The Weekly Listen: How finding products online could evolve, ads coming to chatbots, and Target's new paid membership

On today's podcast episode, we discuss what finding products online will look like in 2025, if Target's new membership program can stack up against Amazon Prime and Walmart+, how ads on chatbots will change advertising, how to make stores more fun places to shop, what the world's first "ketchup insurance" offers, how Americans use dating apps, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our vice president of content Suzy Davidkhanian and analysts Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf and Carina Perkins.

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Episode Transcript:

Marcus Johnson:

This episode is made possible by Nielsen. Hiding behind every good decision is great data because when you're prepared, there are no surprises, none. Empower your decision making. With Nielsen's 2024 Upfronts/NewFronts guide, you can head to nielsen.com for that very guide and much more information.

Hello everyone and thanks for hanging out with us for the Behind the Numbers weekly listen and eMarketer video podcast made possible by Nielsen. This is the Friday show that got overexcited about sharing their screen, didn't we, Suzy? Someone said, "Can you share your screen?" And Suzy went, "Yes, I'd love to, finally."

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I was just trying to get into the energy vibe because I'm going to win today.

Marcus Johnson:

It was good. Before turning off the Wi-Fi, Suzy goes, "Okay, ready?" Like you worked at NASA shutting off Wi-Fi in 5, 4, just do it. Just turn it off.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

It's not starting well for me right now. I'm just saying.

Marcus Johnson:

No.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

What is happening?

Marcus Johnson:

I'm your host, Marcus Johnson. In today's show, how finding products online is evolving, Target launches a new paid membership program. What will ads look like on ChatBots? How do you make Macy's stores more fun places to shop? Heinz releases the world's first ketchup insurance, and we've got some facts about online dating in the US.

Join me for this episode. We have three people. Let us meet them. We start with our senior analysts covering everything, retail and E-commerce, and a little bit of UK. She's based there on the south coast of England. It's Carina Perkins.

Carina Perkins:

Hi Marcus. Nice to be on.

Marcus Johnson:

Hello there. We're also joined by... Why are you laughing?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Why is she always laughing?

Carina Perkins:

I'm so sorry. I just thought about the pizza joke. Oh, God.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

What?

Carina Perkins:

Remember when she did the pizza box joke?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

The box joke.

Marcus Johnson:

Oh, they didn't land for like an hour. Yeah, try to forget.

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

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Hi Marcus. And hello everyone.

Marcus Johnson:

Hello there. And we finally are joined by our vice president of content. Also heads up our retail and eCommerce team based in New York City. It's Suzy Davidkhanian.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.

Marcus Johnson:

Of course Stewart made me.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Was that enough energy?

Marcus Johnson:

What do you have in stair... Was a little much. What do we have in store for you today? We start with a story of the week. We talk about how finding products online is evolving. Then we will play the game of the week. What's the point? Is what it's called where our contestants will go head-to-head-to-head, try to give us the best takes they can from each of the four stories we have for you. And we end with some random trivia. It's of course dinner party data, but we start top of the show with the story of the week.

How finding products online is evolving. So retail companies are retooling their online search experiences to offer shoppers more relevant personalized results. Star Retail Briefings Analyst, Rachel Wolff, and she offers two such examples.

One, Walmart is about to roll out its gen AI powered search tool to Android users delivering more curated and relevant results whilst guiding shoppers to products they didn't even know they needed.

A second example, Victoria's Secret recently revamped its search experience, including adding a visual search tool to help address customer queries more effectively and offer more useful personalized results. Rachel writes, "The online search is ripe for reinvention."

So I've asked our panel to be search improvement inventors. As we play mini Shark Tank. Each contestant will present their version of an improved world of online search. I have 10 investment points to give out the best of the idea, the more investment points they get.

Suzy, let's start with you. What is your best idea for how to improve finding products online?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

So the good news is that I did not follow instructions 100% in that. I think before we even start talking about search, we have to talk about filters. So let's assume that the filters on the website are working properly. I think once you've gotten your filters done properly, which should be at the basis of anything that has to do with a shopping trip, then I think we have to decide about search being two different types of functions. There's basic, which is non gen AI, which is just regular tagging.

So I guess if I had to answer your question a little bit more directly for 2025-

Marcus Johnson:

To the point.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

... everybody should have the right tags and they should be using consumer facing words, not denim, but jeans. Not husky, but slightly. I don't know, you need a nicer word than slightly overweight boys, but we have to use the right tags when it comes to regular search.

