Wednesday, February 3, 2010

“NIVEA Unveils New "American Mood Monitor" to Take the Pulse on Country's Cultural Climate,... - Forbes” plus 2 more

“NIVEA Unveils New "American Mood Monitor" to Take the Pulse on Country's Cultural Climate,... - Forbes” plus 2 more

NIVEA Unveils New "American Mood Monitor" to Take the Pulse on Country's Cultural Climate,... - Forbes

Posted: 03 Feb 2010 08:43 AM PST

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BusinessWire - NIVEA has announced the introduction of the "NIVEA American Mood Monitor," a new consumer behavior research project helmed by global research company, Iconoculture, to track the ever-evolving moods of Americans and identify ways in which the consumer is changing throughout the year. The research is designed specifically to gauge and track current and emerging trends that reflect consumer behavior and mood, along with the emotive drivers and values behind these trends. The mood monitor will track the moods of Americans throughout the year. For NIVEA, as the brand that brings people together through touch, what better topic to start with than the sentiment around romance on Valentine's Day.

"We are thrilled to introduce the 'NIVEA American Mood Monitor,'" said Nicolas Maurer, Vice President, Marketing, Beiersdorf Inc. "This is a ground-breaking initiative for our brand and something we are extremely proud of. At NIVEA, we value the importance of human connections and mood certainly plays a significant role in that, which is why we wanted to create a research project to examine consumers' moods throughout the year, understand the emotional drivers and share those insights. It is also a great source of inspiration and affirmation for the development of our products and our marketing plans."

"The 'NIVEA American Mood Monitor' is an exciting project for us to partner on and we are especially delighted to start by examining consumers' mood around romance," says Jennifer Haid, Vice President and Consumer Strategist for Iconoculture. "Results of the research uncovered several key themes around American's romantic mood this year with the most interesting being that consumers are turning to what is being identified as 'The Appreciation Economy.'"

What Americans' Romantic Mood Reveals:

The Appreciation Economy:

In today's society, consumers are focusing on authentic everyday occurrences that demonstrate love, thoughtfulness and appreciation, and letting loved ones feel understood and cared for. It is the simple gestures, like a hug, kiss or touch, that matter most. These small but powerful interactions fuel feelings of love and romance and keep couples connected. Thoughtful, genuine gifts that are meaningful show that the gift giver knows, understands and cares about the recipient.

The Most Desired Gift:

Underscoring "The Appreciation Economy" is the finding that a kiss is really more than just a kiss. It is actually the most anticipated and welcomed expression of love on Valentine's Day. In fact, a kiss is the most discussed romantic gestures within social media, making up 22% of the conversations. Love and romance are charged by all kinds of special gestures like touching, looking or just enjoying time with each other, but consumers say that kisses and hugs especially help strengthen loving exchanges. A kiss makes people feel warm, cared for, comforted, good, loved, in love, happy, heady, tingly, passionate, sensual, sexy, intense, and excited. Those who feel deprived admit suffering from grumpiness, dejectedness, or dissatisfaction.

Virtual Connections:

For those who cannot be physically connected, virtual touch is proving to nurture today's modern relationships as well. In fact, online openness and sharing of public information is on the uptick when it comes to romance. Consumers tweet, blog, talk and read on forums about hugs, kisses and other romantic gestures, which provides them a safe haven for sharing and navigating real-world scenarios that they can translate into their own lives, loves and relationships. More social contacts result in happier, healthier people who experience the same emotional benefits of being physically touched, which is especially important in today's 24/7 virtual world.

About the Research Approach:

Gauging the mood of the American consumer is a broad and diverse mission spanning many categories and demographics. To tackle a project of this scope and bring a fresh approach NIVEA and Iconoculture chose a multitude of lenses to get a picture of the American Consumer including:

-- Custom Consumer Research -- Iconoculture provided cultural context and overview of the current consumer mood and value drivers through its observational research methodology.

