Billie Eilish & Drake 'stream more than all 1980s music'

"I don’t view it as problem solved. There’s been progress, but there’s a ways to go yet. If I were still at Interscope, here are the things I’d be worried about. I’d be worried that I don’t have a direct relationship with my consumer. The artists and the streaming platforms do.
I’d be worried that an artist like Drake or Billie Eilish streams more than the entire decade of the 1980s, according to the information I’ve seen from labels and streaming services. I’d also be worried that the streaming services aren’t making enough money, because that can jackknife."
Source:  Jimmy Iovine, interviewed by the New York Times, 30th December 2019

Americans spend on average 50 minutes a day behind the wheel

"For the time being, new car sales are trending up — believe it or not. The AAA says Americans spend 50 minutes behind the wheel each day on average. According to the 2019 edition of PYMNTS digital drive report, consumers behind the wheel represent a $260 billion commerce opportunity annually in the U.S. — and the U.S population is becoming increasingly habituated to using voice controls to mediate those transactions. The digital drive report found most commuters (53.3 percent) are turning to voice assistants to connect while driving and 36.6 percent of commuters who use voice assistants connect to the internet using their mobile device."

Source:  PYMNTS, 17th September 2019

48% of UK residents did not take an overseas flight in the last year

"Just 1% of English residents are responsible for nearly a fifth of all flights abroad, according to previously unpublished statistics.
The figures, published in a Department for Transport survey, also reveal that the 10% most frequent flyers in England took more than half of all international flights in 2018. However, 48% of the population did not take a single flight abroad in the last year.
The new findings bolster calls for a frequent flyer levy, a proposal under which each citizen would be allowed one tax-free flight per year but would pay progressively higher taxes on each additional flight taken."
Source:  The Guardian, 25th September 2019

Netflix has roughly 75 brand partnerships for Stranger Things

"A limited supply of [New Coke] will be available starting on Thursday as part of a robust promotional campaign related to the coming season of “Stranger Things,” the supernatural thriller set in the 1980s. New Coke will also appear in several episodes of the show. Representatives of both companies said no money changed hands in that product-placement deal.
The return of the failed drink comes as Netflix ramps up its corporate partnerships and merchandising deals in an effort to recruit even more people to the streaming service, which has 149 million paid subscribers worldwide. Netflix said it had reached agreements with roughly 75 brands to spread the word about one of its biggest hits.
Because of the new push, which rivals the campaigns for summertime blockbusters, “Stranger Things” may be hard to avoid in the coming weeks. H&M and other retailers will sell clothes that replicate what the show’s characters wear. Baskin-Robbins will serve new flavors referencing the program’s Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlor."

Source:  New York Times, 21st May 2019

The Super Bowl caused Netflix viewing to drop by 30%

"Super Bowl 53, which saw the New England Patriots defeat the LA Rams in a poorly received contest, had a profound effect on Netflix usage on Sunday evening – with data surprisingly being released by Netflix themselves.
During the game, Netflix posted on its Twitter account: “So apparently this Super Bowl thing is kind of a big deal … looks like Netflix viewing in the US is down about 32% compared to a normal Sunday.”"

Source:  Advanced Television, 4th February 2019

Original Tweet here

Peppa Pig 'is teaching American kids to speak with an English accent'

"A British show for children is allegedly warping American toddlers’ speech toward “Mummy” and “to-mah-to,” according to several parents who have recorded their children speaking with an English inflection. But according to linguistic experts, the Peppa Pig effect, first reported by the parenting website Romper, is less a soft-power victory for anglophilia than a normal toddler tendency to mimic new words.
Peppa Pig, which first aired in 2004, features a town of animals speaking in Britishisms such as “zeh-bra” or “straightaway”. In the Romper post, Janet Manley reported that her two-year-old daughter started calling her Mummy after binge-watching Peppa Pig on a 21-hour trip to Australia.
Other parents have shared similar observations online: “The most entertaining aspect of my life right now is that my toddler has been watching Peppa Pig and now speaks with a British accent,” wrote Twitter user Jess Steinbrenner. NBC Charlotte posted a video of a young girl calling a car “wei-ard” instead of “weird”. Several parents said their kids were pronouncing “tomato” as Peppa would."

Source:  The Guardian, 14th February 2019
Note - The article partly denies the story later one - saying that you learn accepts through interaction, but that the kids may be imitating some words. 

1/3 of American Millennials joined a boycott in 2018

"In the past year, 33% of millennials and 35% of Gen Xers boycotted a company or product they had previously spent money on, according to a new report from CompareCards.com. Overall, 26% of Americans are actively boycotting a product today.
Men and parents with young kids are most likely to be boycotting a product or retailer, according to the report.
Nearly six in 10 said they're more likely to buy from a retailer or brand that gives to charities or is associated with causes they support. The report compiled survey answers from 1,034 U.S. respondents between Jan. 14 and Jan. 16."

