The Weekly Listen: Does Facebook actually have a young person problem, the interactive ads of the future, and more

Audio by Marcus Johnson, Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, Max Willens, and Stephanie Taglianetti | UPDATED: Sep 16, 2024

Episode Transcript:

Marcus Johnson:

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Hello, everyone and thanks hanging out with us for the Behind the Numbers: Weekly Listen, an eMarketer podcast. This is the Friday show that doesn't trust people who don't get popcorn at the movies.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

That's right.

Marcus Johnson:

Fair?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Valid.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Valid.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Did you know that movie theater popcorn butter is not actually butter?

Stephanie Taglianetti:

It's Flavacol.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

So if you are lactose intolerant, you can have movie theater butter. I discovered that recently and it changed my life.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

I have a friend who buys Flavacol by the industrial size pumps.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Wow.

Marcus Johnson:

Whoa, that's too much.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

It is too much.

Marcus Johnson:

Anyway, I'm Marcus, your host. In today's show, does Facebook actually have a young person problem? What will be the most popular kinds of interactive ads? Has Amazon's Just Walk Out technology found a new home? Can a new AI news aggregator become the Spotify for news? And how are people moving around America? Join me for this episode. We have three people. Let us meet them. We start with our vice president of everything briefings. She's based in New Jersey. We call her Stephanie Taglianetti.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Cheers mate.

Marcus Johnson:

Hello there. We're also joined by our senior analyst who covers everything digital advertising and media based in Virginia. It's Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Howdy, everybody.

Marcus Johnson:

Hello there. And someone else with that same title on that same team, but based in Philadelphia. He's called Max Willens.

Max Willens:

Yo.

Marcus Johnson:

Hey fella. So we have the story for you. We've got a debate in the middle. We end with some trivia. Let's get to it. We start at the top with the story of the week.

Does Facebook actually have a young person problem? Maybe not. We'll discuss. Facebook hints as an attempt to call Gen Z users, Gen Z is the folks who are roughly 12 to 13 to 26. This was a note, an article from our briefings' writer Daniel Konstantinovich. He was saying that the social media giant Facebook has positioned itself as a resource for Gen Z adults in a blog titled Navigating Your Twenties with Facebook, highlighting uses like meeting friends with Facebook groups, furnishing an apartment with Marketplace or finding a romantic partner with Facebook dating. Daniel says the post could signal a more aggressive push to capture Gen Z users, a key demographic Facebook has struggled to capture for some time. He points to a Pew Research survey showing Facebook's share of US teens precipitously falling over the last decade going from 71% to 33% today.

However, when you look at the whole Gen Z generation, not just the teens, the older folks as well, the ones in their 20s, it paints a different picture, appearing to show that as young people go from their teens to early 20s, they are hopping on Facebook. Today, our forecasting team thinks that there are 10 million more Gen X Facebook users compared to Gen Z ones, but in four years that gap evaporates with about 41 million of each cohort using Facebook as Gen X goes down a bit and Gen Z goes up a bit. Stephanie, I'll start with you. Do you think given all of this and maybe more that Facebook actually has a young person problem?

Stephanie Taglianetti:

I mean it's interesting to look at the growing number of users but then declining time that those people are spending on Facebook. So I think it doesn't matter if you have the users, if they are spending increasingly less time on the platform, you just have a bunch of dead user weight. So I think they very well might have a Gen Z problem. Right now, Gen Z's spending 11 minutes on Facebook a day. That's compared to people spending 20, 15 minutes in older demographics. So they're definitely spending the least amount of time and we actually forecast that by 26 they're going to spend just 9 minutes a day on the platform. So even if more people sign up, they're spending less and less time on Facebook.

Marcus Johnson:

I think you're spot on. The slight counterpoint to that is that time spent on Facebook is falling for everyone under the age of 45, not just Gen Z people. Now at this point it's basically Millennials and Gen Z people and I think a couple of maybe few years of Gen X. But yeah, your point's well taken and in some instances quite a significant drop in terms of time spent when you look at that younger cohort in terms of total time per day.

Max Willens:

I think that the more instructive way to think about what Facebook is and will be for Gen Z is to think of it more as a utility rather than a source of entertainment. So if the goal is to sort of, in Meta's headquarters is to turn Facebook into a new source of entertainment, I think that that's kind of a doomed proposition. But if they are willing to just wait and let the scale and maturity of offerings that were alluded to like groups like Marketplace just kind of make themselves useful to Gen Z, then they're going to be just fine.

