The Weekly Listen: What happens to search now SearchGPT is here, how to market through emotion, and more

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss what the arrival of SearchGPT means for the search universe, the best ways to market through emotion, what the November holiday shopping season storyline will be, what happens now we have reached “peak media”, the most suitable post-pandemic work arrangement, and more. Tune in to the discussion with Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Vice Presidents of Content Suzy Davidkhanian and Paul Verna, and Senior Analyst Blake Droesch.

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Episode Transcript:

Marcus Johnson:

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Hello, everyone, and thanks for hanging out with us for the Behind the Numbers Weekly Listen, an eMarketer podcast. And this is the Friday show that loves an airport sandwich. Chicken salad on a croissant? Yes, please. No one else?

Paul Verna:

Nobody loves an airport sandwich.

Marcus Johnson:

Love an airport sandwich. Yep. Unpopular opinion, but it's true. Not a huge fan of the price.

Paul Verna:

Do you have your airport sandwiches with instant coffee?

Marcus Johnson:

Maybe. It's the best way.

Paul Verna:

I saw an article about an instant coffee brand that actually tastes good, and I didn't get a chance-

Marcus Johnson:

Actually tastes good.

Paul Verna:

... to read it, partly because I think it was probably fake news.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Wait a second.

Marcus Johnson:

Paul's lost the game already.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Why are guys talking about coffee? Are we at the Dinner Party Data part now already?

Marcus Johnson:

No, you don't have any, anyway, so you better hope we're not.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

You better-

Marcus Johnson:

Suzy is greatly unprepared, probably just because of [inaudible 00:01:09].

Suzy Davidkhanian:

You can tell what my Dinner Party Data is about now.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, great.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Yeah. It's going to be amazing.

Marcus Johnson:

Airport sandwiches. Probably won't. I'm your host, Marcus Johnson. In today's show, now that OpenAI's SearchGPT is here, what happens to search? What is the best way to market? Through a motion? What will be the November holiday shopping storyline? What do we make of the fact that we may have reached peak media consumption, and what are the right post-pandemic work arrangements?

Joining me for this episode, we have three people. Let's meet them. We start with our vice president of content covering everything advertising, media, and technology. He is coming to us live from Maine. It's, of course, Paul Verna.

Paul Verna:

Great to be here.

Marcus Johnson:

Hey, fella. We're also joined by another vice president of content. Also heads up our retail and e-commerce desk. She's based in New York City. Her name is Suzy Davidkhanian.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson:

Of course.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

And for including my flower. For the first time, we have a peek at my flower.

Marcus Johnson:

It's in the shot?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson:

Damn it, Lance. Get that out of there.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Very proud of it.

Marcus Johnson:

We spoke about this. We're also joined by-

Paul Verna:

[inaudible 00:02:24].

Marcus Johnson:

Don't start, Paul. Okay, you're on thin ice already. Thin ice after that it instant comment.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

There's basil.

Marcus Johnson:

Instant coffee comment. Oh, jeez. Blake Droesch, ladies and gentlemen, is also joining us. He is on our retail and e-commerce desk. Senior analyst coming to us from New York City as well. What's going on, Blake?

Blake Droesch:

Hey, Marcus. How's it going?

Marcus Johnson:

Hey, fella. Very good, sir. Very good.

Okay, what do we have in store for you folks? Well, we have our story of the week. We'll talk about SearchGPT. We move to a game. We end with some random trivia. That's Dinner Party Data. We start, of course, with the story of the week.

OpenAI's SearchGPT is here. What happens to search next? The addition of an ad-free search engine to ChatGPT will likely further shake up a search industry that has already seen the ground shift with the rise of gen AI, writes Ina Fried of Axios. Kylie Robison of The Verge notes that rather than launching as a separate product, web search will be integrated into ChatGPT's existing interface, with results that look the same and provide links to sources for the answers it gives on things like sports scores, news, stock prices, and weather. Also including maps and additional images, the feature will automatically determine when to tap into web results based on queries, though folks can also manually trigger web searches. Initially available for paid ChatGPT plus and team users, paid enterprise and educational subscribers get access in the next few weeks and free users in the coming months, likely with some limits on how often they can use the latest search models according to the company.

