In this issue: WHO'S A BIG BOY? SHOW ME THE MONEY CHEESE BOOM And much, much more... --------------------------------- BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL *Feeding hungry minds since 2004 --------------------------------- Issue 79 --------------------------------- Brainmail is a free monthly (usually) newsletter dedicated to current and future trends, statistics and other nuggets of information. To subscribe, or unsubscribe, to the world's best cerebral snackfood visit http://brainmail.nowandnext.com/ Tell the whole world about brainmail - forward this to zillions of friends. --------------------------------- : NEW TRENDS, NEW TECHNOLOGY & NEW THINKING > How to create a viral hit Researchers at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia say they have discovered the ingredients that make up a viral hit. Videos that induce laughter, anger, crying or shock are the most likely to be circulated. Positive emotions do better than negative emotions and exhilaration, hilarity and astonishment do best of all. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) > Word detective: Mass intimacy Mass intimacy is an oxymoronic riddle best explained by the fact that Lady Gaga has almost 20 million followers on Twitter. Ref: Financial Times (UK) > Who's a big boy? Spanish researchers studying expectant mothers in urban Madrid and rural Granada have found that urban mothers tend to give birth to bigger babies. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) > Show me the money There are more than 11 million High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) with more than $1 million of free cash in the world and they control $42.7 trillion in assets. There are also 103,000 Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWIs), defined as people with more than $30 million in spare change. Ref: Guardian Weekly (UK) > Death of diversity in retail 30 years ago, the maxim in retail was that there was ample room for three specialist players in every retail segment ("Good, better, best"). Now the rule of thumb is that there's only room for one to complete with Wal-Mart offline and Amazon online. Ref: Financial Times (UK) > Eye-spy Can a machine read a person's mood? According to a growing number of people the answer is yes. For example, Real Eyes is a facial monitoring company based in London that claims to be able to judge a person's mood by tracking the movement of facial features using image processing software linked to cameras, either in computers or CCTV cameras. Applications include websites that automatically adjust special offers to a person's mood or airports and railway stations looking for trouble-makers. Ref: The Economist (UK) > Cooking trends Housewives in the UK know 25% more recipes than their mothers did back in the 1970s and know 21 recipes by heart. 40% of housewives take tips from celebrity chefs and 35% own cookery books by them. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) > Cheese boom Asia's newly found hunger for pizza and cheeseburgers helped to push the price of cheddar cheese up by 49% last year. Ref: South China Morning Post (CN) > Water trouble 90% of the water used by Las Vegas comes from a single source - Lake Mead. Unfortunately, water levels are close to their lowest recorded and the city may run out of water within a decade. Ref: The Economist (UK) > Keep it simple According to the Global Brand Simplicity Index complied by Siegel & Gale, a brand design firm, 10-23% of people say they are willing to pay extra to receive an uncomplicated customer experience. Ref: Financial Times (UK) --------------------------------- : GO FIGURE Since 1980, the occurrence of obesity has more than doubled. Ref: Prospect (UK) 21% of the clients of Dignitas (a Swiss organisation that helps terminally ill people and people with severe mental or physical disabilities to die) have nothing wrong with them. They are simply tired of life. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) The average fish travels 1,000 miles before it reaches a supermarket shelf in Britain. No human being in Britain lives more than 70 miles from the sea. Ref: Daily Mail (UK) On average, every 60 minutes spent watching TV after the age of 25 reduces a viewer's life expectancy by 21 minutes. Ref: British Journal of Sports Medicine (UK) There are 800 self-storage facilities in the UK, the same as the rest of Europe combined. Ref: BBC News website (UK) At the age of 14, over 60% of white working class boys and more than 50% of boys of Caribbean origin living in the UK have a reading age of under 7. Ref: The Spectator (UK) Net farm income in the US rose by 28% during 2011 from 2010. Ref: USDA (US) In 1990, there were 18 square feet of retail space for every person in the US. By 2010 this number had doubled to 40 square feet. Ref: The Economist (UK) Vacancy rates (empty shops) in US strip malls stand at 10.9% as of Feb 2011. Ref: The Economist (UK) 71% of people living in the UK think that there are too many immigrants in the country. Within Europe, only the Russians (77%) and the Belgians (72%) are more xenophobic. Ref: Belfast Telegraph (UK) 97% of the water on Earth is saline. Ref: Prospect (UK) The US dollar has lost 98% of its value since the Bretton Woods agreement if you value the currency using the old measure. Ref: The Economist (UK) Over 33% of teachers in the UK in 2010 either left teaching or went into the private school system within 26 weeks of qualifying as teachers. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) The US and Canada spend $214 billion annually on diabetes treatments, 57% of world expenditure. Ref: Prospect (UK) 84% of the world's fisheries are either fully exploited, over-exploited, or nearly depleted. Ref: Guardian/UN Food & Agriculture Organization. "Three out of every four people make up 75% of the population." Ref: Late Night with David Letterman (US) --------------------------------- : BOOK OF THE MONTH "Alone Together" by Sherry Turkle --------------------------------- : WEB SIGHT OF THE MONTH How to help people while you are travelling in developing countries... http://www.stuffyourrucksack.com/ --------------------------------- : QUOTE OF THE MONTH "The humour of blaming the present, and admiring the past, is strongly rooted in human nature." - David Hume (1777) --------------------------------- : PREDICTION OF THE MONTH China's share of the luxury goods market is expected to triple to 44% by 2020. Ref: CLSA (quoted in The Economist) --------------------------------- : STILL HUNGRY? Not a lot of people know this, but brainmail is put together using some of the leftover bits from the What's Next trends report. So if this snack-sized newsletter is leaving you a bit hungry, go to nowandnext.com for something more substantial (and that's free too). --------------------------------- : BRAINMAIL LIVE If you are considering a future focused speaker for your next conference, workshop, or other event ask your speaker agency about Richard Watson or contact him direct via nowandnext.com. Richard is the creator of brainmail (along with Matt and Phil). --------------------------------- : SMALL PRINT The material appearing in brainmail is sourced from a variety of usually reliable publications worldwide. However, we cannot guarantee the truthfulness of stories and a degree of commonsense should be applied before quoting or using any material in a commercial context. If something appears to be too good to be true it probably is.