While the damage inflicted by Irene varied by location, the loss of power was significant, widespread and affected millions. Talking to friends, neighbors, and reading Facebook posts revealed that outside of the true safety issues that the power outage presented, the loss of their ability to use many of their electronic devices was very much felt by the entire family. Parents tend to have a love and not-so-much love relationship with the electronics their kids use. We love them when they can keep them busy while traveling, or when they are distracting them from what is going on out in the world (like hurricanes), but we don’t love them as much when we need our kids to focus on homework or get chores done.

No matter how they make us feel, consumer electronics are a mainstay in kids’ lives — and it’s an area that is subject to rapid change, as the technology and devices themselves change. Our recent report, Kids and Consumer Electronics, 2011 Edition, takes an in-depth look at what devices kids ages 4 to 14 are using, how much time they’re spending with them, and what activities they engage in on their devices. We have conducted this study every year since 2005, and it’s fascinating to track the changes in kids’ interaction with their favorite gadgets. New to this year’s study is a question regarding expected replacement rate of various types of devices, which gives us new insight into turnover. At just under two years, cell phones showed the fastest expected replacement rate among all devices, while high definition televisions are expected to have the greatest longevity at nearly five years before expected replacement. This is great new information that can help with modeling and forecasting.

But what are kids doing with all these devices? It’s probably not surprising to learn that gaming is one of the most commonly enjoyed activities kids engage in across the gadget gamut. We plan to delve further into the content kids are consuming in our upcoming study, Kids and Entertainment Content, which we will release later this month.

It looks like I’ve caught a break in the rain – I’ve got to run out to get some batteries for my wireless keyboard.

Riding in a car, eating breakfast before school, and even while supposedly doing homework, mobile gaming is establishing a larger presence in my sons’ lives. And they’re not the only ones. The quantity and quality of mobile apps (“Angry Birds,” or “Infinity Blade,” anyone?) pose an additional competitive dimension to the gaming landscape. NPD’s report, Online Gaming 2011, provides an in-depth look at online gaming activity across all gaming devices, examining the type and extent of digital downloading and gaming behavior that is occurring across a wide array of consumer demographics.

According to the report, digital game downloads for mobile devices represent close to half of all video full game downloads. Even among those using a console for online gaming, the biggest share of full game digital downloads purchased was for mobile devices. It is important to keep in perspective that the full-game price points on mobile devices are generally lower (and many are free) than those for console and portables systems, so mobile devices’ full game download unit share does not translate to a comparable level of consumer spending. But what is really interesting is that among i-Device online gamers, the average spend on physical games (for any device) was significantly less than the average spent by PS3 or Xbox 360 online gamers.

While mobile gaming is still in its relative infancy as compared to traditional forms of gaming, it’s the fastest growing in terms of consumer spending on games content, according to NPD’s Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend service. Right now the growth in newer ways that consumers can acquire content is making up for the decline in new physical

Gamers can now tailor their gaming experience to their exact desires and, in doing so, have made the competition for their time and interest a more complex fight. Gamer Segmentation 2011 breaks gamers into six groups: Core Gamers, Digital Gamers, Mobile Gamers, Family & Kid Gamers, Avid PC Gamers, and Light PC Gamers. The report provides key findings on each group and enumerates everything from the cross-categorical gamer activity that has come to typify the industry (52 percent of mobile gamers are also gaming on a console system) to the evolving attitudes toward gaming (41 percent of mobile gamers report that they like the “mindless entertainment” that gaming provides).

This report helps paint the picture of modern gamers and how they currently spend their time and money. Those who make videogames are now faced with even more difficult questions that need clear-cut answers before the first character is sketched or the plotline is developed. The industry stakeholders who are most informed of gamers’ evolving habits will inevitably be able to adapt to their demands and continue to innovate beneficially in this space.

“Wait, you get your kids presents for Easter?” He shook his head and continued, “Aside from some candy, I never got anything for Easter! Presents? C’mon!”

