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.
Sam Salama
But not according to actual purchase data, which shows that the differences are marginal. And where there are slight skews, it’s mainly because older groups buy the category less often – so they simply have less opportunity to shop around!
And yet, as Grace Kite shows, campaign ROI is highest when 40-50% of the budget is spent online. Just because they’re unconventional, it doesn’t mean they’re ineffective.
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.
This group of politically engaged, cosmopolitan, and environmentally conscious people only make up 8% of the total UK population, but they account for the vast majority of Labour party members and policy employees. I’d argue the gap is a big deal, given this group is responsible for setting the entire country’s agenda.
The celebrity dating app currently has a 2.5 million person waitlist, but a user base in the low six figures. Why doesn’t it let more people in? According to CEO Daniel Gendelman this exclusivity is the very key to its success: Raya is thriving because lots of people aren’t on it – but want to be.
A clever bit of editing can turn the trailer for Harry Potter 6 – arguably the darkest film in the franchise – into a classic teen comedy. It’s surprising how well it fits, and it’s worth checking out other re-cut trailers (e.g. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a horror).
The most successful sitcom of the 90’s was a product of pet peeves. As Jerry Seinfeld explains, “it’s very important to know what you don’t like. A big part of innovation is saying, “You know what I’m really sick of?”” As viewers of the show will know, what makes it special is the relatability of the characters’ problems.
The taxi service – a poster child for technological disruption – has gone old school: it now accepts cash payments in the UK (outside London). It turns out that a significant proportion of people still find it difficult to use an app.
During WW2, the U.S. government needed to ration the consumption of expensive meats. So they coined the term “variety meats” to encourage Americans to eat less popular organ meats, such as liver, brains, kidney, and tongue.
In New York public hospitals, vegan meals are now offered as an option by default – a policy which has generated 36% fewer emissions since being introduced. It offers an important lesson for behaviour change: people tend to accept the status quo.
In 2025 the U.K. government passed the Online Safety Act, forcing internet users to prove their age when accessing potentially harmful content. But the legislation prompted a different behaviour. Data from Google Trends showed that searches for VPN skyrocketed, while one provider (Proton VPN) confirmed an hourly increase in sign-ups of over 1,400%.
5 years on from the start of lockdown, it’s actually workers with less experience of office work who are most keen on it: workers under 24 years old are on average coming in 3.1 days a week, while other age groups put in between 2.5 and 2.7 days.
As Andrew Tenzer shows, marketers get this question very wrong; significantly overestimating the level of consumers’ extrinsic aspirations.