Source:  Research from CompareCards, reported by Retail Dive, 1st February 2019

Note - Compare Cards probably isn't the greatest source, but this stat is pretty eyecatching!

Songs are getting shorter - probably as a result of streaming

"Popular music is shrinking. From 2013 to 2018, the average song on the Billboard Hot 100 fell from 3 minutes and 50 seconds to about 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Six percent of hit songs were 2 minutes 30 seconds or shorter in 2018, up from just 1% five years before.
[...]
Why are songs getting so much shorter? Streaming is one the most likely culprits.
Payments from music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music made up 75% all US music revenues in 2018 (pdf), compared to just 21% in 2013. Streaming services pay music rights holders per play. Spotify doesn’t say the exact amount it pays artists for each stream, but reports suggest it is somewhere between $0.004 and $0.008. Every song gets paid the same. Kanye West’s 2010 five-minute opus “All Of the Lights” gets the same payment as West’s two-minute long 2018 hit “I Love it”.
“[T]here has never been this kind of financial incentive to make shorter songs,” tweeted Mark Richardson, the former editor of the music criticism site Pitchfork. Stuffing more diminutive songs into an album is simply more remunerative than having a bunch of long ones.
Still, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how much streaming has contributed to the recent shortening of songs. The length of pop songs had already been falling through the 1990s, before accelerating in recent years. Some music industry observers blame shortening attention spans—but there isn’t much rigorous evidence that our ability to focus has changed (paywall). Others believe that shorter songs may be a result of more consumer choice—songs need to be more compact and catchy to stand out in the crowd."

Source:  Quartz, 17th January 2019

Amazon has over 120 own-label brands

"Amazon created its first private label brand in 2007, when it started selling bedding and bath products under the Pinzon line.
Since then, Amazon has added 125 other brands, according to TJI Research, which tracks Amazon's growth. The collection includes everything from paper towels and toilet paper under the name Presto! to T-shirts and shorts for kids labeled Spotted Zebra.
And Amazon is accelerating its private label strategy. It has introduced about six dozen brands in the past 18 months, according to a study by Evan Neufeld and Cooper Smith, analysts at research firm Gartner L2."

Source:  CNN, 8th October 2018

At least 6,000 homes in the UK have a black & white TV licence

"The BBC’s Annual Report & Accounts states that at least 6000 homes are viewing TV on monochrome licences.  The colour TV licence was introduced as a £5 supplementary fee to the – then – £5 monochrome licence in January 1968.
The fee for a monochrome licence (for 2017) was just £49. This has risen to £49.50 for 2018."

Source:  Advanced Television, 12th July 2018

Over 10% of spending on toys is adults buying things for themselves

"The profitable ‘kidults’ market is continuing to grow as new data reveals that adults spent £383 million on toys for themselves in 2017.
According to the NPD, the kidult market has grown by eight per cent in value over the course of last year and now amounts to 11 per cent of the total toy sector; a rise of £30 million in value since 2016.
To put that in to context, £1 in every £9 spent on toys today is adult buying toys for themselves.
The latest results results from the toy industry tracking group reveal that millennials account for almost half (48 per cent) of the spend among grown ups buying toys for themselves, while Generation X-ers account for 28 per cent and Boomers account for 24 per cent.
Among the millennials market, 62 per cent of the money spent on toys for adults is by young parents. Another four in 10 (38 per cent) are not yet into parenthood and many of this young group are fans of pop-culture, expressing their fandom by buying toys."

Source:  Toy News, 17th April 2018

Note - It's not clear whether this is global, or UK only.  I'm assuming that it's global (but currencies are in sterling as it's a UK publication)

The US self-storage industry generated nearly $40bn a year

"Despite recessions and demographic shifts, few building types have boomed like self-storage lockers. In fact, they’ve proven to be one of the surest bets in real estate over the last half century, while malls, starter homes, and even luxury commercial space in big cities, once safe and steady investments, have struggled. Behind the combination locks and roll-up doors lies a $38 billion industry.
One in 11 Americans pays an average of $91.14 per month to use self-storage, finding a place for the material overflow of the American dream. According to SpareFoot, a company that tracks the self-storage industry, the United States boasts more than 50,000 facilities and roughly 2.311 billion square feet of rentable space. In other words, the volume of self-storage units in the country could fill the Hoover Dam with old clothing, skis, and keepsakes more than 26 times.
Though the adage “sex sells” is hard to dispute, the decidedly unsexy self-storage industry made $32.7 billion in 2016, according to Bloomberg, nearly three times Hollywood’s box office gross. Self-storage has seen 7.7 percent annual growth since 2012, according to analysts at IBISWorld, and now employs 144,000 nationwide."