Earlier this month, or excuse me, earlier this summer, I authored a report that looked at social commerce behavior across platforms. And to me the most interesting stat in the entire survey was that if you basically just look at all of the places that people who say that they've shopped while using social media, if you look at where they've shopped, the greatest number of respondents said Facebook overall. The second highest number was people who indicated that they had used Facebook Marketplace, and so that means more people than have shopped while using Instagram, more people than had shopped using TikTok or Snapchat.

I think that, again, if they want it to be a place where people spend all their time mindlessly scrolling and amusing themselves, they're in big trouble. But if they're willing to accept that they can make some money off of people who spend a lot of time in groups because that they have to join either because they move into some particular community or they have children and their children's schoolmates parents are all in some sort of Facebook group or they get really into cooking Filipino food and they want to find people who can help them do that, they're going to be just fine.

Because the reality is that their attempts to claw or eat away at those positions that Facebook has built up have really not worked very well. So Nextdoor technically still exists, but really doesn't have very much penetration and doesn't have a terribly robust ads business. Reddit and Craigslist, which could in some ways maybe approximate the marketplace function, are plagued by combinations of anonymity, which I think adds a measure of uncertainty and kind of caution among users. And so if Facebook, excuse me, if Meta is willing to accept that this is Facebook's lot, is to sort of turn into a utility for people as they start to become adults and adult consumers, then I think it's going to be just fine.

Marcus Johnson:

It's a great take. Facebook Marketplace is driving young people's Facebook adoption as well as groups, but Daniel in the piece was noting that Marketplace in particular, one of Facebook's most used features among young adults. March Social Commerce survey, 75% of Gen Z users had bought something on Facebook in the last 12 months. Millennials were in first, but they were only a few percentage points higher.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Yeah, I mean, Marketplace is the only reason that there is one phone in this house that has the Facebook app on it. I'm on the younger side of the Millennial cohort if anyone is curious about my credentials for speaking for the entire young person demographic here. But I mean to Max's point, I think the utility of Facebook is really what gives it sticking power because in addition to the adoption problem among younger users, there's also, like we've mentioned with the time spent going down and just generally adoption, it's not going up into the right anymore. Making sure that there is a reason that users can't leave Facebook. There are other entertainment choices, there are other places to interact with your family and friends, but Marketplace, those groups functions only exist in scale on Facebook and I think that's where Facebook needs to put its eggs, if you will.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, things don't look too bad for the platform, do they? I mean, we mentioned that the millions are going up for the Gen Z Facebook users, but also sometimes they're going up and the shares going down. In this case, the share of Gen Z Facebook users is also growing. Today, 49% of Gen Z folks use Facebook and that's growing to 57% by the next Olympics. That's Facebook using it once a month. However, it's still people using it and it's also that share of people, Gen Z Facebook users going up is in contrast to the every other generation is falling, the share of Facebook users in every other generation is going in the wrong direction. The other part of this is how much does Facebook really care? Because Facebook is Meta and Meta has Instagram. And Instagram, I think Daniel's noting this, is the most popular social platform among Gen Z users with slightly more young people using Instagram, 50 million than use TikTok, I think at like 49 million. So well positioned in that regard as well.

That's what we've got time for the story of the week. Let's move now to a debate. Today's segment, make the case. For our panel, Stephanie, Max and Evelyn will become lawyers for the following arguments based on three news stories. These positions or takes don't necessarily reflect the analyst's personal views. They have been tasked with presenting the best case that they possibly can. So question one, we have Max going up against Evelyn, what will be the most popular kinds of interactive ads?

So Daniel Konstantinovich, which again notes that exposure to interactive ads on streaming services improves brand recall by as much as 36%, according to a recent BrightLine and Media Science study. He points out that interactivity is a cornerstone of major streamers like Disney Plus's push into shoppable marketing as Disney and Brightline recently partnered to launch the advergame. Interactive format which takes the form of quizzes and surveys. And Disney also partnered with Kerv to create QR code based shoppable ads. He says, "As CTV viewership grows, interactive ads are likely to become a staple of video advertising." The question is, what will be the most popular kinds of interactive ads? Max is going to argue the most popular interactive ads will be add to cart. That was his choice. 60 seconds on the clock, make the case.

