 |
March Madness is a bigger draw for US consumers than the Mueller Report, but almost half of them don’t really care about either one, according to a new poll conducted by Finn Partners.
A survey of 3,000 Americans showed that while 23.2 percent of respondents said they were more interested in the Mueller Report than in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, 28.6 percent were more focused on March Madness.
But both of those numbers were dwarfed by the 48.2 percent of respondents who said they “have no interest in either of them.”
Age, gender and geography all had a marked effect on consumer interest in both topics. In the Northeast, Mueller beat out basketball by a 28 percent to 25 percent margin, whereas in the South, 34 percent were more interested in March Madness, with only 21 percent saying they had more interest in the Mueller Report.
In general, men tended to rank the tournament over the results of the Mueller probe, with the opposite being the case for women. Older Americans had greater interest in the report, with women over 65 registering the most interest in the report of any demographic.
But Gen Z, despite their much-touted political awareness, was three times as likely to show more interest in the tournament than they were to favor the report. In addition, Gen Zers were the consumer segment most likely not to care about either topic (54 percent).
Finn’s survey was conducted between March 22 and March 24.
Most people are willing to trust AI—as long as it stays in its own lane. That’s the takeaway from Mission North’s “The New Rules of Trust," a report that looks at how the public evaluates corporate reputation and at what brands need to do to maintain credibility and relevance.
Executives are moving faster, embracing flexibility and making decisions with urgency even in the face of uncertainty, a new study from Padilla finds.
The global economy is threatened by a wave of insularity that is cutting people off from the world beyond their immediate environment and making them more unlikely to listen to—or do business with—people from other countries or with opinions different from theirs, according to Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer.
While the danger of being on the president’s bad side is seen as a major source of concern for brands, the potential negative effects of artificial intelligence pose an even greater reputational threat, according to Global Situation Room report.
While predictions of economic improvement in the coming year from corporate and financial decision makers are down slightly from last year’s numbers, the overall outlook is still strongly positive, according to a new survey from Teneo.