I went on to describe my Easter gift purchases, which included Super Soakers, yo-yo’s, bubbles, moon balls, Barnes & Noble gift cards, and of course, candy. While I sympathize with my younger colleague’s youth of deprived Easters, I will not be following in his mother’s footsteps. Along with staging an over-the-top Easter egg hunt, filling an Easter basket with an assortment of goodies is one of my favorite holiday traditions, and, according to one of our most recent surveys from our Kids Industry Data Service (KIDS), a wide variety of gifts were being purchased for Easter.

These are the results from the survey that was fielded the weeks of April 11 and April 18 for the open-ended question: Besides Easter eggs and chocolate, what’s in your child’s Easter basket this year? Among the 1,200+ items mentioned, here’s how the responses stack up:

33% Toys and Games
18% Books
12% Arts and Crafts
8% Candy
5% Apparel
4% Stationary
4% Movies
3% Gift Cards

For Toys and Games, there were two main items that combined to form a large share of its responses. Games and Puzzles comprised 27 percent of the Toys and Games related responses while mentions of Plush stuffed animals contributed 23 percent.

The high placement of books doesn’t just reflect the seasonality of Easter occurring during the school year, but also the nature of purchases that occur particularly for Easter. To compare to another gift-giving holiday that occurs during the school year, books were at just 3 percent on the Christmas wish list. Why the discrepancy between the two? Easter is a more parent-directed purchase occasion, and parents tend to value books/reading, while Christmas is a child-directed purchase occasion. According to our Toys Consumer Tracking Service, purchases made on behalf of Easter comprise about 2 percent of annual Toy Industry sales, or about half a billion dollars each year. KIDS now allows us to provide insight into what is competing with toys for those Easter purchase dollars.

Easter is certainly a gift giving holiday (as many lucky kids just found out). Now, can somebody tell that to my not-so-lucky colleague?

Why the delay as compared to point-of-sale results? Consumer research is more complex to conduct and analyze than point-of-sale, and since the Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend utilizes many different sources along with some inputs from data sharing partners, number crunching and expertise from our analyst team, and finally calibration with partners that participate in the various forms of digital distribution, is a time consuming process. While we continue in our digital retailer and first-party recruitment efforts with the goal of ultimately offering a full market point-of-sale service that includes both physical and digital formats, we believed it was important to start covering the broader market now, utilizing the other tools in our tool box, rather than to wait for point-of-sale to become a reality, in order to better serve our clients. We have invested heavily in our consumer research capabilities, moving some of our surveys, monitors, and trackers from a quarterly outgo to a monthly outgo with the goal of improving data quality and reducing the turnaround time on our quarterly estimates.

We will continue to report monthly on new physical retail sales as they still comprise the majority of the consumer spend on the industry, and it is one important barometer of industry performance. When weekend box office results are reported, no one would suggest that that is a measure of the entire revenues generated by the movie industry – but they are one leading indicator in the consumer demand for filmed entertainment. Likewise, new physical retail sales of games remain a critical piece of business for many in the industry.

NPD is passionate about covering kids and the market for kids products and services. We recently released our newest study examining how kids spend their free time, who they spend it with, and the time-share various activities command. One of the more fascinating findings to me from Kids Leisure Time 2011 was this blurring of entertainment and socializing catalyzed by the newer forms of communications available to kids. Are social network sites an entertainment activity or a social activity? What about gaming while chatting via OnLive, or IMing a friend a link to a cool Web site - are these activities “entertainment” or “socializing?”

A growing body of leisure time activities spans both entertainment and socializing, with the division of these two categories becoming obsolete. Arguably, activities like chatting on the phone with a friend have always had an intrinsic entertainment value, but this has become even more pronounced in light of the many ways in which one can communicate – from texting and skyping to chatting in a massive multiplayer online game. This translates into more ways to reach kids from both a product/content standpoint as well as in marketing and messaging; and knowing how to do so effectively and efficiently is more critical than ever given the rapid pace of change in this area.

