Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S5E10 - Live and Let Buy: Where You Live Dictates What You Purchase

Episode Date: March 11, 2016

The most interesting cultural differences aren’t country to country, they are province to province, state to state, and even city to city. This week, we explore how and why people living in different locations buy such vastly different products. British Columbia likes to show off luxury cars, Toronto likes big homes, and New York likes luxury watches. The most pampered pets live in Saskatchewan. Last year, the city that bought the most sex paraphernalia was Victoria, this year it’s a city out east. Join us to find out which one. Live & Let Buy: where you live dictates what you buy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. We'll see you next time. new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. From the Under the Influence digital box set, this episode is from Season 5, 2016. Waiter, that's no, no, no!

You're not you when you're hungry. You're a good hand with all things. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. The film The Shawshank Redemption was originally titled Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. It was based on a novella written by Stephen King in 1982. At the time, he was trying to break out of the horror genre and wrote the story as a dramatic period piece in a prison setting. Director Frank Darabont loved Shawshank

and wanted to turn it into a feature film. But how he got the rights is an interesting story. Stephen King has made a long-time standing offer to young filmmakers. He calls it Dollar Babies. Essentially, King offers the rights to his short stories to students or aspiring directors for one dollar. It's his way of giving back. That's how Darabont secured the rights to the Shawshank Redemption.

He was a relatively new director who paid Stephen King a buck. The film he eventually directed starred Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins. Freeman was unsure about working with such an inexperienced director, and Tim Robbins agreed to do the picture on the stipulation that, if the director was green, then the cameraman had to be experienced. Although the film was set in Maine, it was shot at the Ohio State Reformatory. I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. You get busy living

or get busy dying. When the movie finally hit theaters in 1994, it was a complete flop. It made less than a million dollars on opening weekend. Many critics blamed the title, saying it was odd

and weird. Most moviegoers had no idea what the title meant. And pronouncing the Shimshuck Reduction was a problem. It wasn't a female-friendly movie either. There were only two actresses in the entire film, and they only spoke 23 words of dialogue. The running length was another issue. It clocked in at 142 minutes.

As a result, the Shawshank Redemption played to mostly empty theaters. Then, a strange thing happened. The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for seven Academy Awards. But it was completely shut out on Oscar night. Because it had been a box office dud, Ted Turner bought the rights to it very cheaply and began running it on his TNT TV network over and over again for the next 20 years.

And it was through television that viewers completely changed their minds about The Shawshank Redemption. People wouldn't buy a ticket to it in theaters, but couldn't get enough of it in their living rooms. Do you consider The Shawshank Redemption your favorite movie of all time?

Probably not. But somebody does. The Shawshank Redemption is Netflix's highest-rated film ever. It's so universally loved by viewers that it completely baffles Netflix and throws their algorithms off. Not only that, it has edged out The Godfather to become the number one film on IMDb's list of the 250 top-rated movies of all time.

A disaster at the box office, a historic runaway success on television. Same movie, same title. The difference was this. Where the movie was shown influenced how the public reacted to it. In the world of marketing, the question of where greatly influences buying decisions. What people buy in one country, they won't buy in another. But the more interesting buying differences aren't country to country. They're province to province, state to state, and even city to city. What one city buys a lot of, a neighboring city may not buy at all. How one city displays status may not even

register in the next town over. What we choose to drink changes completely province to province. We even shop for different sexy items city to city. It all comes down to one of the biggest rules in marketing. Where you live dictates what you buy. You're under the influence. I grew up in Sudbury, Ontario in the 60s and 70s. One of the most popular drinks there, at the time, was a rye and Pepsi. When I moved to Toronto in 1978, I discovered nobody here drank rye and Pepsi.

They drank rye and Coke. There was a reason why it was different in Sudbury. It was one of the few cities where Pepsi outsold Coke. Where you live dictates what you buy. And I don't just mean that Sudbury, Ontario sells more snow shovels than Miami, Florida. It's much more interesting and surprising than that. According to Statistics Canada, beer is definitely the drink of choice in the Great White North.

