New Survey Shows Consumers Plan to Save Energy This Holiday Season

If the results of a new consumer opinion survey translate into consumer action, then pre-lit LED Christmas trees could be the hit of the season.

A new survey of 1,050 Americans, conducted by Goodmind Market Research on behalf of GE Consumer & Industrial, assesses consumers’ opinions about holiday decorating and lighting. A total of 870 out of 1,050 total respondents celebrate and decorate for the holidays, and the percentages noted here reflect the responses of those who do.

According to responses from study participants, untangling and stringing lights are the biggest hassles associated with holiday decorating. When respondents could select all answers that apply:

• Untangling last year’s lights was mentioned by 56%;
• Stringing lights on the house or in the yard was mentioned as the biggest hassle by 47%; and
• Stringing lights on the tree was the choice of 39%.

The other answers selected included: Hanging ornaments and decorations (23%); Getting the tree to stand up in the tree stand (19%); Finding the ideal tree (14%); and Remembering to water the tree (12%).

Artificial or real tree? Using LEDs?

When asked if they were planning on saving energy this holiday season over half of respondents said yes. Of those responding, 53% plan to use an artificial tree and 24% plan on decorating with LED holiday lights.

As the market research company crunched the numbers, some additional fun facts emerged:

• Females (56%) were more likely than males (48%) to use an artificial tree;
• People living in the West are more likely (31%) to decorate with LED lights than people living in the Northeast (23%) or South (21%); and
• People living in the Northeast (42%) are less likely to use an artificial tree than people living in other regions of the United States such as the South (55%), Midwest (56%) and West (54%) where over half will use an artificial tree.

LEDs use less energy, last longer

Regardless of the region of the country consumers live in, they can purchase pre-lit trees with low voltage, cool burning GE brand Energy Smart® LED holiday light sets that are offered by Santa’s Best Craft, Ltd., a GE licensee. The LEDs use up to 80% less energy than traditional holiday lighting. Shoppers can choose from a variety of realistic needle styles, a wide selection of sizes, bulb styles and price ranges. GE brand Energy Smart® Constant ON™ LED lights on the trees continue to operate even if an LED is loose or burned out. Santa’s Best offers replaceable lights that allow for easy maintenance. GE Energy Smart pre-lit LED trees feature a 5-year limited warranty on both the lights and tree. The LED string sets are rated for a long lasting 20,000-hour life—that’s quite a few holiday seasons.

Multi-color versus white lights

And what color lights do consumers want? More than two-thirds of the survey respondents (68%) prefer to decorate with multi-color lights. Decorating with all white lights was selected the second favorite (24%). GE pre-lit trees are available in multi-color or white.

Other illuminating findings:

• Females prefer to decorate with white lights whereas males prefer decorating with multi-colored lights; and
• People living in the Northeast are significantly more likely to decorate with white lights than people in the Midwest and West, where multi-colored lights are preferred.

The GE brand of holiday lighting products has been sold in retail stores across America for over 50 years. GE holiday lights are used to light the White House Christmas Trees and the National Tree on the mall in Washington D.C.

Santa’s Best Craft is a partnership between the Santa’s Best Company and the HS Craft Manufacturing Company. Together, they offer over 75 years of experience in the Christmas Decoration Industry. Santa’s Best Craft first started marketing General Electric Holiday products in 1998.

GE Consumer & Industrial spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliances, lighting and integrated industrial equipment, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use in more than 100 countries, GE Consumer & Industrial uses innovative technologies and ecomaginationSM, a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort, convenience and electrical protection and control. General Electric (NYSE: GE), imagination at work, sells products under the Monogram®, Profile™, GE®, Hotpoint®, SmartWater™, Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Entellisys®, Tetra®, Vio™ and Immersion® commercial brands. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com.

Energy Smart® is a registered trademark of General Electric Company. Constant ON™ is a trademark of Santa’s Best Craft, Ltd.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

For high-resolution downloadable photography, visit the Consumer Lighting section of www.gecipressroom.com

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6071954&lang=en