An old meme about Eastern European cynicism might be truer than we thought. Reports say ChatGPT stopped responding in Croatian after a wave of downvotes from Croatian users. They’re a tough crowd, to be fair - for most sports competitions we track, Croatians are the most likely to say they’re “aware, but not interested.” Winning them over takes real work!
Scroll down to read about a Pixar conundrum, the vibe shift coming for net zero, and a case study in tariffs from Argentina.
Stats to power your week
🛃 Consumers in the 2020s have weathered one storm after another - but how do tariffs stack up? 22% of Americans feel tariffs have had a “dramatic impact” on their day-to-day life. That’s about the same as those who felt similarly about post-Ukraine inflation (23%) and far higher than the 8% who reported a dramatic impact during Covid lockdowns. GWI Zeitgeist
📈Similarly, tariffs might require businesses to dust off their playbook on how to communicate price rises. When we researched this in the days of post-Ukraine inflation, consumers indicated their priority was knowing when (32%) and why (28%) a price increase was happening - more than knowing how much prices were increasing by (24%). GWI Zeitgeist (USA)
🎨 Gen Z are more nostalgic than older generations, but what nostalgic items do they buy most? While there’s a lot of talk about retro electronics and games, coloring books take the top spot. Just make sure to stay between the lines when you’re filling in that Stanley cup. GWI Zeitgeist
🚗 If you live in San Francisco or have recently visited, you'll know that self-driving Waymo cars have become a fixture (and it seems, safer than those with humans behind the wheel). But right now only 1 in 5 are very or extremely comfortable riding in fully autonomous cars - most aren’t ready to give them the green light just yet. GWI Zeitgeist
🧸 The share of consumers who say they’re fans of Toy Story matches the share who say they’re fans of Pixar overall (both 16%). That suggests the Toy Story franchise outshines the studio's master brand - one of those cases where individual characters may carry more cultural weight than the company behind them. GWI Core
What’s on our radar
Following the recent Supreme Court verdict in the UK ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, more sports organizations are tightening up their guidelines, including cricket and football. This is in line with consumer preferences - less than 1 in 5 think transgender women should be able to compete in women’s sports.
Another preference cascade is happening with CEOs and AI. After Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke’s memo - laying an expectation that employees should be using AI at work - was leaked, Duolingo followed by announcing its plans to become “AI-first”, a move that may significantly impact its contractor workforce.
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for a rethink of net zero policies - another marker of the ongoing vibe shift. And following poor results in the local elections, the Labour party are doing some soul-searching, particularly when it comes to immigration.
It was a bad week to be a UK retailer as Harrods, Co-Op, and M&S all experienced cyber attacks.
One signal to look out for in the midst of President Trump’s tariff push: increased demand for secondhand products.
You might have come across “vibe coding”, essentially the idea that people can now produce software without the traditional expertise needed to write code. It could be huge in bringing more non-technical people into the software world, and the market is certainly taking notice: one 'vibe coding' app has landed a major valuation, OpenAI has acquired another, and Apple is reportedly partnering with Anthropic to develop its own.
Chart of the week
Last week’s local elections in the UK marked another chapter in the political vibe shift. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is now the biggest party in local government, with immigration once again a key issue - echoing patterns we’re seeing across the Western world. And while it’s not an easy thing for brands to respond to, there’s a school of thought that says they should lean into patriotism. But that logic might be flawed.
In the US, concerns about immigration and geopolitical tensions post-Ukraine have sharply risen. It’d be so easy to assume patriotism would increase at the same time, but that’s not happened. Trust in institutions is at record lows, and for many the flag might symbolize what’s not working, not what is.
Local lowdown
“Hello Moto” to tariffs
Bear with us on this, but one of the best ways to understand what the US is trying to do with tariffs is to look at Motorola owners in Argentina - the only country where there are more of them outright than iPhone owners. Why? Because Motorola phones are made in Argentina, and iPhones mostly aren’t.
During Cristina Kirchner’s presidency (2007–15), Argentina ramped up tariffs on imported electronics just as smartphones were taking off. Apple was effectively priced out, while Motorola - already assembling locally in Tierra del Fuego - thrived. In that captive market Motorola dominated, and the iPhone became a black-market luxury. Odd as it sounds now, a few US commentators at the time even held it up as a model for domestic tech growth.
That’s the kind of thinking behind Trump’s new wave of tariffs. But here’s the catch: Argentina’s policy worked because Motorola was already on the ground. The US has no domestic iPhone factory ready to go. And our research shows us that even while iPhones were out of the market in Argentina, demand for them remained steady. People still wanted them - they just couldn’t get them. Trump’s tariffs will also struggle to reshape this latent demand.
