All Things Britain...Entertainment

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So, I saw there was a stir about a new Harry Potter movie to be shown in the Universal Studios theme park, and so I wondered what state would be the most excited to sit down with a cool glass of Butter Beer and enjoy the show. Turns out that the state of Utah is the place to be if you are mad about Harry.

This got me thinking about what state would be the most taken by all things Britain, or at least British entertainment. For my test, I took a look at where the interest was for Harry Potter, Downton Abbey, and Dr. Who. Turns out there wasn't much of a contest as Utah not only pulled #1 for Harry Potter, but was #1 for Downton Abbey, and a close second behind Oregon for Dr. Who.

Of course this is strictly regarding entertainment, as Utah didn't break the top ten for interest in the BBC. And not to be out done by the Brits, French related entertainment has a strong pull for Utahans as well. Currently, Utah has a strong lead in seaches on the affectionate term "Les Mis" for the popular Les Miserables.

Who Loves the 1980s Most?

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Photo: SlashGear.com

After seeing the SlashGear article on an NES controller coffee table, it made me wonder what parts of the country were the most nostalgic for the 1980s. The top five states were: Iowa, Ohio, New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Iowa specifically seems to be partial to 1980s movies. The other states apparently go fo the whole package (movies, music, fashion, etc.). So my question is, why do Iowans love 1980s flicks so much? The only thing I can think of was that the 1980s movie "Field of Dreams" was filmed, at least partially, in Iowa. The field from the movie continues to be one of the biggest tourist attractions in Iowa, which is perhaps reason enough to love the 80s.

Internet Habits of the Wealthiest and Most Educated in the United States

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While Facebook tops the list of most visited sites on the internet worldwide, not so among the wealthiest and most educated. Instead, the wealthiest and most educated seem to care most about their professional networks, and thus LinkedIn tops the list of their most frequented sites. As you can see from the above chart, in additiona to their professional networks, the wealthiest and most educated stay educated about current events by frequenting online news sources. While keeping track of their stocks and retirement accounts, the wealthiest and most educated also appear to like to save money through Expedia and flying Southwest, who would have guessed?

If you want to shop online, especially to dress for success, it looks like the most visited online retailers by the wealthiest and most educated includes: Nordstrom, Neimann Marcus, Bloomingdales, J.Crew, Ann Taylor, Bannana Republic, Saks Fifth Avenue, Gilt.com and Ruelala.com.

Want to do your own analysis of internet habits, check out Google's DoubleClick Ad Planner.

Corned Beef and Cabbage Anyone?

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Photo: Kitchenrunway.com

First, a belated Happy St. Patrick's Day, to all of my Irish loving frriends and family! Since St. Patty's day was this past weekend, it appears that many people were searching for "Corned Beef and Cabbage," presumably for recipes. Of course, our dimunuitive friends the leprechauns got their fare share of searches too. Given this expected trend, I decided it would be interesting to see which areas in the United States seemed more Irish loving than others. Connecticut, Massachussetts, and New Jersey citizens were most likely to be dining on corned beef and cabbage, based on searches. Utah, Nevada, and Pennsylvania residents were on the lookout for leprechauns, proabably to get rich quick with a pot of gold. Finally, Texans and Californians were the only Americans that seemed to care about chugging down some green beer, which was most curious to me. Perhaps the novelty has worn off, and regular beer will suffice. But wait....perhaps I should search Guiness. Yes, there it is Massachusetts on top by far, followed by California, New York, Illinois, and Texas. I declare Massachussetts to be the most Irish loving place in America. No suprise there...Boston Celtics, anyone?

 

 

State of Nerdiness

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Photo: googleinsights

First of all, happy Pi Day! What? Pi Day is March 14th, because we all remember that π (pi), the mathmatical constatnt, is 3.14...or actually 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679 8214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196 4428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273 724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609...well you get the picture. Many self-proclaimed nerds enjoy celebrating this day with, you guessed it, a slice of pie. You don't need to convince me...I'll take a slice.

