rearing) often fall into this latter category. The chart below, excerpting a Newsweek poll, indicates how this tendency plays out with respect to Americans' view of marriage. Given the consensus that it's hard to keep a marriage intact, you might expect people to be indulgent on the topic of divorce. Answers to another query indicate otherwise, though: While 38 percent think the shift to no-fault divorce has been "a good thing," they are slightly outnumbered by the 42 percent who feel it has been "a bad thing." It seems like yesterday that the "soccer mom" was enshrined as the arbiter of our national destiny. But the shelf life of such clichés is short, and we've since seen "waitress moms" and "Nascar dads" exalted as key demographic types. The ad at right indicates how far the soccer mom has fallen—all the way to the role of punch line in an ad for a surfing academy in Jacksonville Beach, Fla. And you must admit, "surf mom" does have a jaunty ring to it. The Robin Shepherd Group of Jacksonville created the poster, which has been strategically placed at (you guessed it) soccer fields.Not a lot to do in Salt Lake City? One might suspect as much upon learning, from a Scarborough Research report, that it's the market with the highest incidence of video-game-system ownership. Thirty-two percent of households there own such a gizmo. Close behind (all at 30 percent) are Lexington, Ky.; Flint/Saginaw/Bay City, Mich.; and Toledo, Ohio. Nationally, 24 percent of households own a video-game system. The rate of ownership is lowest in Sunbelt markets (such as Fort Myers/Naples, Fla., and Tucson, Ariz.) where elderly retirees are thick on the ground—even though they're the ones who'd have the most time to fritter away on video games. Someone's going to get very rich one of these days with video games tailored to old folks.It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness—as far as the candle industry is concerned, anyway. Yet, candle marketers may be doing some cursing of their own. A Mintel report says the industry's revenue fell 7 percent last year, to $2.3 billion, as people opted for "lower-cost alternatives." One surprise: While you may regard candles as a female category, 65 percent of men reported buying them. But two-thirds of these men said "there should be more male-targeted candle products." The mind boggles at what those might be.Direct mail has an especially strong constituency among Hispanic consumers, finds a new survey by Vertis Communications. Among Hispanic adults who speak only Spanish at home, 70 percent said they responded to direct mail in the past 30 days. So did 60 percent of those who speak English at home. Seventy-five percent of all Hispanic adults in the U.S. have made a purchase in response to direct mail, vs. 62 percent of non-Hispanics. Of Hispanics who said they'd responded to a direct-mail ad in the past 30 days, 31 percent did so by visiting the sender's Web site, while 27 percent went to the nearest store and 15 percent called an 800 number given in the mailing. Afraid that the IRS will audit your tax return? You've got lots of company (but don't try claiming them as dependents). In a Zogby Interactive poll, 86 percent of adults voiced confidence that their tax returns will be accurate. Even so, 25 percent worry that the IRS will audit them. Women were just a bit more likely than men to say this (27 percent vs. 24 percent). Among those getting a refund, what will they do with it? Fifty-three percent of these respondents said they'll pay bills; 46 percent said they'll put at least some of it into savings. A more fun-loving 11 percent intend to use it for a vacation (perhaps to a country without an extradition treaty?) and 7 percent said they'll go on a shopping spree.They might not be old enough to drive, but that doesn't stop kids from taking an interest in Nascar. In a survey by Weekly Reader Research, 35 percent of 6-9-year-olds said they have watched Nascar races on TV. So did 38 percent of 10-12-year-olds and 40 percent of 13-18s. Girls were less likely than boys to do so, but the sport has plenty of female adherents. Among teens, for example, 34 percent of girls (and 45 percent of boys) said they've watched races on TV. Twenty-four percent of 6-9s have a favorite driver or team, as do 24 percent of 10-12s and 23 percent of 13-18s. Eight percent of respondents have attended a Nascar race. And among those who haven't, 35 percent said they would like to—43 percent of the boys and 26 percent of the girls.Skin deep or not, physical beauty (or as close as they can get to it) remains the Holy Grail for many Americans. Yankelovich polling, summarized in one of the research firm's Monitor Minute reports, asked adults to say what they would or wouldn't do to look their best. Twenty-eight percent said they'd toss their unflattering spectacles and go for laser eye surgery; 22 percent would have body hair removed by waxing. Seventeen percent would go to a tanning booth. More drastically, 14 percent would get liposuction.

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Mark Dolliver's Takes: Mixed Blessings

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Mark Dolliver