Hit me up if you’re going to Cannes next month.
That’s the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, for those of you not in the advertising or media trade. It’s basically a giant boondoggle in the south of France where brand execs, agency types, paid celebs, and other muckety-mucks gather for a week of audacious networking parties, day drinking, and interwoven conference-style content.
Or so I’m told.
This will be my maiden voyage to “Cannes” (the event), if not Cannes (the town) – we passed through it during a French Club trip in high school. I suspect this will be a different experience, if only because I won’t be sneaking cigarettes and Kronenbourgs behind the back of any chaperones.
Apparently, anyone who’s anyone in the ads business has to be there. And, since we’re now in the ads business, and we aspire to be “anyone,” I have to be there too.
I’m certainly not bellyaching about it. The timing is serendipitous. Noelle graduates in a month, and, like Maddie, we let her pick a destination for a family trip to Europe. Maddie chose London because she wanted to see shows in the West End. Noelle chose Paris because she loves food. We leave the morning after her graduation.
We’ll spend six days doing all the touristy things in Paris, then part ways, as I hop the TGV to Nice. Why would I do that when the train takes 5½ hours and the flight is barely over an hour? Because after a week of travel with my family, and before a week of jam-packed work events, decompressing on a wifi-enabled train (with a bar) by myself will be a welcome respite.
The girls will first drop Maddie off in London, where she’ll spend eight weeks studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (also serendipitous). From there, Tara and Noelle will leave to visit our friends in The Algarve while I’m in Cannes. We’ll all rendezvous back in London before flying home for Noelle’s graduation party the following weekend.
The only non-serendipitous thing is that I’ll miss the U.S. Open, while it’s happening 15 minutes from our house at Oakmont. Bummer.
Anyway, back to Cannes. We’ll be hosting various industry events and client gatherings on a (docked) boat all week, in between sojourns to other events, dinners, and such. If you’ll be there, I’d love to see you. I’ve met so few of you in person.
Otherwise, expect me to write about my exhaustion and/or my credit card bill by the end of June.
Here’s what we’re seeing:
Consumer confidence still sucks, but it sucks a tiny bit less. The hemorrhaging of our Economic Sentiment Index appears to have clotted over the past two weeks, ending a three-month slide. It even climbed – a whopping one-tenth of a point. Optimism around personal finances improved appreciably (see: the stock market), while consumer outlook for the job market and major purchases fell (see: tariffs). Maybe we’ve hit the bottom – for now.
Student loan collections could add a new twist to the economic picture. With an estimated 10 million Americans in default over their student debt, renewed collection efforts announced by the Department of Education this week may spell additional financial trouble for an economy that doesn’t need more bad news. What’s notable in our data – and also self-explanatory – is that the people most concerned about repaying their student loans over-index as high- wage-earners (because they went to college). Given the role higher-income Americans have played in propping up spending the past few years, expect ripple effects.
People are cutting back on their Mother’s Day spending this year, which is the last thing they should be curtailing. Our 3 Things to Know this week were quite the hodgepodge, starting with the deplorable discovery that consumers’ average expected budget for Mother’s Day gifts is plummeting this year. Seriously, can’t you cut back somewhere else? We also found some super-interesting disparities in people’s perception of their socio-economic class (low, middle, etc.), crossed by their income level. Finally, we learned that, among QSR brands, McDonald’s is perceived to have the highest-value mobile apps in the category.
Amidst all the economic chaos, the GLP-1 trend hasn’t disappeared. For the first time in months, we shared some snippets from our weekly tracking data on over 170,000 users of Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs. And, while their waistlines might be shrinking, their impact on various categories of retail, food, and alcohol is not. Snacking habits are changing significantly, with chocolate and meat snacks (i.e., beef jerky) rising. Yes, cost has become an increasing barrier for people thinking about starting the meds. But among current users, we’re seeing a notable improvement in their self-reported emotional well-being.
Speaking of emotional well-being, we’re on a nice little upswing. It seems all we talk about lately is the bad news – and there’s plenty of it – but it’s worth pointing out that our Emotional Well-Being Index just had its third consecutive weekly improvement. Admittedly, our collective happiness remains well below where it was a year ago (or even 5 months ago), but let’s take the win. And the reason we developed this index in the first place is that it often explains consumer behavior (and spending) when purely economic sentiment does not.
More awesomeness from the InsightStore and elsewhere:
- Hybrid work is worse than full in-person work for parents, and other key insights about moms and dads in our latest Pulse of the U.S. Workforce report;
- Our Consumer Financial Health Index came out this week, too, and it’s about what you’d expect;
- I did a new segment with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation this week, and we talked about…you’ll never guess…the economy;
- We’re kicking off a new bi-weekly webinar series on Monday, focused on the impact of economic uncertainty on consumer behavior. The first one will be market-wide, while subsequent installments will dive deeper into specific industries like travel, media, food, and more. You should join us.
The most popular questions this week:
Would you be more amused or annoyed if a kangaroo temporarily shut down your local highway?
Do you think embracing one’s natural gray hair is becoming more common and accepted?
How important do you think marriage is in today’s society?
Answer Key: Of course not, so long as they donate to something else; Amused, but who the hell comes up with these things?; I certainly hope so; No way in hell; Big fan.
Happy Mother’s Day, ladies.
JD