Max Willens:

So I think that the long sought after value proposition that we've seen when it comes to ads is the ability to collapse the funnel the way that social media platforms have done so effectively over the last, let's call it half decade. And even though the exact ideal version of this ad, I think has yet to be introduced. I think that it's quite plausible that what we're going to be seeing a lot of in the next two years is an ability not just to have to hurriedly pull out your phone and pause your television and take a photo of a QR code, but it's going to be more like the link in bio feature that you find on Instagram where if you're scrolling past something and you see an image that's really intoxicating, you can essentially pop open your phone and at your leisure, go and back to it later and go, I'd like to read that.

And the same thing I think we'll start to see happen in CTV where if you're in the middle of watching some show on Prime Video and you see an ad in the middle of the first commercial break, you can basically pop the Prime Video thing open, tap on what you were watching, and just essentially add the product that you saw advertised into your cart. It's not in the wild yet, but I think that's a matter of when not if.

Marcus Johnson:

Interesting. Evelyn, you have chosen Choose Your Own Adventure ads as the most popular interactive ads. Make the case for those.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Yeah, I think add to cart ads and shoppable ads in general will continue to be popular with advertisers. Max, you made a great case here, but among consumers, I can't see shoppable ads being more popular than other interactive ads, especially not in the short-term when like you mentioned, the shoppable experience has so many points of friction. Really we're a long way off from seeing an ad, clicking a button, and then the item you purchased shows up on your doorstep. I think interactive formats that make the ad experience more like content that a consumer would choose to watch will become more popular and Choose Your Own Adventure ads work with consumers desire to be entertained and they can successfully engage consumers at various stages in their purchase journeys. They're also more universally relevant to brands regardless of product category. So shoppable ads, gamified ads, AR ads, not all of those work for all brands, but if a brand can tell a story, they can create a Choose Your Own Adventure ad.

Marcus Johnson:

Great. I liked Daniel's example in this piece, the Reebok ad where they developed an outdoor interactive ad campaign in Sweden using a speed camera. They gave away a free pair of shoes to whoever ran past the billboard the fastest. I thought that was pretty clever. All right, great start folks.

Let's move to question two. We've got Stephanie against Max for this one. Has Amazon's Just Walk Out technology found a new home? Amazon landed Just Walk Out partnerships with more NFL stadiums and college campuses, writes our senior research analyst covering payments Grace Broadbent. She explains that the cashier-less technology will be used at a handful of new stores at the home stadiums of NFL teams, the Seattle Seahawks, Washington Commanders and Baltimore Ravens. It will also find its way to new stores at Emory University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Virginia, now at over 30 campuses across the US, UK and Australia. Grace notes that earlier this year, Amazon pulled back on using the contactless technology, Just Walk Out, at its grocery stores because it struggled with high costs, privacy concerns and receipt inaccuracies.

Question is, has Amazon's Just Walk Out technology found a new home at stadiums and universities? Stephanie is arguing that it has found a new home there. Make the case.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Yeah, so this is a smart focusing strategy on the location types that make sense for this technology. Just Walk Out had a hard time taking off in grocery because it's just not well suited to handle large-scale shopping journeys. So focusing on the right types of locations is key for success. And locations like stadiums and college campuses are great because you can akin it to being in a rush at the airport and being forced into a Hudson News for a quick grab and go item. So people are in a rush, they're making quick decisions, they have just one or two quick things that they need. And so the format works really well for these types of locations.

Marcus Johnson:

Max arguing Just Walk Out hasn't found a new home. Make the case.

Max Willens:

I am going to just say up front that Stephanie made some good cases. I basically am going to take a very lawyerly position here and just say that this technology hasn't really found a new home yet because all the places that Amazon is licensing this tech to are so atypical as shopping settings that it's not really typical of any other environment. So places like football stadiums, like college campuses are defined by their sort of unnatural levels of surveillance that people tolerate in exchange for special experiences. I will say that I think that Amazon, if they can get this to work, will probably go to casinos next because literally everything you do inside of a casino is watched very carefully.

But I just think that this is going to wind up blowing up in the licensees faces. It's going to take, I think probably just two semesters for the people that live nearby these college campuses to realize that you can basically steal by going into the student union and grabbing whatever you want. And the sports stadiums are, I think because the technology continues to struggle with essentially receipt problems is going to run into major consumer blow back because the last thing you want is to be charged twice for an outrageously expensive beer or cheeseburger in a sports stadium. And so-

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Or a sweatshirt.

