Living in a swing state sucks.

Living in THE swing state especially sucks. Pennsylvania is ground zero. Western Pennsylvania is the ground zero-est. The street leading to our neighborhood goes Harris sign, Trump sign, Harris sign, Trump sign. The swing is real.  

Thus, the campaign overtures are relentless. Every day, I banish countless inbound texts to “Delete and Report Junk.” It never ends. I assume half the phone calls I get are political too. Not that I would ever know from answering them.

In fairness, I probably deserve it. I switched my registration a few years ago and occasionally split my ticket. All the algorithms would say I’m persuadable, even if I’m not.  

Why Tara also gets bombarded, meanwhile, is a mystery. She’s voted straight-ticket forever. Noelle is volunteering – phone banking and door-knocking a few days a week – for the same side. There’s nothing “undecided” about either of them. Every text, call, or ad they get from the other side is someone pissing money away.

Twenty years ago, politics had a leg up on brand advertising. So-called “microtargeting” was invented in the campaign sphere, thanks to readily available voter files and the pressure to maximize limited donation dollars. ROI mattered.

Those tides have since turned. Today, commercial marketers have infinitely richer data, but also a far more stringent degree of accountability. Ad performance is measured by the minute, traced to attributable outcomes. Meanwhile, the average tenure of a CMO is shorter than a congressional term. 

Political advertisers have a sweet gig. The money flowing into their coffers is endless, without a CFO breathing down anyone’s neck. If their candidate wins, they can take credit, deservedly or not. If they lose, the campaign office shutters, and nobody does the forensics. You don’t hear much about “return on ad spend” in politics. Must be nice.

So, with well over twelve billion dollars to burn and no liability, campaigns are carpet-bombing the hell out of us. At least the local news outlets benefit. If suffering through endless, mindless TV ads keeps a couple of journalists employed, it’s a small consolation. Say a prayer for next year’s sales comps, though.

I admire sophisticated marketing done well. That’s not what this is. It’s a disservice to the candidates and to the people who donated their hard-earned dollars to pay for it, not to mention a dreadful experience for everyone else.     

It’s the worst.

Here’s what we’re seeing:  

People trust CEOs more than they trust companies. In the latest teaser from our Pulse of the U.S. Workforce report, we found that workers are more likely to trust their business leaders than they are to trust major corporations at large. Older Millennials and younger Gen Xers are the least trusting. We also shared data showing that the percentage of U.S. workers who report having at least one good friend at work has been trending significantly downward (blame remote work for a lot of this) – perhaps also explaining why job happiness is well below pre-pandemic levels.

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Picking a celebrity spokesperson or collaboration partner is a high-risk/reward proposition. In our 3 Things to Know this week, we looked at how different age groups of consumers react to brands associating with celebs, politicos, or other public figures they don’t like – with over half of all U.S. adults saying they’re less likely to purchase products from those brands. Notably, older age groups are the least forgiving. We also found that people are paying far less attention to news about the Israel-Hamas war. Finally, we learned that local TV is America’s go-to source for news and information during a weather emergency.

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Student loan borrowers are worried about their credit scores, but it doesn’t seem to be changing their holiday spending plans. Last month saw the end of the student loan payment “on-ramp” period, which allowed borrowers to ease back into payments after the pandemic pause ended last year. Starting in October, missed payments will begin impacting personal credit reports – which is particularly troubling for the 40% of student debt borrowers who owe more than $30k on their loans. Remarkably, student debt holders are 50% more likely than student-debt-free consumers to say they plan to spend more this holiday season than they did last year – even though they claim to have spent less this year overall.

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Holiday travel plans are holding steady this year, even if people are more reluctant to fly. If the economy is as bad as some would have us believe, the collective of American shoppers and travelers seem to have missed the memo. With holiday retail expected to rise as much as 3.5% this year (and rosier spending numbers just released for September), consumers also show no signs of curtailing their holiday travel. Roughly one-third of U.S. adults say they plan to hit the road (or skies) this year, virtually identical to numbers we saw this time in 2023. A slightly higher percentage plan to travel by car, slightly lower by plane. Reasons for flight trepidation range from hefty ticket prices to safety concerns to lingering COVID fears.  

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Ozempic-shaming could be holding the industry back. In our ongoing tracking of the GLP-1 phenomenon and its impact on consumerism, we uncovered an interesting little wrinkle this week. First, we pointed out that despite the body positivity movement of the past decade, 78% of Americans still believe society judges people for their weight. Far less, 57%, say society judges people for using drugs like Ozempic for weight loss. However, that number jumps to 70% among GLP-1 users themselves…suggesting, presumably, that they feel judged. So basically people look down their nose at you for being overweight, but also for how you choose to address it. Whatever. Stop judging. 

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More awesomeness from the InsightStore:

The most popular questions this week:


If you had to pick one, would you rather have more time or more money?

To what extent do you agree or disagree that parenting is the hardest job in the world?

Do you generally consider yourself to be a nostalgic person?

How confident are you in your ability to manage your money?

Would you get a matching tattoo with a family member or loved one?

Answer Key: Time; Hardest, no. Most important, yes; Not really; I’m extremely confident in Tara’s ability to manage our money; Sure.