And retailers need to figure out a better mapping out of paid search versus organic search because right now the websites are so cluttered with junk that is not consumer friendly. So I think before we even talk about gen AI, they need to fix regular basic search. So that's my answer for 2025.

Marcus Johnson:

Fix basic search.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Which is not what you were looking for.

Marcus Johnson:

No.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

So from an AI perspective, I do think that there are things that they need to do, but the examples that we're using are not search. Help me plan for a birthday party is not search necessarily, right? It's like that's inspiration, helping bring things that I didn't think were going to come to light. But we have a much bigger problem, which I think Rachel put the numbers in one of her articles, people abandon or was that for a different one?

Marcus Johnson:

No, you're right.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

People abandon any sort of shopping trip when they're searching. I think it was something around 80%.

Marcus Johnson:

It's spot on. 80% of shoppers left a retailer's site due to poor performing search [inaudible 00:06:23] survey.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

And that's basics. We're not even talking about gen AI. So I'm sorry I didn't answer your question, but I stand by my answer.

Marcus Johnson:

Okay. You didn't answer it at all, but it was actually a really good answer somehow. So the right tags, fixing basic search and also-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

And then also not cluttered. If I'm searching for... Now, I did. Okay. No, no, you know what I did have something for your 2025 tools. So if I'm searching, one of the examples was a rectangle or a tray. I would like gen AI to come and say to me decorative, basic and group the search things into one sort of filtered sort of model.

So then I go to like, oh yeah, I want under... They already do by price point, but I want modern looking or this looking or that looking based on the search results that would help me. Then I can not go to any of the wood ones and go straight to the black ones or whatever it is, but at the end of the day, the basic search is not good. So they got to fix that first.

Marcus Johnson:

Carina, you're up.

Carina Perkins:

Sure. So I didn't realize we were limited to 2025 on this one. Oh, we won't. We won't, right? This was the future of search, right? Okay. I'm going to go for it then.

So I think part of the problems, I've used the fashion assistant that's been rolled out by Zalando and I have a feeling that the people who've trialed the Amazon one are getting a similar feedback, which is that it's really, really hit-and-miss.

And actually a lot of the answers you're getting aren't that really helpful and it's a bit frustrating. And to be honest, I abandoned my search because it wasn't really giving me anything interesting.

I think part of that problem is although they're calling it personalized search and it is much more conversational and contextual. So it might know my search history or my location and I might be able to ask it, I want to go to a wedding in Greece and it'll give me an outfit suggestion, but it doesn't know my personal preferences. It doesn't know the fashion styles that I like. So I think it's still going to be way off the mark a lot of the time.

So my idea for the future of search is a search tool, which is your personal search tool. So it's kind of decentralized or centralized, I'm not really sure which best way to describe it. And it then searches retailer websites based on its intimate knowledge of you. And you as the consumer who owns the search tool can choose to share with it as much personal information as you like.

So the more personal information you share with it, you can upload lots of pictures of your favorite outfits. You can tell it where you've been on holiday, then the more personalized search suggestions it will give you. But if you don't want to share loads of your personal information, you don't have to. So that's my idea. So you could say-

Marcus Johnson:

Go on, tell me.

Carina Perkins:

So you could say instead of going to a particular retailer like Zalando and saying, okay, will you tell... I've got a wedding in Greece, tell me of an outfit. You could ask your personalized personal search tool and it will search the whole internet and all retailers to find something that suits you and your style.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Like a widget.

Carina Perkins:

Yeah. You could search for a holiday and it'll know where you've been on holiday, how much you want to spend on holiday.

Marcus Johnson:

Right.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Oh my God-

Carina Perkins:

So it's really personal search.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

... imagine they have access to your pictures and then it knows what you're wearing already.

Carina Perkins:

Exactly that. But you would have the option to share with it or not. And that's what I think is kind of crucial here is that the retailers wouldn't have that first part of the stage. It was not their tool. It's your tool that you are choosing to share. Obviously the app developer, me, would have all that data.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I am sure Google would love to be that search tool for everyone, right?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Carina.

Marcus Johnson:

So digital personal shopper.

Carina Perkins:

Yeah, kind of. But yeah, so-

Marcus Johnson:

That goes and searches the whole world.