Max Willens:

That's exactly right. So I think that even though they've found some people to try out licensing it, I think that the technology's core problems are going to doom it in the long run.

Marcus Johnson:

Just for the record, don't steal. Okay.

Max Willens:

Not advocating that to be clear.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

You're not pointing out an easier location to do so.

Marcus Johnson:

[inaudible 00:18:18] has come for me again. Well, I found some research on how much people enjoy doing this, the Just Walk Out thing. This chart here shows Americans preferred grocery store checkout method. This is from last year. Just Walk Out was a distant third place with just 10% versus around 40% of people who said self-checkout with a kiosk or the traditional checkout with a human. The survey was from Progressive Grocer and RIS News. However, 10% isn't nothing, and it was last year, so maybe it's gone up, potentially, might gone down too.

All right folks, let's move to our final round. Final question for the debate. We've got Max versus Evelyn for this one. AI news aggregator Break the Web wants to be Spotify for news writes, Adweek's Trishla Ostwal, explaining that the company wants to make it easier for folks to easily catch up on news whilst getting a range of perspectives. With the help of Gen AI, Break the Web scours free internet sites for the latest news and uses an algorithm to sort and rank internet topics in real time. Miss Ostwal says, "The platform features 12 to 15 trending topics like Putin, Mongolia, which refresh every 10 minutes. Users view AI generated summaries for each topic, can swipe through for snippets with citations from various publications and click through to full articles on the original publisher's site."

Break the Web co-founder and CEO Jake Guernsey says in the Adweek piece, the system he wants to see implemented would be something akin to Spotify for journalism, where users pay a flat rate subscription for access to all content across the ecosystem. And then we do a revenue share with publishers on a per click basis on the back end. Max is arguing that Spotify for news can work. Make the case.

Max Willens:

I would argue that it works because a product like this already exists and it's called Apple News Plus. So people that have been paying attention to media for a long time, will remember that about a decade ago Apple bought Texture, which was a joint venture formed by the then mighty magazine publishers, Hearst, Condé Nast and Time Inc. And the idea was that users would pay a flat fee to access basically all of the content published by those publishers. So you could read The New Yorker, you could read Time Magazine, you could read, I think Bloomberg Business Week was also in there for some reason. And Apple liked this idea so much that they bought it and ported it over to Apple News Plus. And Apple News has turned into a not insignificant stream of revenue for publishers. It's a little bit tougher. Apple tried to make this widely available to people on Android devices. I'm not up-to-date on how well that's gone, but the easiest argument that this is a good idea is that it already had as an idea and it seems to have worked.

Marcus Johnson:

Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I honestly think it's a great idea in theory, but in practice I think it will fail, partially because something like this already exists that just serves that use case for most consumers. But I also think that the subset of people who seek news for the sake of being generally informed is very, very small these days. According to Pew Research Center, the share of US adults that closely follow the news has been trending down since at least 2016. So throw a subscription price on top, and I find it very hard to believe that the product will gain traction. And then news aside, plenty of folks do want to stay on top of trends, but we don't need another trend detecting algorithm out there. It's already a pretty saturated space, TikTok and Instagram at the top of it. So my gut reaction whenever I hear algorithm is to question what signals are being considered to determine what makes the cut at any given time. Can those signals be gained? How will revenue sharing agreements influence the sources that appear in the summaries? There are just too many holes to poke here, I think.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, it's an interesting concept and we've seen it in a few other worlds. I think for streaming as well, it was posed, I can't remember the company, the idea of revenue sharing basically across what you choose to watch. And then that show would get a little bit of money from the pot. The argument's interesting though from Mr. Guernsey, who is the founder of this company, Break the Web saying, "We've kind of gone from album to single consumption." In terms of music saying, "One of the lessons we've learned from Spotify is that we don't consume content by the album anymore, but by the single. And I'd like to see that logic ported over to the news industry. It would work for users who would get access to all the content they want without being blocked by a paywall. And it would work for publishers who would add a major revenue channel targeting the 99% of people who would never subscribe to the whole publication, but would engage with individual articles. To me, that's a win-win."

So yeah, people I think do have a news budget, might be a dwindling one to Evelyn's point, and those numbers from Pew. But if you can buy two or three subscriptions and you have to basically just only get behind the paywall of those subscriptions versus being able to spread that money across multiple different sources, from a consumer standpoint, I think it's interesting. But publishers, maybe not so much. How's it doing so far? The free platform launched last summer. Break the Web has attracted over 10,000 users across multiple countries. We'll see.

