As you can see above, when Key went on Letterman and teased Kiwis that we now have a Cinnabon (which we still don't), Google Search traffic in New Zealand showed that searches on Cinnabon spiked well above searches on both brands we don't have in New Zealand, like Krispy Kreme, and ones we do have, like McDonald's.
Again, strong evidence of pent up demand. Somebody ought to get on with it.
I'm told that a franchise costs about a million bucks though. Surely setting up a "Cinnabuns" or "Schminnabon's", using one of the reverse-engineered Cinnabon recipes easily found online, would cost less than that.
If somebody uses this analysis and goes on to open a shop in Auckland and not in Christchurch, though, I won't be impressed.
As one of those who searched, I can tell you that not everyone who searched is in want of a Cinnabon here, I just wanted to know what it is.
ReplyDeleteBut surely now that you've seen what it is, you want one, right?
ReplyDeleteYou'll never be able to eat another Anzac biscuit once you've tried one of these. Mmmmmmm....
I like the sound of Schminnabons, world famous schminnamon rolls
ReplyDeleteThat's quite cool with how you used Google Trends though. Its timed it quite nicely. Still, 100 avid fans had better spend $10,000 each on whatever Cinnabons sell to justify that set up cost :) I won't be rushing off to the Bank Manager with this great idea for a new franchise shop... :D
ReplyDeleteStill, the principle that Google Trends could be used as an indirect demand indicator is probably sound the more pervasive Google becomes in our lives. I wonder is something like the ratio of specific Google searches to the number of associated commodities providers is a good measure for supply/demand pressures for that commodity....
@james: The number on the y-axis isn't number of searches; rather, it's percent of maximum searches on all search categories. So the peak of anything will be 100 and all is scaled. At peak, interest in Cinnabon's was five times interest in McDonald's. That's why I threw in a few other reference search terms for comparison.
ReplyDeleteHomePaddock is probably right that a fair number of those would just be "what is a cinnabon". But if that were the case, there would have been way more searches on cinnabon and not necessarily on cinnabon + Auckland, and I was seeing lots of the joint searches.