Last week Australia became the first country to ban under-16s from social media, a step that will likely tempt others to follow suit. But what do Aussie kids themselves think? Social media has its flaws, but it’s worth remembering 6 in 10 teens say it makes them feel closer to their friends.
Scroll down to read about a birthday bot, car lessons from Norway, and Serbians’ love of foot cream.
Stats to power your week
🎂 ChatGPT celebrated its second birthday last week, and the “low key research preview” has come a long way since November 2022 – 1 in 5 of the online population currently use it. For context, only 3% were using Instagram two years after its launch, showing how quickly ChatGPT has grown in this time. GWI Core
🚕 Once an app stops being the shiny new thing, it’s easy to overlook its impact, even when it continues to grow. Take Uber for example, which has seen a big increase in users in recent years. 1 in 5 Brits now use it, with particularly strong growth among C-suite execs, and those who live rurally. GWI Core (UK)
💔 If you’ll forgive the expression, we can’t leave our recent survey into loneliness alone. One intriguing finding: being single is a much bigger cause of loneliness among men (20%) than it is women (11%). GWI Zeitgeist
🔄 If you focus so much on younger generations’ supposedly ethical buying habits, you might fail to notice older consumers doing it more often. We see this with food shopping: over-65s in the UK are 18% more likely to buy fair-trade products. GWI Core Plus
💰 Whisper it, but we’re seeing more and more signs that UK consumers are seeing the light at the end of the cost of living tunnel. More of us are indulging in our weekly food shop – the number who regularly buy premium food items is up 26% year-on-year. Pass the Lurpak. GWI Core Plus
What’s on our radar
If you want a glimpse of what a future with more EVs on the road looks like, look to Norway, where a quarter of consumers own one. This Bloomberg piece surfaces some interesting lessons: changing behavior is easier than expected, but there are still some question marks about the capabilities of EVs in rugged rural regions, and nostalgia for petrol still persists.
With Bluesky picking up users after the US election, Threads is making its own moves to win over potential new users.
More Americans are saying diversity and inclusion isn’t important to them, and we’re starting to see a ripple effect in the business world too. Executive chatter about DEI is dwindling across the board, with some companies choosing to roll back their initiatives. Related: this New York Times piece looks at how some transgender activists are considering less “confrontational” methods of activism.
While it doesn’t seem to be officially confirmed, Kanye West’s latest video sure looks like it was created with generative AI. Ye has a history of embracing emerging tech – even if it's criticized at the time of its release – as you may remember from some of the original reviews of 2008’s “808s and Heartbreak” that didn’t much care for its heavy use of Auto-Tune.
Minecraft players will now be able to enjoy licensed tunes through an in-game radio service, presumably music to the ears of the 28% of 8-15 year olds who listen to music while gaming.
Chart of the week
Most of the time, a chart allows you to express a single story in a concise way – but this week we wanted to show you something a little different.
This grid shows how consumer confidence has changed in all our markets in the last five years (newcomer Serbia’s still settling in, more on that up next). Notice how North America and Europe have similar trajectories: a dip in 2020, then a rally in 2021, which gets checked by inflation. And see how Argentina has had a recent surge following Javier Milei’s election at the end of last year.
Then there are parts of the world, like central Europe and east Asia, where people are always pretty pessimistic, and perception shapes reality. Culture, geography, and general vibes all play their part in dictating consumer behavior at a local level – just one example of why understanding regional differences matters. If you want to dig deeper, we can recommend a pretty great platform for that.
Local lowdown
Belgrade beauty
Our latest wave of GWI Core welcomes Serbia as our 54th market, and we’re commemorating this by highlighting some of its consumers’ standout behaviors.
Beyond their passion for tennis (thanks to Mr. Djokovic), Serbian consumers have a notable love for beauty and cosmetics. They lead all other markets we track when it comes to buying makeup, and using permanent hair dye, foot cream, and exfoliators.
There are a couple of theories for this. It could stem from Serbia's transition from communism to capitalism, which changed cultural norms for women and unleashed demand for fashion and cosmetics – epitomized by the turbo-folk music scene. Another explanation points to demographics. Serbia was left with a surplus of women following heavy losses during World War 2, which might have given cosmetics an important role in navigating the more competitive dating landscape.
