🗞️ Links & Thinks from 2023.03.01
Insights from Microsoft
Microsoft has released some research on consumer search behavior for the travel vertical.
This part is interesting (and I would not be surprised if it applied beyond travel):
61% of seniors shopped for 2-3 months prior to purchasing travel, compared to 58% of millennials and gen z consumers who only shopped for less than one month.
This’ll be interesting:
Today's Splintering
Michaels launches marketplace for third-party sellers
The Death of CPG Brands?
That’s extreme, but the numbers aren’t looking great for them right now.
Inflation has driven consumers to seek affordability, usually in the form of store brands. And:
73% of people have acquired a taste for private label brands and plan to keep buying them even as the economy improves
I think it’s this hit to the big CPG brands that’s leading to the ad spend decline those headlines keep shouting about.
Spotify Going TikTok
The TikTok-ification of the internet isn’t over, Spotify is going vertical and swipeable.
Sources describe the update to me as similar to TikTok’s functionality in which, instead of selecting from a long list of carousels featuring static cover art, the interface allows listeners to swipe vertically through content recommendations that play automatically. Those recs can include video content, like the Canvas videos, or the looping GIFs that already exist on certain music selections.
I can’t decide if this is bandwagon or brilliant.
TikTok Takes A Lickin’ (Again)
As a refresher, along with various states, it’s been banned on government devices in Canada and the EU as well.