Luth Research's IndicatorEDG(TM) Study Finds Shades of Emotion Paint a Brighter Future

SAN DIEGO, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- American optimism shows signs of recovery.  The Emotion Index reported by the latest Luth Research IndicatorEDG™ survey reveals an upward movement in a broad spectrum of positive emotions (an average of 1.5 percentage points compared to a year ago). Conversely, the array of negative emotions trends slightly downward.

Emotion Sells

The uptick in the state of consumer emotions translates into potential growth in consumer spending.  Not all emotions are created equal. Positive emotions are tied with increases in willingness to buy more expensive items such as computer (excluding automobiles), but not influencing car purchases. When it comes to buying a car, negative emotions including fearful and worried actually serve as motivations rather than suppressors.  Notably, an increase in each of the four emotions - excitement, pride, anxiety and frustration positively drives both general and automotive purchases.

Biggest Concerns Beyond the Economy – A Potpourri of Anxiety

Against the slowly brightening consumer sentiment, lays the persistent concern related to the overall economy.  Key anxiety culprits include escalating health care costs (43% are very concerned) followed by not having enough money to live in retirement (39%); rising gasoline prices (36%); employment (34%); recession (32%.)  

Other than the economic issues cited above, Americans are very concerned about declining moral standards (39%); personal health (36%); international peace (34%); current political leadership (34%); internet security (31%); and a terrorist attack in the US (30%.)  Concerns about the current political leadership have declined substantially since Q1 2008 when 50% of Americans were concerned about this and when George W. Bush was still President.

Technology Purchases Continue – and Continue

In the past six months, 34% of Americans have bought digital cameras, 30% have bought LCD TVs, 27% have bought cell phones with MP3 download capability and 26% flash drives or portable USB storage devices.  These are just the top four most popular technology purchases.  In the next three months, 26% of Americans say they will buy digital cameras, 25% say the will buy Blu-Ray disk players and 21% say they will buy next generation video games. Tablet PC is considered hot by more than half of the market (55%), taking a nearly 10% lead over Netbook. The popularity of electronic readers represented by Kindle has almost doubled in the past year (32% citing as hot). Another fast attention grabbing product is OLED TV, favored by 17% of the consumers.

Roseanne Luth, CEO of Luth Research, believes all marketers should take note of this continued tech spending, "Technology products may be your competition even if you are not a technology company.  Money spent on tech products is at the expense of other products and services.  And this spending does not seem to be letting up."

To learn more about the relevant trends for your industry and customers, or discover how to connect IndicatorEDG with your custom survey research to generate powerful insights visit http://www.luthresearch.com/indicatorEdg or email us at [email protected]

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SOURCE Luth Research