Carina Perkins:

... you educate. Instead of the focus being on educating it on someone's product stock. Obviously it needs to be able to comb the internet and find what's available, but you educate it on yourself as much or as little as you want.

So if you want a really good personal shopper, you can share loads of personal information with it and pictures of the styles that you like and so on, or other people that you like.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I imagine it pings you and says, for those cowboy boots, these jeans would be perfect and they're on sale-

Carina Perkins:

Yeah, right.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

... and all of a sudden you're like, yes, let's buy that.

Marcus Johnson:

Suzy, stop helping her.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Why?

Marcus Johnson:

Because it's a competition.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I'm not-

Marcus Johnson:

It's not looking good for you anyway-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

... despite-

Marcus Johnson:

... to be perfectly honest.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

... popular belief, I am not that competitive.

Marcus Johnson:

No one believes that. Evelyn, best of luck. Carina's got pretty much all of the points at this moment.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I know. Well, I guess I fall in between the two others. I think Carina's product pitch is phenomenal and I guess I've focused mine more around individual retailers, what they could do to make online search better.

Because I think a lot of this conversation is couched around cart abandonment and adding extra. There's a phrase in some of our coverage of Walmart's tool that was showing consumers products they didn't even know they needed.

And so the focus around building sales, increasing incremental sales is, I think misguided because I think it should be optimized around the user experience. And that's a theme here that we've come across for all three of us.

But I think that there needs to be a ChatBot layer for those that prefer it. But traditional search needs to get a facelift to Suzy's point because people still use that. And if there is, let's say people are still going into a store and I use the Kroger app all the time to find where an item is when I'm in the store and I'm like... Where I am in Virginia, there are lots and lots of aisles in grocery stores. That's not this case in New York.

And then I think there's also an element too where provided the user consents, there can be an element of personalization over time. Whereas the consumer interacts with whatever profile retailers can get, with whatever retailer, that retailer can get better at building that profile over time.

So if a consumer always sorts their results by price, do that automatically the next time they search for something. Because something that I get aggravated with every time, if I have to redo my filters every time. If I'm doing the same filters every time that's annoying or filtering out products that are out of stock in the size that that user always buys. That's another annoying thing.

Where those little tweaks at the traditional search process can also be layered into that more futuristic generative AI search process.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

But I think Marcus, at the end of the day, the hardest part is finding and defining that balance. Defining that balance between a good user experience, which is what we're all advocating for and retailer dollars. And I think retailers are very shortsighted by doing things like not filtering on price if that's how you always filter, but doing it on the most viewed or the most popular because usually that's the merchandise they're trying to get rid of, right?

Marcus Johnson:

Nearly 70% of consumers encountering irrelevant results often when shopping online. 35% said they left a site for that very reason that going to that same Nosto Survey that was cited in Rachel's piece.

Carina gets all the points pretty much. So yeah, Carina's digital personal shopper. I think it's a brilliant idea. I'm going to give that 8 points. 8 of the 10 that I have. Suzy I'm going to give you one and one's Evelyn as well because they weren't groundbreaking ideas, but they're really, really important ideas. And so I'm going to hedge a little bit here.

Facelift for traditional search, better filtering what came up as a theme, the right tags as well. That's all still very, very important. And so before we get to the future, we have the present and we've got to make improvements there. So I'll say you get one each, but Carina gets most of the points.

Anything where there can be a side-by-side comparison, I think that would be my change. All right folks, that's all we've got time for the story of the week time now for the game of the week.

Today's game, What's The Point where Evelyn, Suzy and Carina answer four questions about four news stories. Okay answers get one point, good answers get two and answers that give you the same feeling as the 0.01 seconds of silence you get when you go under a bridge whilst driving in a crazy rainstorm. Doesn't that feel pretty good?

Carina Perkins:

Yeah, I love that.

Marcus Johnson:

See just the Brit because it rains a lot. Okay, nothing. All right.

Carina Perkins:

Got more bridges maybe. My favorite, the give PEASs A Chance Bridge. Give PEASs A Chance Bridge.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

As in the vegetable.

Carina Perkins:

Yeah, it's spelled PEAS. There's a bridge in the UK that as you drive under it says give PEASs A Chance.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Why?

Carina Perkins:

[inaudible 00:15:39]

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, it's pretty bad. Wait, just because you should-

Carina Perkins:

It's saying give peace a chance. That's the-

Marcus Johnson:

Peace a chance.

Carina Perkins:

... but it's spelt peace as peas.

