Good news! The holiday season is upon us! That is good news, right? Well, maybe. The economy has been struggling. People are concerned about their finances. Money seems more valuable lately and maybe it just makes more sense to save those extra dollars. Our family is planning on a more conservative Christmas this year, and we are not alone. The Wall Street Journal reported that a recent survey found that 41% of respondents plan on spending less this holiday season, which is 10% more than last year. Are things really that bad? Are people actually starting to avoid Christmas?
Search Behavior for Christmas
Has search behavior this Christmas been affected? Google Insights for Search has an interesting answer:
"Christmas" broad match, worldwide, 2004 to date. The scale is a relative volume 0 to 100.
Overall things are not looking so good. "Christmas" broad match is on a long-term downward trend, with the last few years being roughly flat. October search is at 9, which is unchanged from the previous two years, but lower than the years before that.
On the brighter side, as I write this in mid-November, November volume is already at 22. If the trend continues and November finishes out around 40, then that will be the biggest month since 2004!
Drilling down a bit, "Christmas" in the lifestyles, entertainment and shopping categories is down. Unfortunately, these are the biggest groups.
Christmas in the Local and Food & Drink categories is actually rebounding and has gone higher since 2004! So, while people may not be livin' the Christmas lifestyle so much anymore, they are more interested than ever in buying local Christmas trees and baking some Christmas cookies.
Interesting side note: The search trend for "Santa Claus" is almost identical to "Christmas," even though the searchers' intent is most likely different. Both show long-term declines with general flatness over the last couple years. "Holiday" and even "Thanksgiving" also show steep declines. But "coupons" has skyrocketed over the same period!
Tools like Google Insights for Search can be useful for looking at long-term trends and finding movement in the marketplace. At TNG we use tools such as this for clients (link to portfolio main page) to give us insight into macro metrics such as brand trends.
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