Looking for your man in finance? Allow our data to guide you. In case it helps any interested UK singletons, men who work in finance are more likely to be found browsing groceries in the aisles of Waitrose, in a Moncler jacket, stocking up on Asahi, and thinking about their next Peloton workout (note: height and eye color may vary).
Scroll down to read about Greek gods, Brenda from Bristol, and a red meat rebrand.
Stats to power your week
🍩 This Friday marks National Donut Day, and our data shows just how far the humble glazed dessert has come since the first edition in 1938. You’re now just as likely to find a Dunkin Donuts customer in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, as you are in Brooklyn. GWI Core
☀️ After months and months of rainfall, the UK is finally seeing some summer sunshine. It got us thinking: what brands are the most seasonal? The data shows that summer is a good time for Homebase, Foster’s, and Orangina, while Domino’s, PlayStation, and Costa Coffee come into their own during the winter. GWI Core (UK)
📱 As the UK election campaigns ramp up, the meme war between parties has caused many to crown it as “the first TikTok election.” There’s no doubt it’s playing an important role, but the biggest platforms for political content in the UK are X (21%), YouTube (20%), and Facebook (18%). GWI Zeitgeist
📨 You might think TikTok is the fastest-growing social platform of the last few years, but that’s not actually the case. That honor goes to Telegram Messenger, which has seen a 172% increase in users since 2020. GWI Core (UK)
🍫 In the buildup to her latest album, pop singer Dua Lipa unveiled perhaps some of her most unusual marketing material: customized bars of Tony’s Chocolonely with the album’s cover on the wrapper. As she often is, Dula Peep is right on trend here – the number in the UK who like the Dutch chocolate brand has increased by a massive 182% since 2021. GWI Core Plus
What’s on our radar
According to our research, more people have been saying they have a mental health condition over the last few years. A possible reason for this big trend? Recent studies suggest that depression and other mental health conditions may actually be contagious.
With electric vehicle adoption set to further increase in the next few years, there are some interesting second-order effects to consider. What happens to gas stations? How do we manage congestion at charging points, and how do retailers take advantage of them?
It’s not just cocoa and coffee hitting record price highs, but now orange juice is as well. At this rate, buying a continental breakfast will require a bank loan.
One of our big trends forecasts of the year was waning demand for vegan food, and that seems to be holding up. Hellmann’s is leaning more towards flexitarians by rebranding its vegan mayonnaise as “Plant Based Mayo”, while some beauty brands are proudly marketing their animal-derived products.
Perhaps linked to the shift from veganism, we’re also seeing big spikes in consumers wanting high-protein food items. This is probably why protein is increasingly being included in breakfast products, sports nutrition brands are seeing an increase in sales, and Sweetgreen’s is marketing red meat as a health food.
“Spicy” audiobooks may experience a lift in popularity as celebrities like Andrew Scott enter the recording booth. While there still may be some stigma around the genre, getting big names involved could help boost its profile and reputation.
Probably the most eye-catching AI announcement is Showrunner, a streaming service that would allow users to create their own TV episodes. But focusing too much on 100% AI-generated content can overshadow how it’s allowing artists to work with the technology, whether it’s a musical duet or a series of Sora-generated films at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Chart of the week
Five years after the last one, the UK is in full general election mode (that’s “the Jenny Lec” to its friends). That’s quite a breather compared to the 2010s, which featured four national polls and three referendums. The national mood was infamously summed up by Brenda from Bristol, who in a BBC interview responded to the 2017 election’s announcement with the immortal words: “There’s too much politics going on at the moment.”
In many ways, Brenda was correct. The 2017 poll, held in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, still represents the high point of people in the UK discussing politics. In fact, that summer politics was the second-most discussed topic online, behind only films. By contrast, our most recent data from early 2024, just before Rishi Sunak’s announcement, shows that politics is further down the agenda.
All elections are important in their own way, but it’s a useful thing to remember when following this year’s coverage – a lot of the UK probably feels just like Brenda.
Local lowdown
Brands with the Midas touch in Greece
Everyone loves a story of a brand expanding abroad and getting it wrong, like overlooking a double entendre in the native language (though most of these stories are urban legends). But sometimes, the opposite happens – when brands and products accidentally resonate, because their name positively references a country’s culture or language. A good example is Kit Kat, which became popular in Japan partly because it sounds like a good luck charm in Japanese.
The best and most consistent examples of this come from Greece. Brands have borrowed words, characters, and concepts from Greek myths for generations – and Greek consumers seem to respond. Consumers in Greece lead the world for buying products from Nike (named after the Greek goddess of victory), are second only to the Netherlands as fans of AFC Ajax (named after a Greek hero), and also rank highly for buying products from Kappa (named after a Greek letter).
It’s not foolproof, though. Despite the near-similarity of its name to the Greek messenger god, the luxury brand Hermès has made relatively less headway in the market. But if it had an extra sprinkling of magic dust from Mount Olympus, who knows?
