Native wildlife could soon replace Churchill, Austen and Shakespeare on UK paper currency. It might be because animals feel less divisive than public figures, but the data proves that the UK really is a nation of animal lovers, as they’re more likely than consumers in any other market to care about high animal welfare standards.
Scroll down to read about Spurs, BrewDog, and the surprisingly young audience of ballet.
Stats to power your week
⬜ There is a real chance Tottenham Hotspur could be relegated this season, ending their long, unbroken stay in the Premier League. If that happens, the impact on fandom could be significant: support for Leicester City has fallen 73% since their FA Cup win in 2021, and subsequent relegation. GWI Core
🐕🦺Beer maker BrewDog’s future is unclear following its takeover by Tilray Brands. But its audience profile contains one surprise: Aberdeen, its hometown, isn’t its strongest UK market. That distinction belongs to the north of England, where penetration reaches 8.4% in York and 9% in Newcastle. GWI Core
👛OpenAI has scaled back some of its commerce plans for ChatGPT in favor of directing users to third-party apps to complete checkout. At the moment, consumers see AI much more like a personal shopper than anything else, being most likely to use it when shopping for detailed product recommendations (51%) and to make comparisons on price (47%) or features (also 47%). GWI Zeitgeist
🩰A rough night for Timothée Chalamet as not only did “Marty Supreme” fail to win a single of its 9 Oscar nominations, his comments on the cultural dynamism of ballet and opera came in for a roasting. So…how many people actually like opera or ballet? 8% like either of them, which isn’t huge, but is around the same level of fantasy sports. Perhaps a DraftKings/Swan Lake tie-up might smooth things over here. GWI USA
Meet the audience: Opera/ballet fans
Without GWI data
With GWI data
We’re going to stay with this opera-and-ballet point for a moment, because it’s such a good example of why audiences shouldn’t be taken at face value.
The assumption is that these worlds are kept afloat by stiff, older patrons. That’s not entirely wrong for opera: even after recent outreach campaigns, the average age of a single-ticket buyer is 44, down from 65. But it misses the mark with ballet. At New York City Ballet, thirtysomethings are the single biggest age group.
Our research tells a similar story. Opera and ballet fans are younger than you might think. The real challenge is not so much generating interest as overcoming the cost barrier of getting people through the doors.
Chart of the week
Someone born on New Year’s Day 2020 has lived through a global pandemic, the first land war in Europe since World War II, and, most recently, an unprecedented closure of the strait through which 20% of the world’s oil traffic passes - all before their seventh birthday.
Consumer confidence can feel like a secondary measure in the circumstances. But one of the more striking features of the 2020s is how resilient it has remained through a sense of permacrisis. There was a sharp drop at the start of the pandemic, yet consumers have, on the whole, held up better than many expected.
As the price of oil hits $100 a barrel for the first time since the Ukraine invasion, consumers may once again absorb the blow, and any resulting inflation shock, better than expected.
More from GWI
If stats on BrewDog drinkers have wet your whistle for more beer insights, you might want to explore our GWI Alcohol data set.
Our recent World Cup webinar isn’t just a great resource on this summer’s tournament, but a tour through effective segmentation, how consumers feel about TV ads, and all sorts in between. It's available on demand here.