That's what we've got time for for our debate of the week. Excellent cases. Folks, we turn now to dinner party data, our trivia portion. This is the part of the show where we tell you about the most interesting thing we've learned this week. Let's go Stephanie first.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

So I don't know if you know, but September 13th is Roald Dahl Day. So I have some fun facts about the beloved author who is responsible for more than 20 children's books, including known favorites of mine, such as the Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Witches and Matilda.

Marcus Johnson:

No BFG?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

BFG.

Marcus Johnson:

BFG can't crack the top three? Moving on. Evelyn.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

These are my personal faves.

Marcus Johnson:

All right, fine.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

So he invented more than 500 words and character names. His language is actually called Gobblefunk, maybe you know some of the more well-known ones such as balumpa and scrumdiddlyumptious, lesser known ones such as squibbling and delumptious. James and the Giant Peach was almost called James and the Giant Cherry, but it was changed from cherry to peach because Dahl said that peaches are prettier and bigger and squishier than cherries.

Marcus Johnson:

Excellent point.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

And my [inaudible 00:25:02], in fact was that Roald Dahl fought in World War II and was a spy. And his work as a spy saw him collaborate with James Bond creator Ian Fleming. So Roald Dahl wrote the film storyline for the fifth James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice. And he also adapted Ian Fleming's children's story, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang into the script for the big screen.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Wow.

Max Willens:

I love all of those. That's very good.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I know. Me too.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Just some fun Roald Dahl facts. What a cool guy. Just like really cool guy. Wholesome content too.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Indeed.

Marcus Johnson:

The uncle you wish you had.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

And now the unwholesome facts about the same day.

Marcus Johnson:

[inaudible 00:25:48].

Stephanie Taglianetti:

We can go to Evelyn.

Marcus Johnson:

All right, Evelyn, you're up.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Well, today is Friday the 13th as Stephanie was alluding to. It's a day feared by many. In fact, we have a word for fear of Friday the 13th. And let's see if I can say it because it's a long one.

Marcus Johnson:

Do we need one?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Paraskevidekatriaphobia.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Naturally, rolls off the tongue.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I think that's how you say it.

Marcus Johnson:

A Roald Dahl.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

The word is gobblefunk.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Yes. Roald Dahl definitely... Can I say his name? I used up all my words on trying to say that. Roald Dahl definitely had a hand in making that word. It has 11 syllables in it. And I counted because I thought that maybe somebody was trolling here and the word had 13 syllables in it, but it's only 11.

So according to the Wikipedia page for Friday the 13th, there is a Friday the 13th once every 212-ish days on average, but there can be up to three Friday the 13th's, Friday's the 13th. I don't know what the plural is-

Marcus Johnson:

[inaudible 00:26:57].

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

In a single calendar year. And there are many theories regarding where this superstition comes from. The BBC wrote an article on this last year. It's believed that Judas who betrayed Jesus was the 13th guest to sit down at the Last Supper. Similarly, in Norse mythology, Loki the 13th guest at a dinner party of the Gods committed the ultimate party foul and plunged the world into darkness. But for whatever reason, the number 13 and Friday the 13th are considered unlucky here in the West. So from us at eMarketer, best of luck today.

Marcus Johnson:

That sounds like a threat.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

It was meant-

Marcus Johnson:

More than a warning. Very good. Max.

Max Willens:

Speaking of I guess unwholesome stuff. So the Philadelphia Fringe Festival is currently underway in Philadelphia where I live, and I decided to participate in one of the city's premiere cultural moments on the calendar by going to a show titled Owen Corey and James Ofalt Punch Each Other in the [inaudible 00:28:10] Until One Submits. And I really enjoyed myself. I won't spoil anything, but this show is for I think, reasons you can all guess, not going to happen again. And it got me thinking about what kinds of... Or how many shows there have been in Broadway history that closed after one night. And so I found an article on Playbill's website, I don't know if this is comprehensive or not, but they said that there have been 22 that closed after opening night, including a revival of Home Sweet Homer, which is considered to be the first musical ever performed in the United States, which is written in the 1920s.