But I'll start, Blake, with you. OpenAI's SearchGPT is here. What do you expect that to do to the search universe now that it's arrived?

Blake Droesch:

I guess the short answer would be nothing right now. A lot of the initial reviews coming out from the tech media are pretty underwhelming. There is a really good piece from TechCrunch's Maxwell Zeff who basically used the ChatGPT search as a replacement for Google for a week and found that while it is pretty efficient in surfacing some of those long-tail search inquiries, the basic, run-of-the-mill, four-word search queries that we use Google for most of the time, in that department it really was falling short.

So a couple of examples that he gave was just to find out the score of the basketball game. He did a quick search, and it turned out that the score was completely off. He went to ChatGPT search to find out how earnings from a few different tech companies were going to impact the markets in the morning when they opened, and the responses that he got were basically saying that Amazon and Google or Amazon and Apple hadn't reported earnings yet when they already did. So clearly, it can't function in real time in the same way that Google and many other search engines can. If it can't really serve those core functions of search that people turn to Google for several times a day, then I don't think it's going to really be able to do much to disrupt search in the near future.

Marcus Johnson:

Mm-hmm.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

So I interpreted the question differently in that I thought you meant what's going to happen to regular search, but maybe it's because we're doing all our trend reports. And there is going to be a little bit of disruption to search, like search engine search, but I don't think it's anything that they can't get over. Because as we know, people have moved from leaning on Google search to going to Amazon to start a product search to going on TikTok. But still, when we say search, we often say, "I'm going to go Google it," even though we might just be on Amazon checking for something. So I think it's so part of the lexicon, Google.

And now that they have the AI empowered... I don't know if you guys are on the pilot, but I'm on... Did they roll it out even? But I'm on the pilot of the AI Overviews. It's changed my life. I love it. So there's no-

Marcus Johnson:

Changed your life.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

... reason I'm going to go to ChatGPT to search there when I am not on ChatGPT often enough.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. Yeah, I wonder if it's folks who are just there already and have been using it, why not, versus folks who are going to say, "I'm going to swap out Google for this other search engine." Blake, to your point, it is more up to date. Before this update, ChatGPT's knowledge was limited to things that basically happened from 2021 to 2023 based on the version. Now, it's giving you stuff which, in theory, is up to the minute. But to your point, it has to tell you what you want to know instantly and it has to make sure those results are real time. So something it's trying to improve, but it clearly needs to do a better job of. Paul-

Blake Droesch:

It's also not really-

Marcus Johnson:

Oh, please.

Blake Droesch:

... contextualizing searches efficiently either. I think a lot of the times, the way that it is designed to basically serve a super specific answer, it really puts it into a silo where it's just giving you one piece of incorrect information, whereas the standard mechanisms of traditional search engine, it's going to give you a list of links. But if it's not, the top link is... The top link isn't the one that you're looking for, it's probably going to be the first five or six that's going to get you an answer. And I think right now, what ChatGPT is really doing is it's serving as just an extra step to get you where you're going, and it's not really bringing the information that you need front and center yet, which is the whole point of what it's supposed to do. So if it's not achieving that goal, then it's not making anyone's life easier at this point.

Marcus Johnson:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I am curious to know what people are going to use it for because I feel like people will Google things. When they have a specific goal in mind, if people are shopping, a lot of the time they'll start on Amazon. If people are looking for flights, maybe they go to Google Flights or Google Maps. Sports scores, Google's really good at. So I wonder if there are slices of the search market that SearchGPT can carve out for itself by doing that one thing very, very well. OpenAI saying it's plan to improve the search functionality in areas like shopping and travel, adding voice capabilities as well.

But Paul, I'm wondering how much you think this is going to change search because Wall Street, they seem to be agreeing with what Blake is saying, which is that right now they're not expecting SearchGPT to be much of a competitor. That's exemplified by the fact that in the short term, at least Google's stock drop just two points the day of this announcement. So they don't seem too bothered by it.

Paul Verna:

Yeah, I agree that a lot of the limitations that Blake raised are more than the software being in a primitive state compared to what we're going to see over the years. I think it's like an inherent limitation of the way large language models are built, where it's a lot about ingestion of data sets and then it builds a database from which you can draw. That's very different from searching for a game score or the weather, where it really has to be real time.