-- Custom IconoCommunities -- Iconoculture tracked the consumer sentiment around the quarterly theme through its consumer-centric social network, IconoCommunities consisting of more than 500 consumers over the age of 18.

-- Social Media Analysis - Adding a listening element to the research, the "NIVEA American Mood Monitor" also utilized Iconoculture's SocialIQ, a powerful analytical tool for mining millions of social media sources like blogs, message boards and microblogs for insights on the quarterly theme.

For more information on NIVEA, visit NIVEAusa.com.

About NIVEA

NIVEA is an international leading manufacturer of consumer products for skin and beauty care. The NIVEA brand portfolio includes NIVEA Body, NIVEA Lip Care, NIVEA Body Wash, and NIVEA For Men. For more information on NIVEA, visit our Web site, www.NIVEAusa.com.

About Beiersdorf AG

Beiersdorf AG, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, is a leading international company of branded consumer products for skin and beauty care. Beiersdorf stands for leading international brands like NIVEA, Eucerin, la prairie, Juvena, Labello, 8x4, Futuro, Florena, Hansaplast/Elastoplast and Tesa, 125 years of experience in research and development, and strong international presence. For more information, visit www.beiersdorf.com.

About Iconoculture

Iconoculture, the leading global consumer research and advisory company, delivers the most comprehensive consumer insights - quickly and more cost effectively - to Fortune 1000 corporations and agencies. Iconoculture integrates consumer information from multiple data sources and combines it with expert interpretation and analysis by the industry's largest Advisory Services team to produce targeted insights. We illuminate not only what's important to consumers worldwide, but also why it's happening and where it's heading. For more information, contact Iconoculture at 1-866-377-0087 or visit us online: www.iconoculture.com

SOURCE: NIVEA

PMK/BNC for NIVEA Liz Neale, 212-373-6114 liz.neale@pmkbnc.com or PMK/BNC for NIVEA Christina Stejskal, 212-373-6139 christina.stejskal@pmkbnc.com or Beiersdorf Inc Leslie Kickham, 203-563-5821 lkickham@bdfusa.com

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Analysis: Cultural shift gives momentum to Obama's push to permit gays openly in military - Newser

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 03:55 PM PST

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A cultural shift since Congress passed a legal ban nearly a generation ago has changed the debate.

For many younger members of the military _ those doing the bulk of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq _ it's hardly a debate at all. Polls show they care little about sexual orientation in their ranks.

Views in the wider society have evolved; gay marriage is now legal in five states and the District of Columbia. Opinion surveys say a majority of Americans think it's OK for gays to serve in uniform.

"Do I care if someone is gay? I have no qualms," said Army Sgt. Justin Graff, serving with the 5th Stryker Brigade in southern Afghanistan.

Jason Jonas, a former Army staff sergeant from Tempe, Ariz., said openly gay soldiers served in his intelligence unit at Fort Bragg, N.C., and their presence never affected unit morale.

"I don't think it is anybody's right to say who can and who can't fight for their country," said Jonas, 28, who served in Afghanistan before being injured. "Nobody cares. 'Don't ask, don't tell' is kind of a joke."

It will not go unnoticed among military members that their most senior uniformed leader, Adm. Mike Mullen, told a Senate panel Tuesday that he personally believes it is time to allow gays to serve openly. It's just wrong, Mullen said, that gays must "lie about who they are" to defend their country.

Although Obama said he would work to change the law this year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave him some extra leeway by telling Congress the Pentagon would need at least a year to implement the changes. Gates' comment gave the impression that he thinks repeal is almost inevitable, although a leading Republican voice on defense matters, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, opposes the change.

"I fully support the president's decision," Gates said. "The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it," adding that the final decision rests with Congress.

In the meantime, Gates said he is seeking latitude in how the law is enforced, and there are indications that the military already is honoring the ban mostly in the breach.

According to figures released Monday, the Defense Department last year dismissed the fewest service members for violating the policy in more than a decade. The 2009 figure _ 428 _ was sharply lower than the 2008 total of 619.

Overall, more than 10,900 troops have been discharged under the policy.

