In the 1990s, awareness of the 5 a day rule sky rocketed from 8% to 39%. But the corresponding behaviour remained unchanged: the proportion of Americans getting the right intake stayed at 11%.
Sam Salama
During Covid-19, in the absence of in person exams, the government created an algorithm to assign A-level grades. It was designed to be fair – based on historic school results and teachers’ assessments of individual students – but it ended up discriminating against students from poorer backgrounds, whose past performance was typically worse and whose class sizes tended to be bigger.
Most marketers understand the importance of long-term brand building, but the real challenge is convincing their seniors to buy into it. Helpfully, Mark Ritson outlines seven tactics to improve the chances of success, from sourcing case studies (“pick big impressive brands, in your sector or outside it”) to explaining the why (i.e. what’s in it for them).
The beauty brand was hailed as a poster child for the DTC model. But now, as Shane O Leary notes, “it has 11 stores and a Sephora partnership is key to recent growth.” Like many brands it is realising that physical stores play a crucial role in brand growth.
Beware restrictions on distribution. Joe Rogan’s exclusive deal with Spotify caused a decline in search volumes and – as the linked article notes – fewer followers for guests who appeared on the podcast. Reach still matters, even for someone as famous as Joe Rogan.
The pandemic had surprisingly little impact on the values of the UK mainstream (defined as the middle 50% of the population by household income).
According to a (rather old) longitudinal study, only 40% of people have stuck to their resolutions after 6 months. The issue is not knowing how to quit smoking or exercise more – it’s taking the steps to do so.
The NYT’s purchase of Wordle, as Shane O Leary puts it, had a “rising tide lifts all boats effect on their gaming vertical.” It brought in tens of millions of people to the app and doubled the number of weekly users for non Wordle games.
It’s a phrase used time and again in brand tracking, but as Andrew Tenzer points out it’s not particularly helpful: it means many different things, depending on who you ask.
As Andrew Tenzer shows, marketers get this question very wrong; significantly overestimating the level of consumers’ extrinsic aspirations.