Marcus Johnson:

Mm-hmm.

Paul Verna:

But I do think that the nature of search is changing. But clearly, things are moving in that direction and you're seeing companies like Meta really lean into search. eMarketer just rolled out a generative search feature, so I think the nature of search will change.

I actually see AI search becoming more intelligent to where it knows what it can give you and it knows when it might have to direct you to a Google or a Bing or some other company that maybe partners with ChatGPT or whoever it might be because there was a time when conventional search engines were very prickly in terms of how you plugged in the data and what kind of results you would get. And then it actually got to where you would type something in that was a lot more conversational, the way ChatGPT is now, and Google would be smart enough to understand what you are asking and return a usable result. So I think we're getting to a point where there's just going to be more fluidity in how all search engines, AI-based or not, respond to more conversational search terms.

Marcus Johnson:

Mm-hmm.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Well, and the cool thing about the AI overview is I was originally trying to trick it to see what can I cannot get from it. And it knows. Like you were saying, Paul, it really new. If you're asking me a very basic question, it doesn't even try and compile information. It just sends me to the link and it's like, "Go do it yourself," versus if I ask things like, "What's the difference between this and that and another thing?" and then it'll tell me in a bullet... It's really easy to use.

Our internal search is really like that as well. It's really great. And then it has all of the articles, charts, and reports underneath.

Marcus Johnson:

Mm-hmm.

Paul Verna:

Yeah. Yeah, if you ask it, "Did the Lakers lose on November 8th?"

Marcus Johnson:

Probably not.

Paul Verna:

It'll go back to last year and say yes and the year before and say yes. But you don't necessarily know which year it's talking about because the chances are that on November 8th, or on any given date, that the Lakers would've lost.

Marcus Johnson:

Okay, thank you. Let's move on.

Paul Verna:

And I just lost today by a landslide.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. Congratulations, Blake. You won already.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

It's not even a contest.

Marcus Johnson:

The one thing for me, to close out the story of the week, is the question of how is SearchGPT going to help OpenAI make money, because it's going to have to make money soon, one would assume, because they're hemorrhaging money. Quite a shocking clip. There was an estimate from Dylan Patel, chief analyst at SemiAnalysis. He was saying that ChatGPT can cost OpenAI up to $700,000 a day just to run it. That's a quarter of a billion dollars a year, and that's the current model. It's only going to get more expensive as it gets smarter, as more people use it. So it's a very expensive thing to run. They're starting out ad-free, but will they add ads later, especially for free users, and when? It could launch ad-supported answers, similar to what AI company Perplexity plans to do in Q4, partnering with folks like Maria and Nike to sponsor responses in its chatbot, or it could crank up the price on its paid memberships. I'm curious to know what its revenue model looks like, whether it just mirrors the revenue models that we've seen before from search engines.

All right, gang. That's all we've got time for, for the story of the week. We move now to the game of the week. Today's game, it's the Super Duper Game. How's it work? Three rounds. Today, we have the random scale, fill in the blank, and fortune teller. The better the answers, the more points you get.

We'll start with Blake for round one. It's the random scale, where folks have to tell me where they land using the random scale. And the story is, what is the best way to market through emotion? Our Sara Lebow was writing that data shows consumers remember and engage with emotionally-resonant ads. She notes five ways marketing through emotion matters. One, high-quality video shouldn't just be technically sound, but emotional too. Two, consumers should feel included. Three, watch out for social media's negative emotional associations. Four, funny campaigns are memorable. And five, people will pay for brands that make them feel happy.

The random scale today, though, is asking what is the best piece of advice when marketing through emotion? Those possible choices, as I mentioned, making sure your high-quality video has emotion, inclusion matters, be careful with social media's negative emotional associations, funny is memorable, or make people happy. Blake, what are you choosing?

Blake Droesch:

I'm going to go with funny is memorable. I think that's this timeless truth for advertising. And if you think back to all of the great campaigns, I would say upwards of 90 to 95% are memorable because they are funny. I can maybe think of one or two really memorable ad campaigns that are memorable and resonate because of just the dramatic and/or aspirational aspects, but I can think of countless examples of candy bars and insurance commercials that have made me laugh. And even though I will never use their products, I still remember these ad campaigns very well-

Marcus Johnson:

[inaudible 00:15:53].

