Happy first week of Golden Quarter. The next few months will be make-or-break for many retailers, but they have to be careful not to push too hard in the wrong places. When asked what they’ll use social media for when planning Halloween or Thanksgiving, consumers are most likely to say “none of the above”. For some events, setting the cultural mood can be more fruitful than going hard on discounts.
Scroll down to read about GTA6, Strava maps, and a data-driven Dolly tribute.
Stats to power your week
🚔So Grand Theft Auto VI is actually happening, and it might well become the highest-grossing media property of all time. It could also have a huge impact on the hardware market: current GTA players are the most interested in purchasing the next generation of consoles (57% are). GWI Core
🪄While not quite on the same level, a success story from gaming to shout about is Hogwarts Legacy. The second instalment has been officially announced and with good timing, as its share of players has gone from 5.0 to 6.3%, making it the fastest-growing gaming franchise in the last year. GWI Gaming
🏦 Grok has now joined ChatGPT in letting users connect their financial accounts. It’s a striking step into an area where AI has historically faced a serious trust deficit: when we last researched this in 2024, just a quarter trusted AI-generated financial advice. GWI Pulse
🏃Are Strava maps a proxy for wealth? The discourse is brewing on social media, but what is the “wealthiest” app, if you slice its user base by income? Of the globally distributed ones we track, that’d be Airbnb, where almost half of its users sit in the high income bracket. GWI Core
Meet the audience: fans of musicals
Without GWI data
With GWI data
Fans of musicals are one of those interesting audiences that follow a U-shape, popular among the youngest and oldest consumers. But musical fans of all stripes show an interest in nostalgia and self-representation, over-indexing for interests and behaviors around beauty, fashion, vintage aesthetics and visual inspiration.
Think classic Hollywood, old-world glamour and occasion dressing that goes alongside selfies, social sharing and Pinterest browsing.
So perhaps the biggest takeaway from looking at musical fans is that it’s not just about the musicals; it’s about the bigger picture of taste, aspiration, nostalgia and identity.
Chart of the week
What does it take to become a cultural institution? Having a business named after you is one thing, but having an eponymous business so important that it regularly turns up in market research is another. So it is with Dolly Parton and Dollywood - although calling it a celebrity-branded theme park rather undersells what it has become.
Some 13% of people in Dolly’s home state of Tennessee say they’ve visited Dollywood, putting it ahead of Disney World and every other theme park we track. That’s quite a feat when the competition includes some of the most famous attractions on earth, and the deep wallets of Disney, Six Flags, and Universal Studios.
More from GWI
For more on the nuanced picture behind Q4 retail events, check out our profile of early Halloween planners, the so-called “Summerweeners”.
We spend a lot of time looking for interesting people in the data. Sometimes we look for them on our careers page too.