Another of our services is dedicated to consistently monitoring what is hot with kids. Our Kids Industry Data Service (KIDS) provides monthly insights into cross-category spending on behalf of kids, noting top brands and licenses as well as how spending changes with important retail periods like back-to-school and the holidays. Each month we also ask a different open-ended question covering a variety of topics. In February, we asked parents, “What is the newest/hot thing your child is into?” Since the question is completely unaided, the responses represent what is truly top of mind with respondents. The results surprised me. I figured Bieber fever had peaked or started to decline but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Out of more than 3,000 mentions, Bieber received 14% of those responses (okay so he did have a movie release in theaters in February that is the 6th highest grossing movie of 2011 so far - but still!). The top 10 “What’s Hot” mentions were: Justin Bieber, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Toy Story, Nintendo DS, LEGO, iPad, Dora The Explorer, Facebook, and video games. Again, as an unaided question the responses could be whatever was top of mind with the parent, and the mentions spanned licensed properties, celebrities, sports, movies, consumer electronics, apparel…they run the gamet. What is on the horizon that might become the next hot thing with kids? While these did not receive as many responses, some of the mentions that we think we are worth watching include: Big Time Rush Band, Victorious/Victoria Justice, Vibram Five Fingers shoes and skateboard themes (Zumiez, Zeke & Luther). Keep an eye out here for future insights into “What’s Hot” with kids.

KIDS provides the only holistic view of purchases made for kids from birth through age 14 focusing on licensing, brands, and retailers, across 19 product categories. KIDS displays detailed information on different age groups within the categories tracked as well as clearly defining the difference in purchase habits for boys versus girls. KIDS provides consumer demographics and purchasing information that complements data from other industries tracked by NPD.

We recently released our fourth quarter 2010 KIDS report which found that apparel & accessories captured the greatest share of spending against kids during this critical retail timeframe. And while toys, video games, and DVD/Blu-ray sales were some of the categories that were the most reliant on licensed sales, other such as footwear, and health and beauty sales were much less impacted by licensed properties.

KIDS also presents a glimpse into what is hot and trending for kids. During the holidays, I wrote a blog about what parents said was top on their kids’ wish lists. Toy items were the most frequently mentioned category after four weeks of surveys leading up to Christmas at 39 percent of all items cited. How does this compare to actual purchases? Well, toys & board games captured a bigger share of unit sales than it did dollar sales, a nod to the lower average selling price compared to items like apparel or consumer electronics. But its share of unit sales was a far cry from the 39 percent of mentions. The difference? Not all purchases during the fourth quarter were for Christmas/Chanukah. Purchase occasion by category is another area covered by KIDS.

Another phenomenon changing the way purchase decisions are made: the growth of social media. Moms are the family’s key purchase decision-maker, and the exponential growth of their involvement in social media affects the purchases they make for their children and themselves. NPD looked at these behaviors in the recently released report Social Media Mom’s: How Networking Impacts Purchase Behaviors. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube as well as various blogs and other social media outlets have come to the forefront of informing mother’s purchasing decisions. Nearly eight-in-ten (79 percent) moms who know about social media are using one of these sites and about one-in-four (27 percent) of these moms are using social media to get promotions, offers, or discounts on products and services. Social media allows access to the consumer at a personal level and provides a forum to build a relationship with the customer and deliver value at that level. Marketers are just starting to scratch the surface with how they use digital marketing and social network sources to deliver messages and promotions to audiences that are specifically targeted based on their interests.

Upon review, my entire decision-making process begged one simple but extremely important question: what motivates a digital games purchase decision? For me, it was the ability to extend my Dance Central experience with new music and moves. For my newly-minted teenage son, his desire to explore new areas with his online friends drove him to beg me for the new Black Ops map pack. NPD’s new Games Purchase Drivers 2010 provides an in-depth look at the market factors affecting digital games purchases while giving a comprehensive view of what impacts the entire game purchase decision-making process. With the growth of digital buyers comes a need to deliver reliable data on the composition of this expanding group. The “Spotlight on Digital” section reports in detail on the three main purchasing subgroups: digital-only, physical-only, and dual (digital and physical) game buyers. One-in-10 Americans ages 2+ have purchased a digital game in the past three months and we are committed to being the market research leader in analyzing the continued emergence of the digital buyer.

What motivated your last full game or DLC digital purchase?