Blake Droesch:

... because of how funny they were.

Marcus Johnson:

Let's go Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

So I think that people don't know that I asked you about a different question, and this is one where I'm winging it on purpose in that I actually don't know that those are the right scales in that I think it's more about creating a bond with your consumer that is authentic, and the medium doesn't matter as much. And if you understand your customer segments, then you understand what is the right emotion and the right time at the... If you're a department store, you're going to have different emotional connection over the holiday period than you will over Easter or over back to school. So I think it's a little bit more complex than the way that we had it in the scale. But if I have to pick one, then obviously I pick the one that is about-

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. Point of the game.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Yeah. I pick the one that has me quoted. It's all about making you happy.

Marcus Johnson:

[inaudible 00:16:44].

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I mean, obviously if I'm going to-

Marcus Johnson:

You chose the one where you were quoted in the article from Sara?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Correct. I did.

Marcus Johnson:

The nerve. Okay.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

But I do think it's so much more than that. It's like you have to... Depending on your brand, you have to understand should you be nostalgic? Should you be funny? Should you make people feel connected to you? So I think it's a little bit bigger than the scale.

Marcus Johnson:

All right. Criticize the scale. That was a horrible answer.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Yeah, I know. I'm not going to win, so I might as well tell you what I think.

Marcus Johnson:

Not now. Not now. Paul.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I never win.

Paul Verna:

I 1,000% agree with Blake that it's all about being funny. I have never and will probably never set foot in a Taco Bell, but I don't think I've ever laughed harder at a commercial than the very first time I saw the Taco Bell Chihuahua commercial way back when probably before you, Marcus, and you, Blake, were-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

And me. No.

Paul Verna:

... not born, but... And Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

No, I'm just joking. I just probably wasn't in the US then.

Paul Verna:

Exactly. You were in exile like I was for [inaudible 00:17:45].

Marcus Johnson:

Exile?

Paul Verna:

I think when you tickle that funny bone, it really makes an impression. I think humor is the way, at least to my heart. So that's how you win.

Marcus Johnson:

It seems like it's the way to a lot of other people's hearts as well. There's some research here basically saying when it comes to ads, funny matters the most. This chart here showing that folks put ads that are funny at the top of their list of ideal ad experiences, according to a 2023 Publicis and Yahoo survey. That's ahead of ads that get to the point quickly, ads with a catchy jingle, ads that tell a story. Number one was make me laugh basically. Shout-out to the Uber Eats Brian Cox ad that is currently out. It's brilliant.

Let's move to round two. We'll start with Suzy for round two. Fortune teller. It's where we predict the future. Aside from the election, what will the November holiday storyline be? Retailers grasp for holiday magic amid raucous US elections and five fewer shopping days than usual between Thanksgiving and Christmas, writes Jennifer Williams of the Journal. She notes that US shoppers' spending was strong in September, 0.4% on August, but consumer confidence fell unexpectedly mid-October. The National Retail Federation estimates that American consumers' retail spending this November and December will grow between 2.5 to 3.5% year over year. That's the estimate. That would be down from the 3.9% from 2023's holiday period and 4.7 the year before that.

But Suzy, fortune teller. What will be the November holiday shopping storyline?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

So my headline would be something around, for retailers, planned slow and steady will win the race. I think like you said, there's a lot of uncertainty. There's financial strains. The election is behind us, but there's always a transition uncertainty that happens that gets people no matter who wins. And if it's your side or not your side, that still gets people a little bit worried before the official transition happens next year. So I think consumers are coming from a place of I don't want to say scared, but a little bit more cautious. And as a retailer, I think if you don't have a sense of urgency in your messages, if you don't have calculated promotions without giving everything away for free, if you don't have newness, if you don't have innovation, if you don't have a reason for people to come to you, they're going to go somewhere else.

The one other thing that I think is really critical on the retail front is that we always think about the number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, whereas there is no consumer that thinks like that. So make sure that you in your messaging say, "Order by this day to get it delivered on time as a holiday gift," because otherwise consumers won't know the difference.

Marcus Johnson:

Paul.