The list of countries that permit gays to serve openly in uniform has grown to 28, including Canada, Israel, Australia and most of Europe. Many of those nations have troops fighting alongside U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and Mullen said he has seen no indication that the different policy on gays by the allies in Afghanistan has hurt the war effort.

Yet in the U.S., there remains a powerful rhetorical weapon for opponents of lifting the ban _ fear that it would weaken a military at war.

It's a question that cuts to the heart of why sexual orientation has been such a sensitive topic in the military in the past _ and remains so among those who see repeal of the 1993 ban on allowing gays to serve openly as putting still more stress on a military strained by years of conflict.

Mullen said he shares that concern, even as he became the first sitting chairman of the Joint Chiefs to publicly advocate allowing gays to serve openly. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee "there will be some disruption in the force" if the law is changed.

"Our plate is very full" already, he said.

Obama entered the White House as an advocate of repealing the ban, but he let it rest for a year. Last week, in his State of the Union address, he vowed to work with Congress this year "to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are."

When President Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he ignited a political firestorm by trying to use his executive powers to end the policy _ not written into law at that point _ of discriminating against gay service members in the military.

Congress stopped him by passing a law that does not explicitly prohibit gays or lesbians from serving but requires them to serve in silence. If they acknowledge their sexual orientation or engage in a homosexual act, they can be expelled. But if not asked, they need not disclose it.

The 1993 statute calls the military a "specialized society" in which life is "fundamentally different from civilian life." And so it is. But the cultural differences are not necessarily as stark as in 1993.

Walter Slocombe, a defense consultant who was a senior Pentagon policy officer during the Clinton administration, says most military members "won't care one way or another" if the ban is lifted.

All branches of the military struggle to some extent with racial, religious and gender tensions, he noted, but "that's a result of having a military that reflects the diversity of the country."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Robert Burns has covered national security and military affairs for The Associated Press since 1990. Associated Press writers Christopher Torchia in southern Afghanistan and Kevin Maurer in Wilmington, N.C. contributed to this report.

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N.Y. Haitians See Chance for Clout - New York Times

Posted: 03 Feb 2010 08:17 PM PST

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After a week of watching news coverage of the Haiti earthquake, Nadege Fleurimond, a Haitian-American event planner in New York, fired off an e-mail message to about three dozen friends and associates. Though she was moved by the outpouring of help from local Haitians, she was frustrated that the effort had not coalesced into something larger and more visible.

"No major press conferences, no major vigils, no major anything with a statement," she wrote. "Nothing being written about us besides the fact that we were sad and shocked."

The problem, she suggested, was that Haitians, for all their history and achievements in New York, had not emerged as a discernible entity, with prominent leaders, a united presence, a public face.

The e-mail message provoked a spirited debate in Ms. Fleurimond's circle. And as the initial shock of the earthquake begins to fade, the disaster has touched off similar discussions among Haitians all over New York.

As awful as the news has been, they say, it has given them an opening to talk about the shape and direction of their community. In the long term, many hope, the magnitude of the emergency will bring them more coherence and clout, and deepen an involvement with their homeland that has weakened with each new generation.

"A conversation defining who we are as a community has been needed for a long time," said Carolle Charles, a Haitian-American sociologist at Baruch College.

Haitians are a sizable presence in New York City, the ninth-largest immigrant group, having settled here in large numbers as far back as the 1960s. About 268,000 residents in the New York region were born in Haiti or are of Haitian descent, according to Census Department data, though Haitian-American groups estimate that there are tens of thousands more, many of them illegal immigrants.

Social service agencies have proliferated to help the poor and the newly arrived, as have predominantly Haitian church congregations. A robust professional class has emerged, and since 2007 the City Council has included a Haitian-American, Mathieu Eugene. Haitians and Haitian-Americans in New York contribute a large part of the more than $1.3 billion in remittances that flow each year to Haiti from around the world.

