Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends

by Martin Lindstrom

It may sound overly dramatic, but men and women tend to rebel against whatever imbalances exist in their countries. They do this consciously and unconsciously. Whenever I visit the United States, for example, one of the first things I notice is that no one ever touches one another, especially the men. In America, touch is perceived as sexual. At the same time, American culture overemphasizes sports, especially football, which is one of the few places where men are given permission to touch, slap, wrestle, tackle and hug one another. France is renowned for the high quality of its food as well as its drawn-out, multicourse meals. Yet France is also ranked number one in the world when it comes to eating premade food, including frozen food, and McDonald’s revenues there are the second highest worldwide. Then there’s Japan, one of the most polite, controlled nations in the world, a place where if you bring up the topic of sex with a woman, she will literally blush. But Japan is also the country with the highest number of “sex hotels” and female-only train cars to protect women from being groped.