Paul Verna:

I think the story of the fall retail season is going to be escapism. I think we have been through an election season that has been extremely taxing on people. And now, this process continues. It doesn't just end on election day. It continues for an unspecified period of time, and that is going to put people in a mindset where they're just going to want out of it. So I don't know what that thing is or how you sell that. If I did, I would be, no offense to any of you folks, but I would be probably vacationing on my yacht rather than doing this podcast right now.

Marcus Johnson:

Unbelievable.

Paul Verna:

Or maybe I would, but I would just call in from my yacht.

Marcus Johnson:

Oh, okay.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Let me tell you, you cannot do that because they can hear the sound of waves.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah, Suzy tried.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson:

It did horribly.

Paul Verna:

It would be part of... People would just have to accept that if they want to listen to my wisdom, they're going to get some waves with it.

Marcus Johnson:

For you, Paul-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Marcus.

Marcus Johnson:

... we might make an exception. Right, V? Blake, what you got?

Blake Droesch:

Well, I've got an answer to Paul's question, and that answer is Travel Tuesday. And that's going to be the story of this holiday shopping season. So according to an article that was published last Sunday, November 3rd, CNBC titled, Move over Black Friday: Consumer interest in 'Travel Tuesday' soars, it cites a McKinsey data point that says that search interest for Travel Tuesday rose more than 500% from 2021 to 2023. And I think that there's been this slow, but steady movement of people being more interested in spending on services over products, and that's going to eat into the holiday shopping season. And I think a lot of these travel companies, credit card companies are going to have big promotions around discounts on travel.

And as Paul pointed out, half of the country, regardless of outcomes of the election, are going to want to leave and be somewhere else. And I think that travel is great way to spend your dollars this shopping season. And of course, that's a service. So for retailers, what does it mean? It means that there's going to be even less money to go around out of the consumer pocket for holiday spending. So Travel Tuesday, mark my words.

Paul Verna:

So I'm going to-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Or you do luggage and bathing suits and towels and sunscreen. Are you saying that we're moving from Cyber Five to Cyber Six now?

Blake Droesch:

Well, it's not a retail holiday. It will impact-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

It could be.

Blake Droesch:

It will impact the... Well, not according to our forecast, which excludes travel.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Oh, yes. Right. You're right.

Blake Droesch:

It obviously will have an impact on consumer spending. So.

Marcus Johnson:

Round three, fill in the blank. It's pretty straightforward. It's our final round. We've reached peak media consumption across digital and traditional formats, writes our principal analyst, Paul Briggs. He explains that the 2024 global media index results showed a plateauing of consumption in the 11 media formats measured. All down a fraction in 2024 except mobile, which was flat, as you can see here from this chart. It held fast at three hours and 48 minutes per day, but second place, computer time, fell two minutes to two hours and 50. Third place, social media messaging, was down five minutes to two hours and 20. Et cetera, et cetera. So everything but mobile fell a little bit, so we've basically reached peak media consumption according to this research.

Fill in the blank. We'll start with Paul. Your takeaway from this GMI research indicating that we've reached peak media is blank.

Paul Verna:

It's consistent with a lot of our forecasting and it's a trend that started last year, so it was not surprising to me.

Marcus Johnson:

Okay. Blake.

Blake Droesch:

I think the interesting thing to me was to really see the time spent with social and messaging decrease by five minutes internationally. And I think part of that has to do with just there's so much more digital entertainment out there that the international community at large is obviously hard to generalize, or maybe moving away from just social messaging in favor of things like gaming and digital video that doesn't have a social component. But it does make me wonder just what the role of social media is going to be on an international scale in the long term.

I think different cultures are so complex, but I do see maybe a long-term future where a lot of cultures on a large scale do reject the amount of time that they're spending with social media in general and begin to scale back. So I'm very curious to see if this is just an anomaly or maybe it is part of a long-term trend. And obviously, social media's never going to become irrelevant, so to speak, but perhaps there is a tipping point where communities and certain cultures just decide that this rampant social media activity is not working and they revert back naturally.

Paul Verna:

There has been a bit of a fatigue factor with social, particularly around Facebook. And even though there's... TikTok is growing really fast. TikTok still has a smaller user base. So this could actually just be a function of people spending that much less time on Facebook even if they're spending more time on TikTok. But it might average out to slight drop in the total amount of time.

