OK fine. Maybe it was a cop-out not writing last week about all of the sexual misconduct incidents in the news. At least that’s what a handful of you told me.
The truth is that it will take time to understand the long-term impact this awakening will have on our socio-political fabric. What we’re seeing today may not be indicative of what we see weeks, months, or years from now. Are we nearing the end of all the public accusations, admissions, and fallout, or have they only just begun? I’m fairly certain it’s the latter.
For now, what we can say is the same thing we said about gender inequities 15 months ago:
Women are getting a terrible deal. Even without all of the sexual harassment and assault they’ve faced from men in positions of power, professional women have the cards stacked against them at home and at work. They have more – and increasing – household and financial responsibilities, are working at nearly as high a rate as men, and make less money for doing the same job. Working moms, especially, report significantly higher levels of stress and lower levels of happiness than their male counterparts. Men, meanwhile, think they’re carrying an equal load. They’re not.
But there are signs of hope. Working moms have shown steady increases in their levels of happiness since January of 2016. Look:
The percentage of working moms who identify as “Happy” has grown 10 full points in just under two years. Maybe this improved life state has given women more confidence to speak out, to feel more secure in their jobs and their family roles, and to reject the culture of male privilege that helped land us in the situation we’re confronting today. I’d like to think that’s true. But what I think right now doesn’t matter.
Here are some other things we’re seeing in the world:
Chipotle has a rare opportunity to win back the Millennials they lost. You can read more about our rationale here, but the gist is that young consumers who migrated away from Chipotle over the past couple years didn’t turn their backs on the brand completely – which is unusual for fickle Millennials. I actually started the article by saying “Writing about Millennials is like emptying my dishwasher. It seems like I have to do it all the time.”
Appropriately…
All Millennials are not created equal. One of our biggest soapbox issues is that marketers often (and lazily) mistake “generational” attributes for “life-stage” ones. I once had a director from a well-known zoo call me, freaking out, asking if we could help them figure out why Millennials weren’t going to the zoo. I said, “When did 25-year-olds without kids ever go to the zoo?” That was the end of that conversation. People between the ages of 18 and 34 represent an array of dramatically-different life stages: Some still in college, some living at home, some with kids, some without kids, some married, some even divorced, etc. To categorize them with one encompassing label is silly. So, we’ve started researching different sub-segments of Millennials. Even if you’re too busy to read this first little report, just remember from now on to take sweeping “Millennial” insights (mine included) with a grain of salt.
The pissed-off NFL fans weren’t bluffing. Check out the month-over-month decline in NFL followers since September. Yikes! All I can say is that I envy the heck out of Roger Goodell. I wish my board would give me a $40M annual salary even with customers fleeing like this.
But you will find NFL fans – and other valuable consumer audiences – on Twitter. It’s hard to put a label on Twitter’s user base. If I say “Snapchat,” you say “Young.” If I say “LinkedIn”, you say “Professional.” If I say “Pinterest,” you say “Women.” If I say “Facebook,” you say “Everybody.” But if I say “Twitter,” what do you say? Ultimately, I think advertisers and Wall St. struggle to put their finger on Twitter’s value because of this labeling problem. In the end, our data tell us that Twitter has a super-valuable and growing audience. They’re tech early adopters and influencers, restaurant aficionados, prolific content consumers, avid sports fans, and activists. But they’re also men, women, White, Black, young, not-so-young, rich, and not-so-rich. It presents quite the branding conundrum but a great opportunity if it can be unlocked.
Your Random (Futuristic) Stats of the Week
- If time travel were possible, 70% of U.S. adults would prefer to go back in time;
- 30% would prefer to go into the future;
- The results are heavily age-dependent, with older people preferring to go back and younger people preferring to go into the future;
- 17% of people have written a message to their future self;
- 25% of people believe in psychic power;
- 44% of Americans would choose to see their own future, if they could.
Here’s hoping your future is awesome.
JD