Our new Kids Industry Data Service (KIDS) is a monthly, syndicated tracking service that provides users with a holistic view of purchases made for kids ages 0 - 14 across categories and retailers. Each month, along with the standard survey, we are asking respondents an open-ended question aimed at getting to what is hot with kids at that moment of time. The November and December surveys ask the question, “What is on your child’s wish-list for the upcoming holiday season?” and the results reflect what is truly top of mind with kids and parents as the question is purely unaided.

Out of the 4,600+ items captured so far, 38% are toys, 15% are in the video game category, 10% fashion-related (apparel, accessories & footwear), 9% are consumer electronics, and 6% are sporting goods. Other categories mentioned include books, entertainment (movies & music), juvenile products and cold hard cash in the form of both actual cash and gift cards. Hot toys include LEGO, Barbie, Toy Story 3, Pillow Pets, American Girl, and Zhu Zhu Pets among many others mentioned. One of the more interesting is “Teacup Pigs.” Whether this refers to the actual pig (a pet) or the new toy line, are small cute pigs the new hamsters? In video games, content (games) are the most frequently cited wish-list items with Black Ops, Halo: Reach, Super Scribblenauts, Rock Band 3, and Just Dance called out specifically, while in hardware, kids are asking for the Wii and the Nintendo DS. New specialty controllers, specifically the Kinect and the Move, also make the list. Most of the fashion responses were fairly generic e.g. “clothes” “jewelry” or “shoes” but in a few cases specific brands were mentioned like Uggs for footwear or Juicy Couture for clothing. In consumer electronics, laptops are the hot kids’ wish list item, and I can personally attest that a laptop made it onto the wish-list of three of my four boys. When specific items were mentioned within the CE category, “i” products dominated with iPods leading among those. E-readers didn’t show up at all in the first two weeks but in week 3, they made an appearance with the Kindle being specifically mentioned. In music, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber are what kids are looking for the most and in books, Diary of a Wimpy Kids gets the most specific mentions. All in all, it’s fascinating stuff, and as we get closer to the Christmas holiday, the number of responses is increasing each week and the variety of the items mentioned expanding.

Why is it important to know what is resonating with kids? NPD’s latest report, Toy Purchase Decisions, finds that the majority of toy purchases are planned purchases (62%) and if the buyer gets to the store and doesn’t find the item he or she is looking for, by and large they do not substitute another item, rather they leave to find the item they’re looking for elsewhere. Not only that, but the purchases that were made because the buyer knew what he or she was going to be in advance generated the highest average price paid among all types of purchases. What this says to me that generating those specific wish-list item mentions through savvy marketing is critical as is managing product selection and inventory at retail. When 40% of annual toy sales generally occur during November and December, there simply isn’t room to make mistakes. Retailers are increasingly realizing that they’ve got to nail the holiday season and are getting creative with finding additional shelf space for toys during the holiday season via temporary pop-up stores or temporarily converting other shelf space to toys.

As I dreamily browsed through the displays of Turkey Brining seasoning and Pumpkin Butter, I came to a sudden stop in front of some Yoda-shaped pancakes. Star Wars in Williams Sonoma? Now this was something wholly unexpected. The display held a variety of licensed Star Wars goods including cookie cutters, aprons, lunch boxes, and yes, pancake batter molds. For someone who spent years working in the Licensing industry, perhaps I should have been a little less startled by my discovery, yet I examined the merchandise with a fair degree of curiosity.

In fact, Star Wars was one of the top licenses across myriad product categories during a portion of the 2010 Back-to-School shopping season, as NPD’s newest report, Understanding Cross Category Purchasing, July 2010, finds. The report is the third in a series of topicals that examines how dollars are spent against kids during important retail seasons, with the first two covering Holiday 2009 and 2010. Upon hearing input and feedback from our clients, NPD will soon launch an ongoing tracker of this type of information, endearingly titled KIDS (Kids Industry Data Service).

Licensors have long hungered for more comprehensive insight into the performance of their properties but have had limited data available to them to do so. While they may have had insight into how their property was performing in a particular category, such as toys, apparel or video games for example, now with KIDS, they can see how their property is performing across categories with a particular retailer or consumer demographic.

We will have more information to share on this new service soon, but for now, I’ve got to bake me some R2-D2 and C-3PO cookies to bake.