If any of you can help me reliably get a mass-email through big-company spam filters, I’ll name my next pet after you. For real.

Every week, different people tell me they didn’t receive this. Sometimes it’s entire companies, sometimes not. Some weeks they’ll get it, some they won’t. There’s no obvious pattern.

I put too much thought into this thing just to have it fall into a black hole.

I wondered if it was my PG-13 last name or something. But, I dropped a certified, NC-17 f-bomb last week and people who hadn’t received it in weeks all of a sudden did. That makes no sense unless A.I. is evolving into some kind of trucker-mouthed sentient being.

All I know is we have an army of geniuses around here who can make machines think for themselves and I can’t get an email through to someone who actually wants to read it. Not that our geniuses couldn’t probably figure it out – it just shouldn’t rise to that pay grade.

So listen. If you’re one of the people who likes this email and it doesn’t arrive at 7AM sharp on Saturday, something is probably wrong. I may skip a week over Christmas, Thanksgiving, and maybe one weekend in the summer. Otherwise, set your watch to it.

If you have any clues, I’d appreciate it. The weekly open rates are a non-trivial contributor to my ego, which I’m sure you’ve figured out is quite fragile.

Here’s what we’re seeing this week:

Ever since they started working with us, T-Mobile has been killing it. If you follow the mobile carrier space, you know that T-Mobile is on an impressive win streak, capped by a record addition of new subscribers in Q4. Little known history, T-Mobile was CivicScience’s very first enterprise customer, going all the way back to 2012 when I could barely afford to buy Post-its. Around that same time, we began tracking the data you see below. Of all the things we measure about brands, this ‘popularity outlook’ metric is remarkably predictive, never more so than here. Do we deserve all the credit for T-Mobile’s success since 2012? My mom would say yes. But, no. It’s just cool to help.

People are more likely to watch the Super Bowl at home this year and bet on it. We ran a quick study with AdWeek about Super Bowl viewership this year and I still don’t know what the ratings will be for the game. Personally, I thought we did the research too early, before the NFL’s marketing machine kicked into full gear. Given the NFL’s ratings rebound this year, we should see a bigger audience on Sunday. Then again, the Rams don’t exactly have a rabid fan base. So basically what I’m saying is that I’m pretty useless on how the audience numbers will turn out. What I can tell you is that people are increasingly likely to watch the game at home, as opposed to a party or bar or whatever. That trend has been building for a while. A new trend, though, it looks like more people will bet on the game – and those folks are way more likely to watch. The leagues love legalized betting. Don’t kid yourself.

Broadcast radio is sliding, for sure, but it’s still a thing. Confession, my kids and I listen to an FM morning show on the way to school every day. It’s the one that plays the same 12 pop songs on loop every 45-minutes. Sometimes, I leave it on all day – even though I still pay for SiriusXM, Amazon Prime Unlimited, and Apple. Evidently, I’m not alone. 57% of U.S. adults still listen to broadcast radio, down from 63% in 2016. That’s an ugly drop, no doubt, but the absolute numbers are still formidable – more than the percentage of Americans who use Facebook every day and nearly the same as the number who watch Netflix. The audience profile looks a lot like me – parent, GenX, suburban. Oh, and people who pay for streaming music services are just as likely to still listen to broadcast radio.

A lot of women wear makeup when they work out and now I’m self-conscious about going to the gym. Here’s more of our data served up via our friends at the WSJ (the link goes to a PDF so you don’t get stuck behind the paywall). One in four women say they wear some kind of makeup when they hit the gym. And almost half of them are Millennials so expect that number to rise over time. In all, 37% of Americans consider it at least somewhat important to “look good” while working out. Yet, 20% of people frequently skip a shower after exercising. Weird.

That said, overall exercise habits in the U.S. have remained uncannily consistent for the past several years. I guess I assumed more people would be working out, as we grow more enlightened about health and wellness. But no. The percentage of people who work out regularly hasn’t budged since we started tracking it. And, even with a bunch of trendy alternatives, the vast majority of exercisers still lean toward old school indoor and outdoor home activities. I’m guessing most of the respondents below don’t consider golf a sport.

Some Random (Shoe) Stats of the Week

  • 52% of people call them “tennis shoes”, 36% call them “sneakers”;
  • Only 16% of people who own running shoes own them for the purpose of running;
  • 47% of people prefer slip-on shoes, 40% prefer laces;
  • 56% of people tie their right shoe first, 44% tie their left shoe first;
  • 38% of people live in a “shoes off” house;
  • 56% of people keep shoe boxes and 41% throw them out;
  • And this…

They left out “Floppy Sock”. Floppy sock is the worst.

Hoping you’re well.

JD