For any younger readers wondering why their boss seems so chirpy all of a sudden, some band called Oasis is reuniting. Are they still relevant? They probably are to the 1 in 5 Brits who consume both cigarettes and alcohol.
Scroll down to read about the Paralympics, old age gamers, and JPEGMAFIA.
Stats to power your week
🏅 The Paralympics opening ceremony takes place this evening, and it’ll bring an audience that’s quite different from the Olympics. People who are into watching the Olympics also tend to be big on following sport, current events, and politics. On the other hand, Paralympics fans are often interested in things like charities, gambling, and dance. It opens up some cool opportunities for brands that might not usually dabble in sports. GWI Sports & GWI Core
✈️ When you’re lining up for security at the airport this summer, take a look around and see if you notice more people on their own than usual. Chances are you will – there’s been a 18% increase in those who travel by themselves since 2022. If nothing else, it cuts down the group chat admin. GWI Travel (UK)
🎵 As we highlighted last week, “Verknallt in einen Talahon” is perhaps the first completely AI-generated song to chart in a leading music market. But how many people want AI-generated music, anyway? More than you might think – in fact, 46% of German musicians are interested in it. GWI Zeitgeist & GWI Core
🎮 Age doesn’t stop anyone from gaming – trust us, we’ve got the data to prove it. Our GWI Gaming data set now includes gamers who are 65 and older, so here’s an interesting fact about old age gamers to whet your appetite – they’re more likely than your average gamer to play between 6 and 9AM. Anyone logging onto Words With Friends at that time might be in for a rough ride against some seasoned Scrabble champs. GWI Gaming
😷 How have attitudes to health changed since the pandemic started? It’s quite a puzzling picture. There’s been a 31% increase in the number of Americans who frequently worry about their own health, but the number worried about infectious diseases has dropped by half. GWI USA
What’s on our radar
Believe it or not, there is still a lot happening in the world of AI image generation. The last week has seen a lot of important moves: market leader Midjourney’s web editor is now open to everyone, Ideogram (a specialist in text rendering) has a new version out, while Google’s new Pixel phone has some powerful AI-powered editing features built-in.
Watermarking might help ease any concerns around all this new tech, as consumers consistently show big consensus for labeling AI-generated content (and it appears so do AI firms). Meanwhile, McAfee and Lenovo claim to have released the world’s first automatic deepfake detector.
AI-generated video is also progressing quickly. We’re seeing a new trend take hold: creators making “spec ads” with AI tools for Indeed and Maybelline, among many others.
While AI tools can be controversial in some quarters, popular and critically acclaimed artists continue to use them. A trailer for The Weeknd’s upcoming concert extensively uses AI tools, while rapper JPEGMAFIA uses a sample of an AI-generated cover on his recent album. Though for anyone worried about competition, an interesting new study shows that an award-winning novelist beats GPT-4 hands-down.
Another week, another body part graced by microplastics, though this research does have limitations (if microplastics are everywhere, how do you know you didn’t put them into the sample?). Still, techniques to improve extraction of these pesky little guys from water are improving.
Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” was only published this year, and is already having real-world impacts on smartphone policies for children. Ireland is planning to ban smartphones in schools nationwide, while there are more clampdowns coming in Texas.
Chart of the week
Here at GWI we track both sports and gaming in detail, which allows us to cross-compare between the two sectors in some unique and intriguing ways.
The above chart shows some differences and similarities between fans of both sports and esports. Because esports fans are a smaller community, you might expect them to dominate all types of fan engagement. But there are some gaps (and potential opportunities) here.
Documentaries are a perfect example. “The Last Dance,” “Drive to Survive,” and “Free Solo” (among others) have shown the power of sports documentaries recently. And while esports has its fair share of unofficial documentary films on YouTube, who knows what might happen with a bit of AAA treatment? If we could suggest a candidate – the story of aMSa winning a Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament with Yoshi, a mid-tier character. For the uninitiated, that’s like winning Wimbledon with a wooden racket.
Local lowdown
The state of Denmark
In a previous local lowdown, we used Poland as an example of consumer behaviors that pop up when government trust is low (like increased bottled water sales). Denmark gives us a chance to flip the script, so we can explore the ripple effects in a country where trust levels are so high, people are more trusting of strangers than anywhere else in the world.
According to our own research, Danes are the most likely to say contributing to their community is not important to them, and to say that connecting with their culture is not a reason to listen to music. What gives?
Well, that high trust likely comes from Denmark’s comprehensive welfare state. And if the government takes care of people’s needs, it makes sense that people would feel less need to make community contributions of their own – which might also extend to their music choices. For anyone who does want to connect to Danish culture through its music, there’s always Aqua.
