Theory comes first but is useless without practice. Like ideas and execution.
-Musonius Rufus
A useful quote for marketers, specifically strategists (and plenty of non-marketing humans as well).
Holiday Shopping Weekend 2025: More Spent on Less
Shoppers spent plenty over Black Friday Cyber Monday this year, but there is a good chance they got less for those dollars.
Data from the National Retail Federation, Adobe, Mastercard, Salesforce, and Klarna shows plenty of activity, but higher prices could be a lump of coal in the shopping stocking.
As an analyst at TD Securities summed it up (bolding mine):
“We are seeing spending. We’re seeing a consumer that does have plenty of anxiety, that’s looking for great deals. That being said, the consumer still has money, wants joy.”
Consumers weren’t confident entering the holiday season, and they may not feel much better post-BFCM.
Maybe we need to be singing louder for all to hear. At least until more indicators drop later this week.
2025: the year where consumer spending (and AI investment) kept a vibecession from becoming a recession?
What The Data Says
Compared to 2024…
According to the National Retail Federation:
- Total shoppers up 3%
- In-store shoppers up 3%
- Online shoppers up 9%
- Average purchase amount up 7%
According to Salesforce:
- Completed purchases down 1%
- Average selling price up 7%
According to Klarna:
- Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) use up 45%
According to Adobe:
- All BNPL usage up 11%
Friday will give us the gift of Department of Commerce price index and University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index releases. This could be the nerd’s version of Santa’s Christmas cheer Clausometer gauge.
Why Brand Matters: Tariff Edition
Tariffs—or at least their impact—have been top of mind for consumers for most of 2025. (I counted the other day, and nearly every month between February and September had some kind of tariff announcement, implementation, or change. That’s slowed, but now the whole thing is rolling through the court system.)
They’ve also been top of mind for businesses, and therefore brands. And provide a great illustration of why brand is so important, as A Matter of Brand so efficiently illuminates:
brands are scrambling right now to sort their options in dealing with a massive cut into margins. They can cut costs by laying off people and cut corners with materials and production - or they can raise prices.
To dampen the impact of raising prices, brands need to establish pricing power to make them less vulnerable to the price elasticity of demand for their products, meaning the degree to which the demand for their products changes when the pricing changes.
Essentials are inelastic, but that means fewer discretionary funds for non-essential items that can be highly elastic. Brand strength can help counteract elasticity. (Offset what you can’t control by controlling what you can. (But, yes, brands are largely out of your control once they launch. At that point they’re organisms of co-creation.))
I see two ways to do this - truly differentiable innovation and strong brand work. Both can be costly but brand work can be accomplished largely with creativity and insights - budget is helpful of course but a great team can do a lot when the dollars are tight.
The time is NOW for brand.
Why is your product worth the price? That’s a matter of brand.
Building a brand is expensive in the short-run and cheap in the long-run.
Podcast Listener Average Lifetime Value Metric
I love a good metric formula. So even though I don’t have a podcast (yet?), I’m here for Bumper’s listener lifetime value metric.
a podcast’s lifetime value score measures the average number of distinct calendar days each listener spends with the show
How to calculate:
For each platform, sum the daily-resolution unique audience members, then divide that total by the all-time deduplicated number. The result is the average number of “listener days” per unique audience member, AKA average lifetime value.
As with many metrics, the value is provided over time as you build your own trendline and history.
Generally, podcasters should aim for an ever-increasing average lifetime value score, except when overall audience size is trending down (that’s a trap)
Survey says: Consumers are not confident.
The Consumer Confidence Index dropped nearly 7 points since last month, dipping below 90.
Both the Present Situation and Expectation indices are down. The latter marking its 10th month below 80—which usually signals a recession coming.
“Consumer confidence tumbled in November to its second lowest level since April after moving sideways for several months"
Confidence is down across age groups and incomes, though the kids are feeling ok.
Why? Inflation, tariffs, and that whole government shutdown thing.