A show called Little Johnny Jones, or no, excuse me, Little Johnny Jones was the first one. Home Sweet Homer was a musical about Homer the blind bard who wrote the Iliad. There was a musical version of Lysistrata, which unsurprisingly did not do super well. Also for those of you keeping score at home, there were several other shows that were closed before they even opened. So they basically went through previews and people were like, yeah, this is not going to work. Those include adaptations of The Little Prince, a beloved children's book, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and my favorite, which was called Senator Joe! about Joseph McCarthy, which lasted three previews and was closed immediately. So go to the Fringe Festivals if you live near one because they're very good.

Marcus Johnson:

Main takeaway, Max, how are you spending your free time?

Max Willens:

Chasing my child mostly. When I can get away-

Marcus Johnson:

Okay, good.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I saw The Little Prince just as a fun moment of connection here. I did.

Marcus Johnson:

Any good?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I mean it was interesting. I don't think it was for American audiences. It was very French.

Marcus Johnson:

Oh no. It was very French.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

But it was cool. It was like a Cirque kind of situation.

Marcus Johnson:

Nice.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Cirque-ation.

Marcus Johnson:

All right folks, I've got-

Stephanie Taglianetti:

I was trying to think of it. It didn't come out great.

Marcus Johnson:

We'll cut that out.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Yeah. Thank you.

Marcus Johnson:

How are people moving around America is the one I have for you real quick. So this is in terms of moving, not tourism. We did tourism yesterday.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Oh, I think I saw this chart. It's interesting.

Marcus Johnson:

Oh, I don't have a chart.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Oh, it was like a-

Marcus Johnson:

What do you have?

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Modes of transportation across the-

Marcus Johnson:

Oh, I don't have that either. That's not this either.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Oh, okay.

Marcus Johnson:

But that would also be interesting. Have none of those things. Okay? I brought I guess where people are moving. So we'll start big picture. America has a lot more people, a lot more people than did in 1990. So in the past 30 years, America's population has grown by 36%. That means it added 90 million people. Now around 340 million. Turkey for context is the 18th largest country in the world. That country has 90 million people. So America added one of those-

Stephanie Taglianetti:

One Turkey.

Marcus Johnson:

In 30 years. One Turkey. Second one, since 2020, the populations of America's three largest cities, New York, LA and Chicago have all been declining.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Including me. I left New York City.

Marcus Johnson:

Yes, same. I'm one of those people as well. And so since the pandemic, New York has lost 650,000 folks, that 7% of its population. 100,000 people have left LA and also have left Chicago. That would be about 3 to 4% of those two cities as well. Max, I looked up Philly for you. 67,000 people have left Philly. Evelyn I couldn't find-

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

People haven't left where I live. They came here from those places.

Marcus Johnson:

A few places have lost people in Virginia and New Jersey City closest I could find to Stephanie was flat. Large cities though are growing. Once you get past the top three, seven of the next nine largest cities are growing. The one exception being Philly. So Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Jacksonville, Fort Worth in Texas and Austin, they are all growing. If you look in the last year, the fastest growing and the fastest shrinking cities, fastest growing in the last year, Texas, has the three fastest growing cities in the country. Georgetown, Texas grew 10% in the last year. New Braunfels and Conroe grew about 5 to 6%. And shrinking, the fastest shrinking cities in the last year, San Francisco 2.5%, St. Louis 2.2%, and Jackson Mississippi's population about 2% as well.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Cool. I want to see a map that illustrate, like a visual-

Marcus Johnson:

I don't have a map. Okay? I don't have a chart.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I'm not saying that you need to provide the map. I'm just saying the data you just said-

Marcus Johnson:

It's never good enough.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Would be cool to see an animated map to show where people are flowing. Am I wrong?

Marcus Johnson:

On YouTube, it's just going to be my face telling you these things. Okay? Not that kind of budget. I'm holding my microphone for crying out loud. You think we have budget for maps? We don't. That's what we've got time for for this episode. Thank you so much to my guests. Thank you to Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Thank you Marcus for making me laugh.

Marcus Johnson:

I try. Thank you to Max.

Max Willens:

Always a pleasure, Marcus. Thank you.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you to Stephanie.

Stephanie Taglianetti:

Thank you.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you to Stuart who runs the team but won't buy me equipment. Sophie, who does our social media. Victoria edits the show. Lance runs our video podcast. Thanks to everyone for listening in. We hope to see you on Monday for Behind the Numbers: Daily, an eMarketer podcast. Happiest of weekends. Except you, Stuart.

First Published on Sep 13, 2024