Anyway, I used "pi day" as the search term to see what areas of the country would be in contention for the nerdiest states. The results are as follows (1 being the nerdiest): 1. New Jersey, 2. Ohio, 3. Illinois, 4. Georgia, 5. Pennsylvania, 6. New York, 7. California. These states are also in the top ten for searches on "engineers." On the United States of Shame Map, Ohio is listed as the "Nerdiest State," based on highest per capita visits to the library. So being in the top ten for Pi Day provides some corroboration of this claim. What do you think the nerdiest state is and why?

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Photo: frenchtribune.com

The other night my wife pointed to two bright orbs in the sky and asked if they were planets. I said that they were, correctly guessing that one was Venus and incorrectly guessing that the other was Mercury. As it is, we were witnessing the celestial delights of Venus and Jupiter. I found this out due to my tracking of trending news via newsmap.jp. So, where in the world are these out of the world places trending most? Sweden, the United Kingdom, followed by the United States.

From Super Tuesday to Purim

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Photo: mydisguises.com

The Jewish holiday Purim  is trending since it is tomorrow.  It is a celebration of deliverance of the Hebrews from the Persians (see the Book of Esther in the Bible). I became more familiar with this holiday during my Hebrew class that I took as part of my undergraduate studies. My Hebrew professor, who was a Rabbi from Argentina, brought in some Hamentaschen or Oznei Haman cookies for Purim and told the class that the cookies were shaped like the ears of Haman, the villain of Purim. Not quite sure about the symbolism of eating the ears of your defeated enemy, but I do know that they are one tasty pastry. Yum! Purim and Hamantaschen searches are primarily from New York, which should come as know surprise given that New York has such a large Jewish population.

 

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Photo: texasgopvote.com

Of course, a big topic of the week was Super Tuesday. An interesting point was that the state that seemed to care most about these primary and caucus elections (based on searches) was Utah. More searches on Super Tuesday were from Utah than even the states where the elections were taking place. 

Entertaining Tweets with Kombucha Tea

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Photo: ESPN

Twitter trends this week show that entertainment tweets reign supreme (this is also true for searches). From tweets anouncing JK Rowling's new novel in the works for adults to sports to the Oscars. I have to admit I do my fare share of Wales Rugby--Go Wales!--tweets. Entertainment tweets, of course, provide excellent data for marketers who need to now how to allocate their currently constrained budgets. Twitter can almost be the one stop shopping place for information that can be used to make better decisions on which celebrities would make good endorsers (basedabout them, and what they tweet about) on what is tweeted  and which programs would be best for ad placements. For example, using tools like Trendistic allows you to see tha While Rihana has some recent spikes that surpass Justin Bieber, but Justin Bieber has a more steady trendline the  surpasses Rihanna. Using Google Insight in conjunction with Twitter Trends can show areas of the world where marketers could localize ads. This may provide some surprising results. For example, a recent Twitter Trend, the Daytona 500: Google Insights shows that most searches came from Iowa, Vermont, and Maine. I always associated Nascar with the South, not New England, so surpris e to me.

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Photo: Wikipedia

This week, Kombucha Tea was trending. I didn't know what it was, so I went to Wikipedia to discover that it is a fermented tea first produced in 19th century Russia and is usually consumed for medicinal purposes. "Kombucha producers often claim 'kombucha detoxifies the body and energizes the mind', although there is little published research on its health benefits. Proponents claim it aids cancer recovery, increases energy, sharpens eyesight, aids joint recovery, improves skin elasticity, aids digestion, and improves experience with foods that 'stick' going down, such as rice or pasta." Obviouslly it is an alternative medicine being used, which is why it is no suprise that searches for this tea were most popular in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and California. Recentlly published articles helped explain the trend of drinking this tea, which most likely helped facilitate the search trend. Canadian newspaper "The Province" published an article on February 26 and stating, "Kombucha tea has become exceedingly trendy lately amongst the health-conscious, and stars such as Lindsay Lohan  Madonna, Meg Ryan, and Halle Berry have even been spotted sipping the tea." Who knew?