Marcus Johnson:

Mm-hmm. Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I think that sets me up for how I didn't understand the question because the data is showing it's already peaked. And so I was like, "Well, how do you answer the question around what's the blank on if it's already peaked?" which is there are pockets of growth. And I think as the marketer, you have to figure out where your consumer is and segment, really truly understanding your groups and understanding their behaviors and the country wherever they live and what their cultural identification and perspective is so that you hit them where they are actually spending their time because the averages show that everything is peaked. For me, though, because I am in retail, I would say I was very happy to see that mobile in general is flat. And we think of it as the conduit to shopping, to also being entertained, doing lots of different things, so it was nice to see that on the whole, that was flat.

Marcus Johnson:

Mm-hmm. So we've been talking about worldwide numbers from this global media index report that we put together with GWI. My question was whether we've reached peak media in the US, so I went ahead and look at some of our own forecasts. Nearly is the answer to that question. Americans will spend 12 hours and 37 minutes with media this year. Again, that accounts for one hour on TV, one hour of mobile. If you're doing both at the same time, it's one hour for each. So that's how you get to 12 hours and 37 minutes this year, but we're going to add an extra five minutes to that time next year and an extra four minutes for the year after that. So not quite. Getting close to it, it seems, but not quite yet at that ceiling.

Blake, your point about, well, what happens next? What does media consumption look like in 2025? Particularly with social media, we've seen things basically be flat or drop a tiny bit. Does that continue or does it go up again? Are we going to hover at this level? Have we found our watermark? And because of that point, Blake wins this week's game of the week. Congratulations to him. Six points.

Blake Droesch:

Thanks, Marcus. Appreciate it.

Marcus Johnson:

Suzy and Paul, five apiece.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Oh, well that's kind of you.

Marcus Johnson:

Championship belt. Yeah, I thought that would cushion the blow if I made you joint second, joint last. Blake, championship belt and the last word.

Blake Droesch:

I can't really think of... I have to say I am unprepared.

Marcus Johnson:

Congratulations, Marcus, for your Dodgers winning-

Blake Droesch:

I'm unprepared.

Marcus Johnson:

... the World Series. Nothing? You too, Paul. Mets fans. No one. No one in the company. Not even my dad. Had to chase him down on the phone-

Blake Droesch:

Listen, as-

Marcus Johnson:

... for him to say congratulations.

Blake Droesch:

... as a Mets fan, we were in a very unique position here. And while I will not say that I'm happy that the Dodgers won the World Series, I will say that I'm happy the Yankees did not win the World Series.

Marcus Johnson:

This is [inaudible 00:29:40].

Paul Verna:

And the Dodgers had a harder time against the Mets than they did against the Yankees.

Blake Droesch:

And that the Mets won two games-

Marcus Johnson:

That's true.

Blake Droesch:

... against the Dodgers compared to the Yankees, who only won one game.

Marcus Johnson:

We can agree on that. It would've been a better series. That's right, Yankees. I said it.

Well, congratulations to Blake. He wins this week's game of the week. The last question we had, we were talking about peak media consumption. We talked about our global media index report. If you want the link to that, you can go to that to see all of our media trends across multiple countries. The link is in the show notes, of course.

All right, that's all we've got time for, for the game of the week. We move quickly to Dinner Party Data. This is part of the show where we tell you about the most interesting thing we've learned this week. Blake goes first.

Blake Droesch:

So this is some data from YouGov about airline etiquette. I love surveys about etiquette. I feel like I always jump at them whenever I see them. So it basically just-

Marcus Johnson:

You could learn a lot. That's why.

Blake Droesch:

... listed a lot of things. Touche. It listed a lot of activities on airplanes and asked US respondents to weigh in as to whether they deem these behaviors acceptable or unacceptable. The most unacceptable behavior, according to 86% of US adult citizens, was to let their children play in the aisle. And then 82% said it was unacceptable to get drunk on an airplane. Where a lot of respondents were split was around making a phone call, bringing a small dog on board, unbuckling their seatbelt when the seatbelt light isn't on, and leaving their overhead light on when the cabin lights are switched off.