Marcus Johnson:

Shocking.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

No, I got it.

Carina Perkins:

I honestly need to go and work on, I don't know standup.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

No, I got it. I got it.

Marcus Johnson:

Get Larry down.

Carina Perkins:

Talking about the green vegetable.

Marcus Johnson:

Get Larry over here.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

But you know what it is, it's just that maybe, I don't know, do you guys eat a lot of peas in your food? I know in Shepherd's Pie about where else is the-

Carina Perkins:

Oh, peas are a classic British.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Yeah, that's why we didn't get it.

Carina Perkins:

Yeah, okay. You don't eat a lot of peas?

Marcus Johnson:

Well that's not the only reason I didn't get it either. It was just poorly delivered.

Carina Perkins:

Thank you for embarrassing me.

Marcus Johnson:

Get Larry. I think so Larry's the llama in the background in Carina's... Could we get him down? He nearly filled in for Carina and I understand why now. It was a terrible joke.

Answers that leave you with some kind of feeling, you get you three points. 20 seconds to answer before you hear this. People who run long are terrible. Most points wins gets the last word. Let's play.

Let's start with Suzy for round one. Target is launching Target Circle 360, a paid membership program seeking to take on Amazon Prime and Walmart Plus Price.

Sarah Nassauer of the Journal, she notes that Target Circle 360 is an offshoot of an existing free program offering shoppers coupons on goods within Target's app. Ms. Nassauer says, "That the free program will continue to be linked to the existing 5% discount on purchases made with Target Circle Card previously called Red Card. A store branded credit card."

Seems way too complicated. The paid membership will cost a promotional $50 a year when it comes out in April, increasing to 100 in May. But Suzy, how will Target's new membership programs stack up against Amazon Prime and Walmart Plus.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

It won't. It's sad, it's not going to happen. I think they already have the freebie one, which is going to help with their loyalty and then they have the card, which also helps with loyalty.

I have that card every time I buy something, I get 5% cash back on their website for their items. So that makes sense. It's not really cashback, it's like a discount but adding... And then I don't know if you guys saw the itemized, what the membership entails. They would've had a chance if their membership entailed more than delivery, but it's all based on delivery and that's not enough anymore, right?

Today you already get things delivered in two days at $35 or more. Zero value.

Marcus Johnson:

Carina.

Carina Perkins:

Yeah, I agree with Suzy on all of that. I think it's interesting as well that their kind of big thing seems to be same day delivery. That's how they're setting themselves apart, but I'm not really sure how much that is a priority for consumers this day.

I found one Forrester report that found nearly half of US consumers said the option for same day delivery has no impact whatsoever on which retailer or brand they'll buy. So I'm not sure that's a big enough incentive.

As Suzy mentioned, they don't really have anything bar delivery, there's no streaming service. Amazon has Prime video and Amazon Music. Walmart has Paramount Plus, so I don't really see that they're going to stack up to be honest.

Marcus Johnson:

Okay. Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Yeah, I pretty much think the same thing. I think Target diehards will be pretty excited about it because there are some Target diehards that I know personally and it doesn't have any shot of becoming more popular than Amazon Prime, obviously.

I think some shoppers will opt for either Walmart Plus or Target Circle 360 and some might go for Prime Plus one or the other. But I don't think Target really has a chance over Walmart Plus. Walmart has the leg up with its Paramount Plus bracket, like Carina mentioned, and I imagine Target is probably working on a similar partnership to maybe try and reach parody.

But yeah, I think it's just a bandwagon move from Target.

Marcus Johnson:

Okay.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Which is sad. They should have probably waited to have multiple parts of their flywheel in place so that it was more compelling because now they're going to add stuff and then say like, okay, now it'll be $175. What are they? It's just very flat offering.

Marcus Johnson:

All right folks, round two, we start with Carina. Ads are coming to ChatBox writes Ina Fried of Axios. They explain that an early player here is Adzedek, a two person startup that serves ads within custom GPTs from open AI's GPT Store and in ChatBot apps using Open AI's API.

Adzedek returns sponsored results in its response to queries like search ads using a per click model with 75% of the ad revenue going to the ChatBot creator and 25% to Adzedek.

Ms. Fried notes that the new tech products start with ad formats that mimics what's come before it but find their most lucrative business in new native ad types.

One alternative model could be, they suggest, a company paying a ChatBot creator to steer the discussion towards certain products. But Carina, what will the ad landscape look like in 2025 as ads come to ChatBox?