Over 50% of our national alcohol consumption is beer. But that preference for a brew differs depending on where you live. Yukon and Northwest Territories buy the most beer per capita, far above the Canadian average. Guess which province buys the least amount of beer per capita? Answer? Ontario. Surprising. Yep.

And even though the Caesar was invented in Alberta, beer is king there, too. But while beer is the most popular alcohol beverage in the country, its market share is falling to wine and liquor, both of which began to rise in 2004. Quebec is far and away Canada's wine connoisseur, buying the most vino of any province. British Columbia ranks second, which probably makes sense due to BC's excellent wine region.

The province that buys the least amount of wine? That would be Saskatchewan. When it comes to spirits, Northwest Territories purchases the most. Yukon comes in at number two, and Newfoundland and Labrador at number three. Where, Rumout sells second-place rye whiskey by a rate of two to one.

Might that be screech? It might. While Quebec loves wine, it doesn't like liquor, spending the least amount annually on spirits. Yet, Quebec consumes the most liters of alcohol per person of legal drinking age. The province with the lowest consumption of alcohol is Prince Edward Island. That's interesting, because PEI held on to prohibition laws until 1948, 20 years after the rest of Canada lifted the ban.

So, it's quite possible history has had a lingering effect on the people of PEI. Where you live dictates what you buy. But get a load of this. A recent study revealed Canadians drink 50% more alcohol per year than the average world citizen. Back off. It's a long winter. In the United States, New Hampshire consumes the most beer, followed by North Dakota and Montana. The state that consumes the most spirits is, again, New Hampshire. Next comes Washington, D.C., then Delaware.

Washington, D.C., consumes the most wine. A very close second is Idaho. Bit of a dark horse there. And number three, coming around on the outside, is New Hampshire. Their live free or die motto is beginning to make more sense to me now. As you can see, choice is often based on social comparison. As author Tom Vanderbilt notes in his superbly researched book on the subject of choice, titled You May Also Like, what you choose is greatly influenced by what you see others doing.

It's like a standing ovation at a play. Most of us will stand up and join the applause, whether we think the performance was that good or not. This is especially true when it comes to conspicuous consumption. Where you live and what you observe definitely determines what you like to show off. When it comes to luxury cars, for example, British Columbia is the number one market per capita in Canada, purchasing 42% above the Canadian average, twice that of Ontario.

It seems residents of British Columbia are accustomed to dealing with a high cost of living. Many leverage the equity on their homes to help finance luxury car purchases. One top luxury car dealer there says British Columbians have a taste for premium products and have a willingness to stretch to accommodate those purchases. Weather also influences car buying decisions on the lower mainland, as there is less snow and salt, making it easier on luxury cars. Interesting to compare that to New York. There, residents spend more on limos and taxis than any other city. And because there is no car culture there,

the status symbol of choice is luxury watches. New York doesn't just buy a few more luxury watches. It buys 171% more luxury watches than the national average. No other American city comes close. Even during the recent Great Recession, New Yorkers still bought 25 times the number of luxury watches than the national average. Los Angeles purchased the second most, followed by San Francisco. We'll be right back to our show, but first, a quick word from a sponsor who supports our podcast.

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Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca What we do and what we say we do are often different things. For example, many people say they watch foreign films and documentaries a lot.

But Netflix will tell you that doesn't really happen. The same holds true with how cities express social standing. According to the New York Times, the Consumer Expenditure Survey shows that different cities express status in very different ways, even if they don't admit to it. In New York, as we've just mentioned, one of the top status symbols is luxury watches. In Boston, it's tuition

to private schools. In Dallas, it's home decor. In San Francisco, it's club memberships. And in Washington, surprisingly, it's encyclopedias and reference books. Wow, that's surprising. In Toronto, expensive homes are a contemporary status symbol.

The city was recently named the world's fastest-growing market for luxury home sales worth more than $3 million and was ahead of wealthier cities like New York, London, and Paris. When it comes to cosmetics and perfume, Canadians spent $1.4 billion on prestige beauty products last year. Women in Atlantic Canada spent the most on cosmetics, followed by Alberta and Ontario. In the States, you might assume that New York and Los Angeles spend the most on cosmetics.