Source:  Curbed, 27th March 2018

A mention on the TV show Rick & Morty led to McDonalds re-introducing Szechuan dipping sauce

"If you’re going to ride a pop culture trend, you’ve got to ride it full send — and that’s why McDonald’s says it’s bringing back its Szechuan dipping sauce. Again.
McDonald’s originally introduced the limited batch of Szechuan sauce in 1998 to coincide with the release of the Disney film “Mulan.” Last fall, the sauce was referenced by Cartoon Network’s popular Adult Swim show, “Rick and Morty,” leading McDonald’s to briefly rerelease the sauce — and leading to full-on riots when the very limited supply ran out.
The fast food chain apologized after the fiasco, saying it had not expected such high demand."

Source:  PYMNTS, 22nd February 2018

The videos that get the most engagement on Facebook are food videos

Source:  Buzzsumo blog, 23rd August 2017

A six year old is making an estimated $11m a year as a toy reviewer on YouTube

"Ryan, the 6-year-old "host" of Ryan ToysReview, a popular toy-review channel on YouTube, is also reportedly a multi-millionaire.
A family-run YouTube channel, Ryan ToysReview generated around $11 million in pre-tax income in 2017, according to Forbes' annual list of the highest-earning YouTube celebrities.
The raw estimate of $11 million tied Ryan ToysReview with the YouTube comedy stalwart Smosh for eighth place on the Forbes list."
Source:  The Independent, 10th December 2017

People have spent $1.3m buying virtual cats in the CryptoKitties game

"Launched a few days ago, CryptoKitties is essentially like an digital version of Pokemon cards but based on the Ethereum blockchain. And like most viral sensations that catch on in the tech world, it’s blowing up fast.
Built by Vancouver and San Francisco-based design studio AxiomZen, the game is the latest fad in the world of cryptocurrency and probably soon tech in general.
People are spending a crazy amount of real money on the game. So far about $1.3M has been transacted, with multiple kittens selling for ~50 ETH (around $23,000) and the “genesis” kitten being sold for a record ~246 ETH (around $113,000). This third party site tracks the largest purchases made to date on the game. And like any good viral sensation prices are rising and fluctuating fast. Right now it will cost you about .03 ETH, or $12 to buy the least expensive kitten in the game."

Source:  Techcrunch, 4th December 2017

17% of Daily Mail readers who voted in the June 2017 General Election voted for Labour

Source:  YouGov, 13th June 2017

#NuggsForCarter is the most Retweeted Tweet of all time

"It’s official. Carter Wilkerson’s (@carterjwm) call for a year’s supply of free nuggets from @Wendys has become the Tweet heard around the world. With 3.42M Retweets, it has officially surpassed Ellen’s infamous selfie as the most Retweeted Tweet of all time."
Source:  Twitter blog, 9th May 2017

Top 3 - 

Nuggs For Carter - 3.6m

Ellen Selfie - 3.4m

Louis Tomlinson - 2.5m

Amazon is getting more than 4 orders from Dash Buttons a minute

""Just a year ago, orders via Dash Button were occurring more than once a minute, now that rate has increased to more than 4x a minute," Amazon said a statement. For some items, like Folgers coffee grounds and Glad garbage bags, Amazon says "more than half" of their orders are made via Dash Button."
Source:  Engadget, 25th April 2017

Tesla 'spends less than $6 on advertising per car sold'

"Car makers spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to promote their products. Anyone who has ever watched the TV series Mad Men got to see how aggressively ad agencies court the automakers to gain their business. One account can have an outsize effect on a firm’s bottom line.
A new report from Global Equities Research analyzes just how much each car company actually spends on selling its cars. Not surprisingly, makers of premium brands spend the most. For every Jaguar that finds a buyer,  parent company Tata Motors spends $3,325. Lincoln shells out $2,550 on advertising for every car it sells.
At the other end of the spectrum, Toyota and Honda spend the least, at approximately $250 per car. Keep in mind that those two companies sell a lot of cars. Any ad agency would be delighted to have their business. Also, those numbers are separate from their premium brands, Lexus and Acura.
A new study by Global Equities analysts Trip Chowdhry approximates that Tesla spends even less at $6 per vehicle. In an e-mail to investors this week, Chowdhry said “Tesla power and leverage is unprecedented. $6 of Ad Spent per Vehicle for the product generating more than $8 Billion in revenues and more than $14 Billion in bookings is unheard of in the Industry.”"

Source;  Tesla-rati blog, 9th July 2017

Note - I'm not sure of the full validity of this figure, but it's pretty clear that if you have a very famous and outspoken CEO, plus a product that people love you can rely a lot more on social media and PR.

(See also Brewdog, valued at £1bn, built on PR, social media, and events)