The Truth About Nutmeg, Netflix Secret Viewing Data, and What Nations Have the Most Soft Power In 2024 

What are the most powerful nations in terms of their soft power in 2024? Why did Netflix release their first ever data engagement report and what can it teach us about our viewing habits? How can you write the best performance review for yourself at the end of the year?

Can a beer specifically formulated for the taste buds of people over 70 reinvent a category? And how did a war over nutmeg lead to the founding of America’s biggest city? Get the answers in this week’s edition of the newsletter.

Stay curious and be non-obvious,

Behind Netflix’s First-Ever Big Data Release and What We Watched In 2023

The Night Agent was the most popular show globally on Netflix over the past year and 30% of all viewing was non-English programming. 55% of all viewing on Netflix was original titles while the remaining 45% was for licensed content produced by others.

These are just a few of the insights you’ll get from Netflix’s newly released 2023 engagement report. For a company notorious for being secretive about their data, the data release is a sign something is changing. The company has been reluctant to share data for more than a decade, so why release them now? The resolution to the Hollywood strikes earlier this year may have something to do with it. 

Still, the data release is a tricky business issue that should resonate for anyone outside the entertainment industry too. Would you release data publicly that you knew could help your competitors? And should Netflix be more forthcoming in the future or is their secrecy understandable and likely to continue?

Beck’s 70+ Is a Bitter Beer Specifically Made for the Taste Buds of Seniors

Our taste buds change as we age. Even though that’s widely known, there are surprisingly few products that are specifically made to take advantage of that fact. This truth makes Beck’s 70+,  a bitter beer specifically “made for advanced palates” a game-changing product that speaks to an underappreciated consumer segment.

Launched with an anti-ageist advertising campaign, the beer seems inspired by the “pro-aging” culture movement happening now and is an early example of an entirely new category of food and beverage formulated to appeal to the more mature palate. In a crowded category filled with shades of sameness, this is a clever way to stand out by appealing to a customer group everyone else is ignoring. 

 The Art of Writing a Good Self-Assessment and Performance Review

The end of the year means performance review time, which can be intimidating. How do you boil down your annual performance into a written form? This HBR article has some useful tips including reviewing your calendar to make sure you don’t forget things from earlier in the year and focusing on your significant accomplishments instead of simply listing tasks.

We just did performance reviews with our full team and one question I asked everyone to share was an idea that could help our company be more successful in 2024. I also asked what professional development activities they would do to improve their own skills personally. The first question was aimed at making us better as a team, while the other was aimed at making them better as individuals.

If you’re doing a cycle of these reviews in the coming weeks either as a leader or an employee, these are two important elements to consider. After all, isn’t the point to make sure both the company and the people inside it continue to get better in the coming year?

The Untold Backstory of Warm Winter Spices Like Nutmeg and Cinnamon

There’s a story I used to tell in my marketing keynotes about the early popularity of cinnamon. Spice traders hundreds of years ago, wanted to inflate the price they could charge for cinnamon so they created an elaborate story about a fierce bird known as the cinnamologus that had to be tamed in order to harvest the fragrant sticks (the cinnamon) it used for its nest. Over time, the story was proved to be fabricated — but it turns out it’s just one of several unusual backstories for “winter spices” that are so popular this time of year.

Nutmeg is another one, whose true origin story features colonizers, islands in Indonesia and the true story of how the North American city of “New Amsterdam” founded by the Dutch was traded to Britain in a bid to control the world’s nutmeg supply. That traded city, as you might know, was later renamed “Manhattan” It’s a fun winter time story that you can watch and share with family in this short National Geographic video about the “Nutmeg War” that played a central role in the history of America’s most famous city. 

The 2024 Soft Power Survey Honors Countries Who Still Practice the Art of Diplomacy in Complex Times

Pandas have long been used as a symbol of international cooperation. Known as “envoys of friendship,” the loaning of pandas from China to other nations was so popular for a time that it inspired the term “panda diplomacy” as a way to describe what is otherwise termed in geopolitical circles as “soft power.” This is influence exerted based not on military strength but on cultural cache instead.

This week, Monocle released the results of their annual 2024 Soft Power Survey and at the top of the list are France, USA, Switzerland, Japan and Spain. More interesting is the rationale for these choices, which offers a window into the cultural zeitgeist and future plans of all 20 nations that made the list.

From the increasing role of the African and Arab diaspora in France as it prepares for the 2024 Olympics to how Brasil’s image is shifting after the ouster of far-right President Bolsonaro — this is an article that offers a window into how the world’s most powerful nations really operate and what they will be thinking about in 2024. 

Even More Non-Obvious Stories …

Every week I always curate more stories than I’m able to explore in detail. Instead of skipping those stories, I started to share them in this section so you can skim the headlines and click on any that spark your interest:

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Looking for a speaker to inspire your team to become non-obvious thinkers through a keynote or workshop?  Watch my new 2023 speaking reel on YouTube >>

This Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter is curated by Rohit Bhargava.

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