Carina Perkins:

I don't think it's going to look that dramatically different, to be honest. I think it's still very much in the early stages and everyone's feeling out how it could work and what it should look like.

I think there was a point made in that article that ad spend goes where the eyes are, but are people spending a lot of time using ChatBots? I think that... I found a couple of studies anywhere between 25% and 47% of US consumers have used ChatGPT. But are they using it regularly? I don't really think they are at the moment, to be honest.

So I think by 2025 probably it's not going to look that drastically different. But I think we are going to see more people rolling out potential solutions. I think as well they need to consider if people are just using the ChatBot for kind of fun and learning or whether they're using it with any kind of purchase intent.

So possibly the real potential is a kind retail media extension, I guess on retailers, ChatBots.

Marcus Johnson:

Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

As it comes to search, I think in 2025 Google will still be the top player because Google's default status across browsers and devices means it will continue to process the majority of queries.

So to Carina's point, I don't think many people are going to ChatBots to ask their questions, at least not for the majority of queries and not the majority of people.

It doesn't make sense to you if you're looking for your local pizza place and whether it's open when you're looking to go to ChatGPT or any random ChatBot to find that information. So that's just a lot of friction.

So Google will continue to process most search queries. It will also keep share of the ad market and there are still a lot of unknowns here, like how the ads are going to look, how effective they'll be, how much they'll cost, how much control advertisers will have over what it will look like and what it will say.

So really I think the size of the pie is anyone's guess, but in the next nine months as we approach 2025, I doubt Google will lose its grip on search.

Marcus Johnson:

Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

So I actually thought about it as the ChatBots when I have an issue and I go onto a retailer or service provider's website to try and solve for my issue, which made me think it is a captive audience. I don't think that there will ever be... Marcus, are you really disappointed at how I thought about it?

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Why?

Marcus Johnson:

Did you read the runner show at all?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I did, but I feel like those are ChatBots too and those-

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, they are.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

... are the captive audience, which we're putting ads on everything like pizza boxes. So why wouldn't we put it in a ChatBot?

I just agree with everybody's assessment that nothing's really going to change. The asset types are going to mirror, it's just going to be another digital channel for advertising and sales. And so it'll just mirror whatever is happening in the wider part of the ecosystem.

Marcus Johnson:

Which ChatBots currently have ads? Adweek, Trishla Ostwal pointing out the open AI ChatGPT and Google's Gemini don't currently run ads, but Snap's Gen AI ChatBot My AI powered by Microsoft Chat Ads API introduced sponsored links last September.

And second point here. Gartner thinks that by 2026, search marketing will lose market share to AI ChatBots and other virtual agents with traditional search engine volume falling by 25%. That is 2026.

All right folks, we check the scores at the halfway mark. Carina out in front with five, Suzy with four, Evelyn with three. We move to round three.

We start with Evelyn. Macy's stores aren't fun places to shop. Its new CEO wants to fix that, right? Suzanne Kapner of the Wall Street Journal.

New boss Tony Spring unveiled his vision modernizing the department store chain recently. It includes everything from closing stores, adding sales staff to improve service, adding mannequins to enhance visual displays, evaluating the optimal way to display clothing and more.

But Evelyn, how do you make Macy's a fun or more fun place to shop?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

This is kind of a hard question, honestly. I think you make sure that you know your current and target audiences and then you cater to them ruthlessly. If those audiences are mutually exclusive and serving one alienates the other like if Gen Zs never going to set foot in a store that caters to boomers. That is a mutually exclusive experience sometimes.

But I think you choose one and you serve them. Make it easy to try on clothes or makeup, see a product demonstration, make the store a destination to be. And then also importantly, pay salespeople a living wage so they don't live off commission and make shoppers super uncomfortable with pushing products on them.

Marcus Johnson:

Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

So I think this is one of those pendulum swings too far every time, right? And Evelyn is 1,000% right. If you don't understand what fun means to your core shopper, you can't cater to them.

And so we can postulate what we think would make Macy's fun, but they should do research and figure out what is it that their consumer wants. And it's everything from, and there's a small chance that I may know some of that having worked there for a long time.

But truly it's everything from making it a clean environment, making it easy to find the merchandise you're looking for. There is not a one answer to how to make it easier and more fun. It is truly about back to basics.

