Consumer and marketing research

ACNielsen, the marketing research arm of The Nielsen Company, conducts marketing and consumer research and offers some of the reports for free publicly. The Global Consumer Reports section of the web site includes reports on such topics as consumer confidence, consumers and designer brands, and packaging and the environment. For example, the June 2008 report on the Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Index found the following:

"Consumer confidence fell in 39 out of 48 countries in the past six months, with New Zealand, USA and Latvia suffering the deepest declines. Among the 39 markets recording a decline in consumer confidence, 15 fell by double-digits."