After Stranger Things featured Kate Bush’s song “Running Up That Hill,” she saw an immediate spike in listenership. Not only that, three years later listenership still remains elevated following this initial uptick.
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Fitness app Strava has inadvertently become a platform for artistic expression. Strava Art has become a global movement, ever since users realised they could use the GPS tracking line to create unique drawings.
Streetlights reduce nighttime crime by 36% and reduce “serious offending” by 4%. This is roughly the same reduction in crime you would expect from a 10% increase in policing.
Employees of Stripe, the payments giant, initially needed to convince tech accelerators to use their platform. Rather than sending them an email, they’d sit and help them install the software of their apps in person.
The outstanding predictor of longevity isn’t diet or exercise – it’s patchy birth records. Introducing proper records in the late 19th century reduced by more than two-thirds the number of babies who would eventually seem to reach the age of 110. That suggests that, until recently, seven out of 10 apparent supercentenarians were, in fact, younger than claimed.
Most supermarkets stock 40,000 items, but the typical household only buys 300 in a given year. So much for “seeking out the best option.”
Some supermarket sections, like the bakery, are visited by almost every shopper, while others, like greeting cards have few visitors. According to shopper scientist Herb Sorensen, 85% of in store behaviour can be accounted for by shoppers’ location, rather than the products in front of them.
In surveys, shoppers tend to say they visit most of the supermarket. But observational studies show that most cover a small fraction of it, and only 2% visit more than ¾ of the total area.
Big supermarkets sell over 40,000 products, but they’re not made the same: the top 300 account for 25% of sales. (If you’re interested, bananas and milk are usually bought most often).
Superstitions are no joke. Basketball players are 12% more accurate with free throws following pre-performance rituals.
Services like Netflix have started to include a cheaper, ad supported option to their offer – but interestingly, compared to the ad-free version, it’s not attracting people with less money.
Swingers, the mini golf bar concept, wouldn’t exist with a healthy dose of ignorance. According to co-founder Jeremy Simmonds, “we were so naive and knew so little about the hospitality industry. We did not have a business plan, there was no spreadsheet or model. Nothing. I can’t tell you how many people who are so-called experts in this space warned us against doing all the things we did, that it couldn’t work.”
They can be used to nurture life (in plants) and also end it (explosives). It depends who’s in charge.
Rocket launches are synonymous with countdowns (T minus), but this wasn’t a scientific invention. Austrian filmmaker Fritz Lang invented the countdown in his 1929 silent film Woman in the Moon, as a way of building suspense for the fictional launch. NASA adopted it as common practice decades later.
The Taco Bell app has a feature that asks you how much you are willing to spend, and creates a combination of items accordingly. A smart innovation that saves consumers having to do mental maths.