And then the behaviors that most Americans deem to be acceptable were using a laptop on the tray table, waking up a seatmate to use the bathroom, which I found it surprising that a lot of people thought that that was acceptable.

Marcus Johnson:

Mm-hmm.

Blake Droesch:

I'm always-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I agree.

Blake Droesch:

... nervous about doing that if someone's sleeping. And then the most hot button issue, I think, about air travel is the reclining of the seat. So I'll finish on that one. 55% said it was acceptable to recline your seat-

Marcus Johnson:

Too high.

Blake Droesch:

... whereas 26% said it was unacceptable.

Marcus Johnson:

Yeah. It's already an uncomfortable sleep. You don't need this much more room to get a good rest. It is doing nothing for you and it's just annoying the person behind. Stop it.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Wait, can you show us that again?

Marcus Johnson:

All right. For video, for people watching on YouTube or Spotify.

Blake Droesch:

Wow.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Marcus, I'm so glad you-

Marcus Johnson:

It's as much room as you're getting. I'm imitating a seat going back one inch because that's all you're getting, and it inconveniences person behind massively.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I can't believe you redid that for me. Thank you.

Marcus Johnson:

You're welcome.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I feel like I just won the podcast. I'm not going to lie.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you for you, Suzy. Not anything

Paul Verna:

It's the little things.

Marcus Johnson:

Yep. Did you say in the beginning, though, people think it's more acceptable for someone to get hammered out of their mind, blind drunk, than to have a little child playing next to them?

Blake Droesch:

Well, yeah, because if you're drunk on an airplane, sometimes people aren't going to know. If you're drunk and you're belligerent, then yes, that's obviously highly unacceptable. But some people are nervous flyers. Some people like to have a couple of drinks before they get on an airplane. Yes, do some people look at you weird when it's 7:00 AM, 8:00 AM in the morning? Yeah. Is it a little awkward? But I think human beings were not meant to fly. It makes some of us nervous. I'm not talking about myself, by the way, but it makes some people nervous. And sometimes, having a couple of drinks before you get on the flight, it makes the experience a lot better.

Marcus Johnson:

What happens-

Blake Droesch:

A kid running in the aisle helps no one.

Marcus Johnson:

What happens if you're both drunk and playing in the aisle? Same person.

Blake Droesch:

Well, hopefully you're not a kid or a parent.

Paul Verna:

Or if your kids are drunk and you're playing in the aisle. That would be a big problem.

Marcus Johnson:

Best of both worlds.

Paul Verna:

But Blake, nothing about removing shoes?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I was shocked. I agree.

Blake Droesch:

Hang on a second.

Paul Verna:

I kept expecting that to be the first thing that comes up or the most [inaudible 00:34:06].

Marcus Johnson:

People throwing on a-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Yeah. Controversial.

Marcus Johnson:

... throwing on a dressing [inaudible 00:34:07].

Blake Droesch:

30% say it is acceptable to remove your shoes, and then 55% say it's unacceptable to remove your shoes.

Marcus Johnson:

Nothing on there about dressing gowns? No?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

That would be pajamas.

Marcus Johnson:

Pajamas, acceptable or not acceptable? All right. Suzy, you're up.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

What is the third most drunk beverage globally? We have not talked about it yet. Oh no, I am lying.

Marcus Johnson:

Third?

Blake Droesch:

Are we including water?

Marcus Johnson:

Wait, what do you mean you're lying?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Correct. Coffee-

Marcus Johnson:

Wait, well what's one and two? Water?

Paul Verna:

Coffee's the third one?

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Water, tea.

Marcus Johnson:

Tea.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Coffee.

Marcus Johnson:

And then coffee.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

That's why when you were talking about the airport coffee up front.

Marcus Johnson:

Oh, you went and looked up.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Yeah. But that was like two hours ago, so you probably forgot. Today is National Cappuccino Day, so I thought I would give you a few history/facts about coffee. Do you know how many cups are drunk in a year around the world? 2.25 billion. 60% of the global population drinks coffee. And in the US, that's about 63% of people who drink at least one cup of coffee a day. Do you know what area of the world produces the most, almost 50%, annually of coffee?

Paul Verna:

Brazil.

