4 Min Read
The latest trends in society and culture from The Harris Poll
Good morning from London, where we officially launched our U.K. office this week.
One Interesting Number: 59: Fifty-nine percent of remote and hybrid workers admit to shopping online during workday breaks. And even (38%) confess they stream while at work.
Reality-Rich Secrets
The best brands right now are getting hyper-intentional about fandom, writes our CSO, Libby Rodney. They’re not just creating fans, but cultivating multiple subcultures within, setting different tables where different tribes can gather, each feeling seen and understood.
Take UGG’s ‘Feel House’ (below): a multisensory pop-up that could have been a risky experiment instead delivered massive returns, proving that when you permit teams to play at the edges, magic happens.
- What we found: (60%) of Gen Z says waiting in line is “part of the fun,” seeking evidence that something real happened, that they were there, that it mattered.
- The stat you can’t ignore: Deckers (Uggs’ parent company) reports bricks-and-mortar net sales outpaced digital sales across all of its brands (which also include Hoka and Teva) in Q2, growing 13.4% to $1 billion. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales decreased 0.8% to $394.6 million.
- What to consider: Yes, reality-rich experiences are more challenging to scale. But when (73%) of Gen Z and Millennials say shopping at hyped retailers feels like ‘being part of a cultural moment’—and often lifetime brand preferences form between 18-25—the cost of not showing up becomes impossible to ignore. UGG rank’s 8th in our Gen Z brand tracker and is seen as “visionary” and “innovative.”
What this means: “While we debate AI’s impact, the smartest brands are building something algorithms can’t replicate – Reality Rich experiences,” writes Libby. “In a world of infinite AI content and synthetic everything, being Reality-Rich isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s your only differentiator. We spent 20 years eliminating friction. Now we’re realizing friction is where the feeling lives.”
Most Gen Z See Paper Money as “A Last Resort”
It’s only been a few years since card payments overtook using cash, and now our poll with Cash App shows a generational disdain for physical legal tender, or paper money.
- What we found: More than half of Gen Z (53%) use physical cash as a last resort when paying.
- The stat you can’t ignore: Nearly a third (29%) believe that people who pay with cash are either out of touch or cringe.
What this means: “We are starting to see these generational divides around how people perceive cash,” says Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, a financial therapist for Cash App. “Older generations view cash as more real, more tangible,” Bryan-Podvin says, while Gen Zers and millennials are “not necessarily experiencing that same realness around cash.”
Only a Third of American Millionaires Feel Rich
Is $1 million enough to feel rich in America? Not to most millionaires in our survey with Northwestern Mutual.
- What we found: Just over a third (36%) of the nation’s wealthiest citizens actually consider themselves “wealthy.”
- The stat you can’t ignore: Despite projections for “Great Wealth Transfer”, only about half of American millionaires (53%) expect to leave behind an inheritance.
- What to consider: There are 23.8 million millionaires in the U.S., the most of any country in the world. Yet, amid economic anxiety and upheaval, their most burning question was about outliving their savings.
What this means: “$1 million is a lot of money, but the data makes one thing crystal clear: money alone doesn’t create confidence—financial advice and financial plans do,” said John Roberts, chief field officer at Northwestern Mutual. “This data also displays how fragile wealth can be – and how many families lose their accumulated wealth by the next generation.”
