It’s the end of an era. Sort of.
We’ve debated this for years – mostly, with everyone on our sales team and board arguing for it, and me ultimately vetoing it. I don’t like change. But it’s time.
Beginning next week, this email – along with most of our content, reports, and webinars – will only be available to CivicScience clients, publishers, and other friends of the company. If that excludes you, fear not. We’re simultaneously launching new lower-cost subscription tiers to keep you in the club. You can learn about that here. And, if you believe you’ve been dropped from the list in error, have good information to blackmail me with, or simply believe you deserve it for being a good human, shoot me a note. It’s still my call.
It wasn’t an easy decision. Seeing the number of readers growing every week – and meeting total strangers who showered me with praise for it – has been a huge boost for my fragile ego. It also made sense when we were small, just trying to get our names out there through all the noise. But as we’ve grown, the more we give away for free, the less valuable it is to the companies who invest their hard-earned dollar in the insights and tools we provide them.
It’s an interesting bookend. When I first started writing this email (8 years ago!), it only went to our small handful of clients. It grew from there to a list of 10,000 people, all without us paying a penny to market it. Alas, we’re not a media company. I can be a full-time writer in my next life.
For now, we owe it to our loyal clients and friends to make sure they’re gaining the greatest possible advantage from the work we do. We can’t be a commodity.
At this point, the choice is yours. Reach out if you don’t want to say goodbye.
It’s always cooler when you’re inside the red ropes.
Here’s what we’re seeing:
Despite the hodgepodge of employment data in the news lately, Americans are feeling a bit more secure in their jobs recently. To be fair, job stability concerns have climbed considerably since 2021 and are up 10% over this time last year. Still, they’ve improved nicely in July, with a growing share of workers saying they’re not interested in leaving their current jobs. Maybe the most interesting finding in this study is the difference we see across job types. People in tech, operations, sales, and trades (in that order) are feeling less secure. Those in service and executive jobs are feeling the best.
Political clarity, enthusiasm, and content consumption are all on the rise. We violated one of our cardinal rules this week by publishing data about the presidential horse race, albeit while obscuring some of the numbers (unless you subscribe to our Election Mindset Tracker), so nobody draws too many conclusions from them. That said, one conclusion you can reach is that enthusiasm for both major candidates has been climbing demonstrably in recent weeks, while the pool of third-party supporters and Undecideds appears to be shrinking. At the same time, people are feeling more hopeful, intrigued, and excited about politics in general, all while the attention being paid to political news is skyrocketing.
Speaking of must-see TV, Peacock is killing it during the Olympics. I gushed over Peacock’s coverage of the Games last week and have only fallen more in love since. The Gold Zone, in particular, is an absolute game-changer. This week, we took a closer look at who’s watching the Olympics on Peacock, among the 38% of Americans who currently subscribe to the platform. Suffice to say, they’re a pretty valuable bunch – tech-savvy, prolific shoppers and content consumers, and very brand-centric. Oh, and they, like me, love Gold Zone.
America’s loneliness epidemic rages on. In our 3 Things to Know this week, we analyzed the still-troubling state of social solitude in our country, where 40% of adults say they aren’t able to socialize as much as they’d like to – it jumps to 51% among Gen Z. It’s clearly a post-COVID phenomenon if you look at the data. We also examined public opinion around the Supreme Court, finding that a very clear majority (55%-24%) would support term limits for justices. Lastly, we looked at Americans’ preferred means of communication, where text is running away with it, while the popularity of phone calls is dropping like a bad signal.
Local TV news viewers are a high-value bunch. Perhaps benefitting from the rapid erosion of viewership and trust across cable and network news, local television news has seen significant year over year gains as the most trusted source of unbiased reporting and the first place people go for breaking news. Elsewhere in our profile of local TV news viewers, we found that ABC affiliates are the most popular on average, they’re remarkably balanced politically (in aggregate), and they’re hyper-consumers and “sharers” of news in general…and over 30% more likely than average to check the news as soon as they wake up in the morning.
More awesomeness from the InsightStore:
- Southwest’s move away from open seating is a big hit, especially among parents who travel with their kids;
- Consumer financial health improved in July, although debt concerns continue to rise;
- People really wanted Google to get rid of third-party cookies.
The most popular questions this week:
How often do you try new foods?
Which era of country music do you think produced the best overall body of work?
How do you typically drink bourbon?
Do you prefer drinking beer or wine?
Answer Key: Several times a week; Every chance I get; early 90s, but the current wave of outlaw country is up there; From a flask in my golf bag; Yes.