What I'm a little bit worried about is that there's a lot of hope, but if they don't have patience and the shareholders don't have patience, then it's going to be a little bit about what happened with JCPenney. And you can't gain immediate sales by doing small tweaks. You have to just give it time.

Marcus Johnson:

Carina.

Carina Perkins:

Yeah, I totally agree with everything that's been said so far. I think sometimes the temptation is to say, "Oh, let's have AI and AR and all sorts of crazy theatrical experiential retail," but really just get the basics right. Have you got the right products? Have you got enough staff? Really the basics.

My only sort of additional suggestion above that is maybe get some good food in, right? IKEA has got a cult following for its meatballs, so maybe Macy's could come up with something else that is going to get people in through the door.

Marcus Johnson:

Nice. Yeah, because they have... Where are the restaurants?

Carina Perkins:

They have food.

Marcus Johnson:

At least the one I'm thinking of yeah.

Carina Perkins:

But do they have food or are they known for their food? Have something exciting?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Well, I guess you don't want the long answer to that, so I will just hold on tight.

Marcus Johnson:

Going into round four, Carina is still out in front by just by a point, seven, to Suzy six, to Evelyn's five. There's double points round four. So it's all to play for.

Heinz releases the world's first ketchup insurance. In an ad week... You heard me. In an Adweek piece Sarah Century explains that inspired by copious social media post of ketchup related accidents, Heinz Arabia compiled a list of 57 common ketchup mishaps and spills.

Stating in the new campaign that you may be entitled to compensation from home cleaning or laundry services to spa treatments. Folks can apply for compensation at Heinz Arabia's website and through social media channels via hashtag Heinz ketchup insurance.

But Suzy, starting with you for this, what do you make of this? What'd you make of tangentially related services like this?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

So this isn't technically a service. I think it's a nice fun regional gimmick that is going to get people excited. And it shows that Heinz is listening and watching and they're doing a lot of social activations.

So I think it's a very cute way to get even more loyalty. They're lucky Heinz, it's a kind of a mini monopoly. There are lots of private labels and other brands, but they probably have a very, very big share of market. So it's harder when you do to stay in the news and to be fun and relevant.

So I think this... Plus there's an app and they have this suite of fun insurance products like going to the spa that I think is just cute.

Marcus Johnson:

Carina.

Carina Perkins:

Yeah, as Suzy said, this isn't really a serious service, it's a marketing campaign and it's quite an entertaining one.

I thought what was really clever about it is that they tell you to go to a website and you can sign on and say what experience you had. You can choose from a list of experiences and upload a photograph. And then when you submit it to Heinz in return for your compensation, you agree to share your data with Heinz and for them to use images and experience for their socials.

So it's a really interesting spin on a loyalty scheme, in a way, that people are buying their products can get some rewards and they're going to use it to share across social.

And my favorite thing was their entertaining potentially made up stats, which were that 48% of them have ketchup accidents all the time, but 91% swear that their love for Heinz makes it totally worth it.

Marcus Johnson:

Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Yeah, I think it's hilarious and fun. I've seen many a TikTok where ketchup bottle geysers go straight onto the ceiling and continue to squirt despite the poster's best efforts they get me every time. And I cringe at the idea of cleaning that up.

So I think offering, what was it like a made service to come in and clean for it, that's such a playful way to engage with an organically viral trend. So I think it's one of the best ways to engage with an organic viral trend rather than trying to juice it for all it's worth on social media that doesn't always seem super authentic.

And to Carina's point, the first party data play here is very smart and is really helpful for a brand like Heinz that most of the sales happen through other third party retailers. And so to have that direct connection with consumers is smart and always valuable, especially as third party cookies go away this year.

Marcus Johnson:

Yes, I thought I did think it was clever. It's something goes wrong insurance. And the thing that reminded me of that was Amex's NBA Jersey Assurance. They had this offering where if you bought an NBA jersey but the player changed teams, you could be eligible for a replacement, which I thought was quite cool. So yeah, just something around the margins to help improve your main experience.

All right, that's the end of the game. We checked the scores. Carina is this week's winner of the game of the week, 11 for Carina, Suzy with 10, Evelyn with 9. Very competitive. But Carina takes the championship belt and of course the last word.

Carina Perkins:

Thanks very much Marcus. I'd like to dedicate this win to Larry.

Marcus Johnson:

Larry, yes.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I think you should dedicate it to peas.

Carina Perkins:

Peas around the world. World peas.

