In December 1993, comedians Robert Newman and David Baddiel played a sell-out show at the Wembley Arena. As the first standup show to fill a venue usually reserved for the biggest musical acts, it led to claims that comedy was the new rock and roll. As today’s podcasters fill up the O2 Arena and the Royal Albert Hall, it begs the question: are podcasts the new rock and roll?
Scroll down to read about the end of Animal House, Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge, and the surprising legacy of The Emoji Movie.
Stats to power your week
🥽 Apple recently released Submerged, the first film made with technology allowing for immersive viewing on the Vision Pro. Which gives us a good excuse to check in on who’s most likely to have bought one following its release in February. Right now the Vision Pro’s pretty popular with software developers, with 8% owning one – the highest figure of any profession we track. GWI Consumer Tech
🧒 There’s an episode of The Simpsons where Bart wants a copy of the game Bonestorm, but (after trying to steal it) Marge buys him Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge instead. Some lucky kids do get to choose the games they buy though, and most other things as well. Germany has the most headstrong teens, where 12% decide the apps, food, games, clothes, and devices they buy. GWI Kids
💸 Ever wanted to know how much people spend on Black Friday? It turns out the most common spending bracket is between $101 and $250. Some spend more and some spend less, but that’s the sweet spot of spending that smart discounts and bundles can tap into. GWI Moments
📉 The New York Times recently published a lengthy investigation into a DEI program at the University of Michigan. It’s one of a few signs we’ve spotted of a vibe shift Stateside, with the number saying diversity and inclusion is “not important” up 37% since 2020. GWI USA
👶 As we covered last week, many countries around the world are experiencing a fall in birth rates. So why are fewer people opting for kids? Do they prefer flexibility over their free time, or maybe the extra money? Not quite. The main reason is simple: they just don’t want them. GWI Zeitgeist
What’s on our radar
It’s not exactly Animal House on campus these days, with student union bars closing down in some British universities. And in the office, competitive socializing is challenging happy hour.
But if you’re swapping the booze for water, take care: “forever chemicals” have been found in both bottled and tap varieties. We’re gonna need a bigger filter.
AI needs a lot of power to work. So much so that Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have all struck deals to deploy nuclear reactors to power their data centers. It’ll be interesting to see if this changes perceptions of nuclear power more broadly. 39% currently support nuclear energy – not a massively high figure, but higher than the 25% who oppose it.
A dramatic overtime victory sealed the WNBA championship for the New York Liberty, in what’s been the league’s breakthrough season (its fanbase has grown more than any other sports league in the last year). Something to watch for in the offseason: more WNBA athletes becoming brand ambassadors.
A recent study shows people sympathize with “AI bots who were excluded from playtime”. Aside from being a darkly funny sequence of words, it’s a sign that if AI tools become AI teammates, you may be judged on how you treat them.
Chart of the week
In 2020, TV commercials influenced almost twice the number of Americans as social media ads did. Four years and one pandemic later, they’re neck and neck. The current presidential campaigns, of course, are a great case study of how much reaching voters/consumers has changed in the last four years.
But be mindful – this is only one metric. Consumers still have a bit of a soft spot for commercials. If you ignore “excessive” (the most common word consumers use to describe any kind of ad – something we should never forget), TV ads are more likely to be seen as “informative”, “entertaining”, or “funny”, whereas social media ads get described more as “distracting” or “intrusive”. TV slots have a creative element that still matters – we might not have a social media equivalent to the Super Bowl ad just yet.
Local lowdown
Saudi Arabia’s surprising cinema fans
You could make a case for The Emoji Movie being one of the most important films of the last few decades. It was a showing of this critically-slammed film, in a makeshift theater in Jeddah, that marked Saudi Arabia’s first public cinema screening in 35 years. And here’s the amazing thing – just six years after that ban was lifted, Saudi consumers are now more likely to go to the cinema regularly than those in almost every other country.
There’s an interesting kind of late-mover advantage here. Any cinema in the country is guaranteed to be modern, if not downright state-of-the-art. Post-lockdown trips to the multiplex are probably more appealing when you have 4DX displays, VIP suites, and a slide that takes kids to their seats. Not to mention, that delicious air con.
But it’s still an astonishing cultural change to happen in such a short period of time, and access to new kinds of storytelling may lead to broader social changes in the future.
