The pandemic transformed our travel habits – but not for long. After a surge in 2020, bike sales in 2023 were 33% below pre-pandemic levels, and the lowest in the UK since 1985.
All Threads
The brains behind Moneyball, and a figurehead for sport’s analytics revolution, owes his success to one trait: “Being the dumbest guy in my own room.” It was this ignorance that allowed him to see opportunities – and find players – that no one else was looking for.
Bing.com’s UK reach rose from 33% in January 2023 to 46% in May 2023 following the introduction of Bing AI, which features an AI chat response (like ChatGPT), an email drafting tool and the ability to create images.
A Black Friday discount may feel beneficial, but in reality it’s probably not. According to Which?, only 2% of deals are a genuine bargain – the remaining 98% are cheaper or the same price at another point throughout the year. In other words you will rarely lose out by avoiding Black Friday, despite the fancy framing.
The third Monday of January is supposedly when national sadness peaks. But it has no basis in science: Blue Monday was dreamt up by now-defunct holiday agency Sky Travel in 2005 as a way to sell more winter holidays. To be fair they commissioned a former university lecturer to calculate the day, but the calculation was largely subjective (e.g. time passed since Christmas).
It serves more champagne than any restaurant in the UK. The trick? Make the process easy: each table is equipped with a “Press for Champagne” button.
Being underweight is just as dangerous as being obese. In fact, many people who are deemed as overweight (according to BMI) have a lower mortality risk than those deemed as healthy.
Optimising for weight-loss can bring health problems of its own: people who are underweight face the same elevated mortality risk as those who are morbidly obese.
Transport For London temporarily renamed Bond Street station to ‘Burberry Street’, as part of a partnership with the brand during London Fashion Week. They seemed to forget that passengers rely on station signage to get around, and the stunt left many confused (and at the wrong station).
60% all school book challenges in the 2021-2022 school year came from just 11 people, with sexual content being the main reason behind the challenges.
Forget the million copy bestseller – less than 2% of books manage to sell more than 50,000 copies.
Booths, a British supermarket, got rid of its self checkout machines altogether because customers deemed them to be unreliable and impersonal. It turns out that the ‘hassle’ of human cashiers is actually their main benefit. As managing director Nigel Murray put it, “we pride ourselves on great customer service and you can’t do that through a robot.”
The film’s depiction of Kazakhstan was not only grossly inaccurate but also offensive. But that didn’t stop tourists planning a trip. Then-foreign minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov admitted six years after the movie’s release that “the number of visas issued by Kazakhstan grew tenfold,” outlining how he was “grateful to Borat for helping attract tourists to Kazakhstan.”
Marketers significantly overestimate the recognition of their distinctive brand assets vs consumers (by an average of 40%!). A reminder why it’s so important to conduct consumer research and not solely rely on marketers’ judgements.
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).