Marcus Johnson:

That's the best last word we've had. That's what we've got time for, for the game of the week. Time now for dinner party data.

It's the part of the show where we tell you about the most interesting thing we've learned this week. We of course start with our winner, it's Carina.

Carina Perkins:

So as we were talking about ChatBots, I found some ChatBot stats from Master of Code website. So the ChatBot market's set to expand at 23.3% annually reaching over 15.5 billion by 2028. There are over 300,000 ChatBots on use on Facebook Messenger.

ChatBots have experienced a 92% increase in usage since 2019. And on average users post four inquiries to ChatBots within one chat session and bots contribute 39% of all chats between businesses and consumers.

Marcus Johnson:

I wonder if the four queries is, I got my answer or I got fed up?

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Good point.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Probably follow-ups like... No?

Carina Perkins:

No, that's within one chat session.

Marcus Johnson:

Within one session.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

No, I know, but-

Carina Perkins:

It's probably asking something, asking it in a slightly different way. Asking it in a slightly different way. Asking it in a slightly different way. Giving up.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

You guys just need to practice asking the questions.

Marcus Johnson:

Something like conversations with Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Oh my God, how bad this happened.

Carina Perkins:

That was harsh.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

OMG.

Marcus Johnson:

Everyone saw how the first segment went. It went badly.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Did not. It was amazing.

Marcus Johnson:

For everyone else. Mainly for Carina she killed it.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

She did.

Marcus Johnson:

Speaking of Suzy, you're up.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Sure. So I don't know if you guys want to hear about mine now after that generous introduction.

Marcus Johnson:

Obligated.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

But it's St. Patrick's Day weekend. It is a religious and cultural holiday commemorating when St. Patrick died, he is the patron saint of Ireland. The first celebration in the US was, does anybody know what city? Boston In 1737. New York City has a 1.5 mile parade and is said to be the world's largest and oldest. And this year they're expecting 150,000 people to just walk in the parade.

And what does that mean for retailers? According to NRF, 62% of Americans are planning to celebrate this occasion. That's 162 million people that may purchase something either green or food or some sort of trinket or cookie. It's a $7.2 billion market, which is $44 per person. And so that is really important to keep in mind.

And wearing green is what 80% of Americans are going to do to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Marcus Johnson:

62% of people celebrate. That's more people than celebrate Independence Day. Does that not seem like a lot of people?

Carina Perkins:

That seems really hard.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Well, it's really easy though, to just throw on a green shirt and if that's the primary way that people are celebrating then...

Carina Perkins:

Is that what you do in the States, I mean here people go to the pub.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

No, here too.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

That too.

Marcus Johnson:

It's just a normal...

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Here too. If it helps the [inaudible 00:35:33]

Carina Perkins:

There's a day let's go to the pub.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

The first survey is in 2007 and it was 48% of people that celebrated. So it has grown considerably, but not that much. But I think it's the ancillary people. It's obviously not that many more Irish people that have come.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. I didn't even know it was this weekend until you just said that. Evelyn.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Okay, so I also... Actually markets have some stats about online dating, so let's hope we don't have the same ones. So GQ polled some guys and found... This is from March of last year. I don't know why I was curious about this.

But when it comes to dating 70% of men have admitted that they have lied about themselves on dating apps. Of those men, the most common areas in which they've misrepresented themselves were in their photos, when describing their age, their career and their height. The search that I was looking for was-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

So everything.

Carina Perkins:

Is that in the right order?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Everything about...

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Yeah, that was in order, so photos, lying about themselves through their photos 36%, describing their age 35%, their career 28% and their height 27%.

I also wanted to know just for anyone who's not dating men, what the percentage of who was lying that wasn't a man on dating apps and older data from December 2022 from OnePoll found that men are more likely to lie on their dating profiles at 51% of respondents.

But women weren't far behind at 44%. And this survey found that the most common lie on a dating profile was about current hairstyles, which I thought was really interesting because I am not sure why one would lie about that.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

It must be the pictures that they're-

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I guess so. Maybe that was the, I don't know, but I wouldn't consider that a lie to have an older picture.

Carina Perkins:

Is that the first thing you say? You message someone, have you got a fringe? Yeah.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I don't know. But total, one in four of all those have polled by OnePoll have lied about their height on their profile. So across the spectrum, regardless of gender, one in four.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I am shocked about the height because that is one of the most obvious things when you meet someone in real life.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. How much are they lying by? Is it like an inch or two or is it like you say you're 6'6" and it's like 5'7" why would you say that? I can see you now in real life. That's an insane thing to lie about.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I think maybe some people are harsh and weed people out based on how tall they are.