 

Must Be Mardi Gras Time

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Photo: Bunkycooks

King Cakes, as pictured above, are currently trending facilitated by write ups in the LA Times and given that it is a treat consumed during Mardi Gras. Apparently, this cake is an indulgence that is enjoyed before Lent, the time whn many Catholics deny themselves indulgences in preparation for Easter. A recipe in the LA times has the cake filled with apples and cream cheese, and of course a plastic baby doll to represent Jesus, to be found by the person who is served the lucky piece. So, bite carefully into your piece of cake. The searches for this cake is limited to Lousiana, Texas, California, and New York. I imagine that the New York and California hits are primarily from news agencies. Searches on Mardi Gras in general are concentrated in the South, in and around Lousiana, which is probably why many of you have never heard of King Cakes, nor would I have had it not been trending.

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Photo: planet-iran.com

While New Orleans party prep goes on, despite the drums of war, Iranian Google searches focused on festivals of their own. One of the top searches this week was about the 30th annual Fajr Film Festival ( جشنواره فیلم فجر), which ended on February 12th.Even in Israel, reality show Big Brother seems to be more top of mind than any threat of war, solely based on internet searches. As far as war is concerned, over the past 30 days most searches on the subject are coming out of the Hamadan province of Iran, where the Shahrokhi Tactical Air Base is located. Apparently this based contains F4 Phantom fighters and perhaps some SU-24s.

Is my political science background showing itself?

Mammoth Chocolate Covered Strawberries

A lot of buzz has been created by the above footage of what a Russian engineer claims was a Wooly Mammoth. In the words of my British MBA colleague, this sounds a little "wooly" to a lot of folks. Most think that this blurred image is of a bear carrying a fish. Regardless, it is true that there are many species of animals that are rediscovered after being long thought to be extinct, However, the animals are not nearly the size of a mammoth. Even if the mammoth remains extinct that may not be the case for much longer, if Japanese scientists have anything to say about it. Scientists in Japan are currently trying to clone the ancient beast from the DNA extracted from ancestors discovered in ice. I personally think the prospect of seeing a wooly mammoth reimerge on the earth scene to be quite exciting.

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Photo: fancyhouseroad.com

It must be nearly Valentine's Day, because there are a lot of searches on chocolate dipped strawberries. It looks like a lot of people are looking for instructions for diy chocolte strawberries. It looks like these tasty treats are most respected in the South, with Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri topping the list of states where most of the searches are coming from. Searches are non-existent in North Dakota and Wyoming, which make me wonder if they like their strawberries to be strawberries and their chocolate to be chocolate.

 

Happy Groundhog Day!

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So, according to Punxsutawney Phil, we are in for six more weeks of winter. Obviouslly, many people wanted to know how much longer they would have to wait to moth ball their sweaters and coats, as all things related to groundhog day was trending. While Phil says more winter, most groundhogs around the country, like Buckyeye Chuck or Woody the Woodchuck, called for an early spring. Not just because I am a native Ohioan, but because I want an early spring, I'll go with Buckeye Chuck. Based on searches, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and Nebraska could care less about groundhog day. Perhaps it is because these states know that regardless they are going to have a long winter.

The above VW ad teaser was uploaded to youtube on Jan 18, and already has over 11 million views. My wife said that she immediately wanted to buy a Passat after watching the ad. You don't see or hear about a car, but the ad still achieves its goal. VW has well strengthened its association with Star Wars with this ad. Everytime I hear the classic John Williams tunes or see my sons playing with their (our) Star Wars toys, I will think about Das Auto. I expect to see some VW ads before the new release of Star Wars Episode I in 3D this month, but do they even have to?