It’s a great time to be a Luca or a Daisy – these are the baby names climbing most in popularity for boys and girls in the UK. Our commiserations go to anyone called Thomas or Eva, who are in danger of becoming endangered species.
Scroll down to read about security, load shedding, and savage airlines.
🎧 Consumers in Nigeria, India and South Africa are 51% more likely to discover brands through podcasts. Why those countries? They’re the three markets in our research that experience more power cuts (or “load shedding”) than the global average. What their citizens do to keep occupied during power cuts (downloading and listening later) might be useful for brands in Europe to know if the energy situation on the continent gets worse. (GWI Core)
🔐 Security is consumers’ biggest concern with using the internet. Maybe it’s time to stop saying “remind me later” when your PC asks you to update… (GWI Zeitgeist)
🥩 UK consumers are the least likely in Europe to say they prefer food made in their own country. It probably helps if you’re an island used to importing food, but it might also explain why overseas-based QSR brands are growing so much at the moment. (GWI Core Plus)
🤸 The number of 12-15 year olds who say gym is their favorite subject at school is up 10% year-on-year – no surprise when they were learning virtually and stuck indoors for so long. It’s less good news for physics teachers though (down 24% year-on-year as a favorite subject). (GWI Kids)
🗺️ The number of US consumers worried about tensions with foreign countries has grown 44% year-on-year, overtaking concerns about racial relations, pollution, and saving for retirement. (GWI USA)
Is the GIF dying? It looks like it – from a peak of 68% of websites using one in 2012, that number is now only just above 20%, according to W3techs. Short-form video and TikToks with perfect loops might be creating more of a generational gap too – OK boomer, looks like GIFs are cringe now.
Gen Zs most distinctive interests include things like urban art, photography, and fine art – probably helped by Instagram defining culture for most of the last decade. This is useful context to explain Pacsun’s partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Meta is bringing legs to its virtual reality avatars (though the footage from Meta Connect came from motion capture, not full VR tracking). And once you have legs, you have shoes. Sneaker brands, presumably, have a lot to like about this development.
Elsewhere in footwear, why might parents buy $600 Christian Louboutin shoes for their toddlers, when they’ll grow out of them months later? It could be the online clout, or the chance to make a return on the resale market.
Travel has been hit in recent years by lockdowns, restrictions, traffic light systems, testing protocols, inflation, and weakened currencies. But it still provides huge value to consumers, and that pent-up demand still looks pretty strong.