5 killer stats to start your week

1. The most purpose-driven brands revealed

Unilever has topped Radley Yeldar’s Fit for Purpose Index for the third year, for its commitment to its long-term purpose strategy and implementation.

Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Philips also retain their positions in second and third place, respectively, while new entrants to the top 10 include Johnson & Johnson, which has leapt from 32nd to sixth place this year. Danone, meanwhile, moved from 18th to 10th.

Also featuring in the top 10 are Nestlé, GSK, RB, Novo Nordisk and Pearson.

The healthcare sector performs the best this year, with brands including AstraZeneca featuring in the top 20 alongside GSK and Novo Nordisk.

The Fit for Purpose Index ranks the world’s most socially, environmentally and economically purposeful companies.

Source: Radley Yeldar

2. UK ad spend hit record £22.2bn in 2017

UK advertising spend grew 4.6% to reach a record £22.2bn in 2017, marking the eighth consecutive year of market growth.

In the final three months of 2017, expenditure was up by 6.2%, with ad spend breaching the £6bn barrier for the first time in a single quarter to reach £6.1bn.

The full year advertising growth forecast for 2018 has also been upgraded by 1.4 percentage points to 4.2% growth, and a further rise of 3.8% is expected for 2019.

Online spend saw the strongest growth, up 14.3%. Radio (5.2%) and cinema (3.3%) also growth, but TV declined (-3.2%) as did newspaper and magazine spend.

Source: Warc

3. Brits spend a full day each week online

British adults spend the equivalent of one day a week online, double the amount of time they spent online in 2007.

The majority of adults aged 16-54 now use the internet, with 98% of those aged between 16-24 going online compared to 96% of those aged 45 to 54, proving there’s little difference across generations.

Seven in 10 people now use a smartphone to go online. The rise in smartphone use has contributed to a climb in the hours spent online up 2.5 hours a week in 2017 from 2.1 hours in 2016.

The popularity of Facebook (falling from 80% to 70%) has declined and WhatsApp is becoming more popular (increased from 7% to 16%).

Those becoming annoyed by online ads also grows with age, with 34% of users aged 16 to 24 saying they don’t mind seeing online ads compared to 50% of 55 to 64 and 54% of those aged 65 to 74.

Source: Ofcom

4. A quarter of British managers would take a pay cut for a purpose-led job

One in four (27%) of British workers say they would likelly accept a salary cut to work for a company that has a clear purpose.

A third say they would leave their job if the company’s overall purpose was unclear and 81% of people at purpose-led businesses talk more positively about their company than negatively, compared to 40% at non-purpose led organisations

Another 89% feel engaged and committed to their work in comparison to 59% at non-purpose centric firms.

The study suggests managers who focus on salary over purpose could be overlooking other important non-monetary factors of job satisfaction that derive from being part of a purpose-led business culture.

Source: YouGov

5. Online’s share of grocery sales growing at ‘pedestrian rate’

Online remains a very small part of the UK grocery market, with online grocery sales in Britain increasing by 4.6% in 2017 to £6.6bn, only slightly faster than in-store sales which grew at 3.4%.

The growth means online’s share of the market increased from 6.3% to 6.4% in 2017.

On average, people buy groceries online less than once a month (11 ‘trips’ a year) compared to nearly 21 a month in-store (247 per year).

Online shopping is dominated by the big shop and weekly trips, which account for twice the share of online trips (82%) than they do for in-store trips (44%).

Source: Nielsen