But in interviews over the past week, several prominent Haitians in New York lamented that the local population is amorphous, lacking the array of established leaders, either elected or informal, and well-financed institutions that they would expect from an immigrant group their size. They said they saw more cohesive Haitian communities elsewhere — in Miami, or even nearby, in suburban Spring Valley, N.Y.

In New York, which has more Haitians than any other American city, the population has pulled together to help the homeland in past natural disasters or political upheavals, and to organize in response to AIDS. But those coalitions, many say, must be reinvented with each new crisis.

"We have a great capacity to mobilize at any moment, but we don't have a great capacity to institutionalize," Ms. Charles said. "We don't have organizations that are long-lasting. We don't have the ability to create a pool of resources."

One reason is geography: Haitians are scattered across Brooklyn, Queens and the suburbs. By contrast, South Florida has dense concentrations of Haitians in a Miami neighborhood, Little Haiti, and in nearby North Miami, lending them a visible profile and helping to stimulate commerce, political organizing and other relationships. Though Haitian-born residents in South Florida are, on average, poorer and less educated than in New York, they are represented by Haitian-Americans at many levels of government.

In a sense, New York's Haitians may be victims of their own success: Many who have climbed into the middle class have migrated to the suburbs.

"We're so focused on fitting in and assimilating and moving away from the community," said Ms. Fleurimond, 28, who immigrated at age 7 and graduated from Columbia University. "We succeed as individuals, not so much as a community."

Building a sense of community has also been complicated by political rifts mirroring those that have divided Haiti for decades. Animosities can run so deep, some Haitian-Americans say, that they dictate whom people befriend, whom they do business with, and even where they shop.

Among the hardiest organizations in the New York diaspora have been the hometown associations, which organize and finance construction and social service projects back home. But of the 43 associations that united under an umbrella group a decade ago, only about 17 remain active, said Carolle Certulien, coordinator of the organization, the Federation of Regional Associations of Haitians Abroad.

The main problem, she said, is a lack of fresh leaders to replace those who have stepped down or returned to Haiti. "When the old people retired, they did not designate any successors," she said.

Though Haitians have not wanted for troubles to address — from the violent dictatorship of François Duvalier, beginning in the 1950s, to the destructive storms of 2008 — the succession of crises has led to a kind of leadership fatigue, said François Pierre-Louis Jr., an associate professor of political science at Queens College, who immigrated from Haiti in 1974.

"Some people are tired," he said.

What has been missing, prominent Haitians say, is a single, enduring issue — a void that many believe may be filled by the earthquake and the long reconstruction.

"We're going to make sure this country is rebuilt and rebuilt better, which is a little bit more complex than, 'Let's get the bad guy out,' " said Jocelyn McCalla, adviser to Haiti's special envoy to the United Nations.

Carine Jocelyn, executive director of Diaspora Community Services, in Brooklyn, said the disaster had created an opportunity to braid together various networks. "There are so many folks doing such great work in Haiti," she said. "I think this is an opportunity to make it more collective."

The catastrophe has energized many second- and third-generation Haitian-Americans. Some have had little or no direct contact with Haiti, but are finding a way to connect meaningfully.

"It has awakened them and made them more cogent and thirsty to understand," said Edna Bonhomme, 25, a graduate student in public health at Columbia who was born and raised in Miami.

Some civic leaders hope that if younger Haitians maintain that commitment over the long haul, they will strengthen social and political networks in New York. "Those children are U.S. citizens; they feel more entitled to ask for things that we didn't ask for," said Mr. Pierre-Louis, the Queens College professor. "They know how the system works."

An influx of Haitians is expected, but it will be limited by restrictions on immigration. And though the recovery effort is likely to draw some New York professionals to Haiti, they could be dissuaded from long-term involvement by legal and cultural impediments there, including a wariness of expatriates and laws against dual citizenship.

Any attempt to build community in New York, Mr. Pierre-Louis said, will ultimately be measured by change in Haiti. "No matter how much you try here," he said, "if things do not evolve in Haiti, then you feel like you haven't made progress."

Robert Gebeloff contributed reporting.

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