Raffi's Round Up - w/c 19th May 2025
The five best Marketing-related nuggets across my desk this week
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ONE (if you want to see which surprising macro trends impact brands, read this one)
One popular narrative is that health concerns are causing a decline in the amount of alcohol consumption of young people.
Per the inside scoop from the head of Asahi, what’s really causing the squeeze is the rise of online entertainment and gaming.
In the past, people went out physically to have fun, and that often meant a visit to a restaurant or bar which included a drink or two. Now… we socialise online, and you can’t (yet?!) consume a drink on Roblox…
According to Atsushi Katsuki, chief executive of Japan’s Asahi Group in the Financial Times:
“Alcohol used to occupy a much bigger share of people’s entertainment and joy. In the past 10 years, the number of entertaining things has grown including gaming, so I believe alcohol’s share of fun, enjoyment and happiness has decreased.”
TWO (if you want to see the inelastic demand around American Sports, read this one)
Much of the news recently has centered around the global cost of living and international uncertainty (to see this come together, look at the reduction in air travel over the last six months)
One category that is bucking this trend is Sports; best exemplified by the ongoing hot streak of the NFL. Roger Goodell (the NFL’s commissioner) can seemingly continue to add game after game overseas, with tickets going for hundreds of dollars, and keep filling stadium after stadium.
Per CNBC:
The NFL currently has seven international games on its 2025 schedule, the most in its history, hosting matchups in Brazil, England, Germany, Ireland and Spain. But Goodell said Monday that’s just the start.
“I do see 16 regular season games, and I do think that will happen in the very near future,” Goodell told CNBC’s Scott Wapner. “Within 5 years probably.”
THREE (if you want to see where AI and content production is at, watch this one)
It’s undeniably clear now: the means of production are going to be transferring over to AI tooling like VEO3 in the next 10 year, at least partially. Month by month it’s getting too good to be ignored…
The skill now is making content that people want to watch. That said, this has always been the skill, of course…
So I’d watch a video like the one below but I’d argue that changing content creation doesn’t necessarily mean you’re changing content consumption to the same extent.
FOUR (if you want to see how Music artists are approaching direct-to-fan engagement, read this one)
The All-American Rejects are going on a “House Party” Tour, where you can sign up at the link in their Instagram to have them play at a house party in your city.
Per Kerrang:
In Minneapolis, in a video captured by @marissamccall that has been watched on TikTok over one million times, frontman Tyson Ritter tells the crowd of what they’re doing: “I want to thank you for coming out and giving a shit about a rock’n’roll band that supports the common man. We’re not trying to sell you finance tickets to Coachella, we’re not trying to sell you Ticketmaster fucking penalty fees, we’re not trying to sell you $25 parking. We’re just trying to sell you some songs you might have grown up with, and let you fucking let go with us in this non-denominational church of rock’n’roll.”
It’s a timely combination of nostalgia and lower prices which will be cutting through in a moment of economic downturn in the West…
Kyle Chaka has coined this idea of a Content Recession: “[a] downturn in which victims are tacitly encouraged to document their suffering on social media and become hardship influencers, romanticizing cooking meals at home, canning vegetables, and finding alternatives to careerist achievement.”
The All-American Rejects swapping huge corporatised venues for gigs in people’s backyards feels right on brand.
FIVE (if you want to see where the real cash-money gets made, read this one)
Per the WSJ - a reminder that it’s often not the most news-worthy or flashy business which drives the highest quality revenue…