Marcus Johnson:

Oh, that's true. Yeah, people are the worst.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

But then you meet them in person and you're like, okay, well what else have you lied about because this one is so obvious.

Marcus Johnson:

So just my career and my age.

Carina Perkins:

I wonder with the photos, are they sending people other people's photos or just photos of them?

Marcus Johnson:

How do you lie?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I know the answer to this one because happened to me like 15 years ago. They put really old pictures.

Carina Perkins:

Yeah, you need to demand a picture with today's newspaper.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

You're right.

Carina Perkins:

Is that okay?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I could imagine.

Marcus Johnson:

Clever.

Carina Perkins:

Standing kind of doctor's surgery with the height measurement.

Marcus Johnson:

All right, I've got some for you. Also, online dating. Online dating in the US according to a 2022 study from Pure Research. So number one, how many folks have used a dating platform? 3 in 10 US adults say they have ever used a dating site or app.

The same share has said in 2019, it does vary a lot by age. 53% of people in their twenties, 13% of people over 65. By education folks with some college are nearly twice as likely to use them as folks who started working after high school. And then sexual orientation, 51% of LGB folks versus 28% of folks identified as straight.

Second thing here. What is the most popular platform? Tinder number one with 46% of online dating users say they have used it at some point. Match we're second 31%, then Bumble with 28. And in joint fourth with about 20% each was OkCupid, eHarmony and Hinge.

Did the platform work 1 in 10 partnered adults, those married living with partner or committed in a committed romantic relationship met their current significant other through a dating platform, 1 in 10, 2 in 10 young people.

Number four. Go on.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I'm just shocked. It's only 1 in 4 who are-

Marcus Johnson:

1 in 10.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

It must be like rural versus urban. No, not married to or whatever, but just use it. I feel like everybody I know in the city whose single is on an app.

Marcus Johnson:

Said they used it.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Maybe even non-single people are on an app.

Marcus Johnson:

This is also admitted to, so these aren't actual proper data.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Okay, got it. But maybe if you're in the middle of nowhere, you're not on an app because you kind of already know everybody too.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, maybe. How small is this? My town back home in England where I grew up was 9,000 people, but I didn't know everyone. It was pretty small though.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

But Marcus, I think you're not a good example of that.

Marcus Johnson:

But you said maybe they know everyone. The town would have to be minuscule for you to know everyone.

Carina Perkins:

But surely if you know everyone, you're more likely to get on a dating app because you're not going to meet anyone out locally. You know them.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

It's like a kilometers like a band, there'd be nobody new to me.

Carina Perkins:

Oh, in your search area?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Yeah.

Carina Perkins:

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson:

They're like, oh you again. She's-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Literally.

Carina Perkins:

Until the Amazon delivery man comes.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

That's the start of a romance novel.

Marcus Johnson:

Two more. How was the experience for folks among those who have ever used a dating platform? Slightly more, 53% said their personal experiences have been very or somewhat positive versus 46% who said they have been very or somewhat negative.

And finally, why are people using the platforms? Most, 44% said a major reason was to meet a long-term partner and just a few less 40% said a major reason was to date casually.

When I was in a small town, I did get the same Uber driver twice. She was delightful though. So yeah, I'm glad it was a good experience.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

Can you imagine? Can you imagine using Uber-

Marcus Johnson:

You again, no.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

... as a dating service route? [inaudible 00:42:16].

Marcus Johnson:

I wasn't using it as a dating service. I just needed to get from A to B and she happened to be the only person apparently in the whole town working for Uber. 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. Thanks everyone.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you. Thank you to Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson:

And thank you to Carina.

Carina Perkins:

Thanks Marcus.

Marcus Johnson:

This week's champion of the game of the week, all the games we played, she wrapped.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf:

I know she ran away with this episode didn't she?

Marcus Johnson:

Pretty much thanks to Victoria. She edits the show. James copy edits it. Stewart runs the team. Sophie does our social media and Lance runs our video podcast. Thanks to everyone for listening in.

We hope to see you on Monday for the Behind the Numbers Daily an eMarketer Podcast made possible by Nielsen. Happy, apparently, St. Patrick's Day weekends.