Blake Droesch:

South America.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

South America. You guys are good. And I see the time ticking, so I can't go through how there are 6,000 estimated varieties of coffee and what happens with decaf coffee with the caffeine that they've extracted. So I will leave you with, do you know where coffee originated? So there's a region called Kaffa, and it is Ethiopia slash-

Marcus Johnson:

North Africa? Oh, I was going to say Ethiopia. [inaudible 00:35:51].

Suzy Davidkhanian:

... slash Yemen. I think it depends maybe on how the maps were drawn. The origin story is ninth century, where an Ethiopian goat herder noticed that some of his goats were especially energetic after eating coffee fruits in Ethiopia. And in the 15th century, another story is that the Sufis documented that they roasted and brewed coffee to stay alert during rituals. There's a lot more to be said, but I will leave you guys with those fun facts.

Marcus Johnson:

I prefer the goat story. Paul.

Paul Verna:

Okay, so I'm going to be brief. The number of the week is 141.4 billion, and that is the incremental ad... Sorry. That is the incremental e-commerce sales and ad revenue that's going to flow to the non-triopoly companies, so companies other than Google, Meta, and Amazon, in the next two years. And that is from our just published Future of Digital 2025 report. Just saying.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Congratulations.

Marcus Johnson:

Well played. I got one for you real quick. What is the right post-pandemic... Sorry. What are the right post-pandemic work arrangements? So there's currently no consensus as you've probably read. So a few examples. Amazon is making all of its employees work from one of its offices five days a week from 2025. Starbucks just told folks they would be let go if they didn't come in three days a week. Dell's policy has required hybrid workers to be in the office 39 days per quarter, with folks choosing to stay remote ineligible for promotion or new roles as long as they stay remote. Spotify is at the other end of the spectrum. They went the other way, with its chief HR officer reaffirming the company's work from anywhere policy. According to a 2024 return to office report from Robin, nearly 70% of people reported having a mandate in place. The average policy for those with a mandate was three days a week in the office.

So there are few stats here. One is, what are the consequences if not coming in when you are told to? 43% of workers said their employer has done nothing when they came in fewer days than requested, 15% had a reduction in pay or bonuses, 14% verbally reprimanded, 12% were told they could lose their jobs, 10% had a negative performance review, and 6% were let go according to a Stanford report. Publicis Groupe just got rid of some folks because they'd refused to come back in.

Paul Verna:

Since you introduced-

Marcus Johnson:

All great for morale, I'm sure.

Paul Verna:

Sure since you introduced this item by mentioning Starbucks and we've been talking about coffee and air travel, I think the right post-pandemic mode is for all of us to be like the CEO of Starbucks: have our own private jets. Commute in by private jet every single day. Just make sure you have coffee and keep your shoes on please.

Marcus Johnson:

Paul hates the environment apparently. But how do executives feel about return to office mandates? 73% of companies said they were struggling to get workers back into the office according to 2023 Conference Board survey. One in four executives admitted they hoped for some voluntary turnover in the wake of an return to office push according to a BambooHR survey. However, research from the University of Chicago shows that the workers who quit due to these policies are often the more experienced ones the companies can't afford to lose.

And then finally, what does the future look like? A recent global survey from KPMG found four in five bosses expect a return to office five days a week within three years. Hope not.

That's all we've got time for, for this episode. Thank you so much to my guests. Thank you to Blake.

Blake Droesch:

Always a pleasure, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson:

This week's winner of the game of the week. Thank you to Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson:

I'd say what's wrong, but I know what it is. You keep losing.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I lose.

Marcus Johnson:

Terrible.

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I lose every time.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you to-

Suzy Davidkhanian:

I'm going to just show you the flower more. Whoops.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you to Paul.

Paul Verna:

Thank you for having me.

Marcus Johnson:

Thank you to Victoria who edits the show, Stuart runs the team, Sophie who our social media, and Lance and Danny who run our video podcast. Thanks to everyone for listening in. We hope to see you on Tuesday for Behind the Numbers Daily, an eMarketer podcast. Happy long Veterans Day weekend, everyone, especially to my dad who served nearly 20 years in the US Air Force.

Paul Verna:

Wow.

Marcus Johnson:

Couldn't be prouder.