They don't, not by a long shot. It's Phoenix, Houston, and Minneapolis that are far and away the biggest beauty spenders. Boston and Baltimore prefer the natural look, spending the least on beauty products. Feeling lucky, punk?

Lotteries are an interesting indicator of purchasing habits. In Canada, the province that buys the most lottery tickets is Quebec at $3.1 billion. Coming in second is Ontario at $2.3 billion. In the U.S., Rhode Island spent the most lottery dollars per capita at almost $800 per person per year. Here's where differences are so interesting. South Dakota ranks number two for most lottery dollars spent at $755 per person.

Yet, North Dakota ranks the lowest at a mere $36 per person annually. The two states are side by side, and you can drive from the center of North Dakota to the center of South Dakota in just five and a half hours. Yet, the difference in purchasing behavior couldn't be more extreme.

What you choose says a lot about you. That's how Google decides which ads to send you. It creates a profile based on what you search. Did you know you can find out who Google thinks you are? Just type this into your browser. Google.com slash ads slash preferences. Up pops your Google profile, built from your past searches.

This is who Google thinks you are. Now, I bet when you do that, you won't agree with the list of interests. It won't line up with your idea of yourself. My list says I like books, humor, and rock music, which is true. It also says I like hair products. Not so sure about that. Have you seen my picture?

But the big question is, which is true? The sense of yourself that you aspire to, or the one based on the choices you actually make? As writer Tom Vanderbilt says, in an age of individualism, many of us have convinced ourselves that we are complex creatures marching to our own drummers. But in reality, there's a tendency to cluster.

We aren't so much rare birds, but rather birds of a feather. How much money we spend on our pets depends on where you live. According to Amazon.ca, the most pampered pets in Canada live in Saskatchewan. Regina spent the most on their dogs. Saskatoon came in at number two. Burnaby at number three. Kitchener spends the most on cats. But it's a dog's life.

Canadians spend way more money on dogs than on cats. And they spare no expense. Items include high-end bedding with memory foam. I want a bed like that. Dream on. There's doggy hiking boots, doggy jackets and sweaters, jeweled collars,

pillows, Halloween costumes, and even hydrotherapy. Over 80 dogs per month visit the Waterpaws Canine Aquatic Center in Saskatoon. Some visit more than once a week. If you're an American pooch, it pays to live in sunny Phoenix, Arizona, where owners spend way more per person on their pets than any other American city.

Coming in second in the pet-loving derby is Cleveland, Ohio. When it comes to books, where you live has a big influence on your purchasing behavior. Even though Toronto is the country's publishing center, Vancouver is the number one book-buying city. Attention authors, Vancouver is number one in more than 50% of all categories, including business books and travel self-help and health books.

Tuck that away in your book marketing back pocket. Calgary is number two on the list of top book buyers. Saskatoon is number three. Toronto elbowed in at number seven. Saskatoon also led the country, for the third year in a row, in purchasing the most novels written by Canadian authors. The city buying the most e-books? Calgary, followed by Regina and good old Saskatoon.

In the U.S., Seattle was the top book-buying city, at a whopping 68% above the national average, followed by San Francisco, then Philadelphia. The city that buys the least amount of books is Miami. The next city that buys the least amount of books happens to be the publishing capital of America, New York City. Another stereotype overturned. Where you live dictates what you buy.

The New York Times also quoted some other interesting city stats. Atlanta, for example, spends 230% above the national average when it comes to motorcycles, yet spends 45% below average on men's underwear. I guess they like to freestyle on their choppers. Clearly. Boston spends a staggering 330% more than the national average on alimony. Detroit spends the most per capita on dating services and GPS systems. They need to find their dates. True.

Cleveland spends the most on wigs. What's up with that? No idea. Washington spends 110% more per capita on men's suits, but 100% below the norm on non-alcoholic beer. Meanwhile, Miami spends 50% below the norm when it comes to women's underwear. No comment. New year, new me.

Season is here, and honestly, we're already over it enter felix the health care company helping canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year weight loss is more than just diet and exercise it can be about tackling genetics hormones metabolism felix gets it they connect you with licensed health care practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program,

they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power.

Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Oh, my sweet baby. You mean everything to me. I love you. When Ashley Madison's website was hacked recently, the Toronto Star reported that seven years' worth of billings had been exposed, including partial credit card numbers, transaction amounts,

and the street addresses of members. The Canadian city with the most cheaters was Toronto the Good. Toronto, by the way, ranked fourth on that list internationally. If only the Leafs could do that well. The number two Canadian city, according to leaked Ashley Madison information, is Lloydminster, Alberta, population

24,000. Number three on the naughty list was Milton, Ontario, followed by Oakville, Ontario. Then, the royal city of Guelph. I thought it was also interesting to see which Canadian city spent the least with Ashley Madison.

Number one was Selkirk, Manitoba, the catfish capital of the world. Too busy fishing. Number two was Moncton, New Brunswick, where the crossword puzzle was invented in 1926. They're more across than down. And the number three city was downtown Montreal. Can you

guess the top cheating city in the U.S.? Yup, the Big Apple. Followed by Houston, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The cities with the least amount of Ashley Madison hijinks were Atlanta, Philadelphia,

and get a load of this, Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I guess it does. When it comes to Kama Sutra show and tell, it's interesting to note Canada's largest cities barely make the list. It's the rural communities that are having all the fun. According to the online sex toy store Pink Cherry, the Canadian city that buys the most sex toys is... Kentville, Nova Scotia, population 6,000.

Go, Kentville! Kentville took the crown, or the cuffs, from last year's number one city, Victoria, B.C., which is interesting, because Victoria has one of the highest elderly populations in Canada. Now, when I look at a stat like that from a marketing perspective, I have to say, I have no idea what's going on there. Number two on the sexy list was Colwood, B.C.,

followed by Fort McMurray. Toronto and Montreal didn't even crack the top 100. By the way, believe it or not, weather matters when it comes to sex toy purchases. Most are sold in the winter. Makes sense. Canadians can only do so many crossword puzzles during those long snowy months. Now, when it comes to sales of BDSM, or Bondage Discipline Submission and Masochism products,

online sex store Pink Cherry says the number one city in Canada is Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, with a population just 50 shades short of 1,000 people. Wow, that is so surprising. I have an idea. Let's call someone in Mahone Bay and ask them if it's true. That sounds like fun. We have a Nova Scotia phone book here, so I'll just pick a number randomly. Let's call someone in Mahone Bay and ask them if it's true. That sounds like fun.

We have a Nova Scotia phone book here, so I'll just pick a number randomly. Here we go. Let's see. Area code 902. This should be interesting. Okay, it's ringing. Here we go. I'll just introduce myself, tell them that Mahone Bay ranks number one in BDSM sales and see what they say.

While we're waiting, the number two city in Canada for BDSM sales was Fairview, Alberta. Number three was 100 Mile House in British Columbia. Still ringing. By the way, Fort McMurray was in the top ten of both lists, sex toys and BDSM. No one's answering.

I guess they're tied up. Probably right. Where you live determines what you buy. Every town, every city, every province, and every state has a culture. And that culture has a shared shorthand. As the New York Times said, just by virtue of living in a particular city, you tend to spend more or less

on certain conspicuous items. New York likes to show status with watches. San Francisco chooses country club memberships. Vancouver prefers luxury cars. And in Toronto, status is often expressed with expensive homes. Every smart marketer knows there is no national market for a product. Instead, there are numerous nuanced markets.

And you can't assume anything, because there are many surprises to be discovered, and long-held stereotypes are often overturned. The publishing centers don't buy the most books. Los Angeles doesn't buy the most cosmetics. Ontario doesn't buy the most beer. And Nova Scotia is the sexiest place in Canada.

It all goes to prove there is a secret language going on in all our towns. And what people purchase, marketers can't judge. They can only try to understand. It's live and let buy when

you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode brought to you by The Toronto Zoo. I'd walk a mile for a camel. Under the Influence was recorded at Pirate Toronto. Series producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound engineer, Keith Oman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre.

Research, Lama Balagi. Hey, I like your style. I'd like your style even more if you were wearing an Under the Influence t-shirt. Just saying. You'll find them on our shop page at terryoreilly.ca slash shop. See you next week. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year.

Weight loss is more than just diet and exercise. It can be about tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, Peloton