Thousands of people gathered for the 2018 Women’s Marches, which occurred in major cities across the United States and around the world this past Saturday, January 20th. This marks the second year in a row that this event has taken place. The event brings people together to recognize and advocate for women’s and LGBTQ rights and equality, healthcare reform, and to stand up to sexual abuse and assault. This year’s event focused heavily on the latter as a result of the start of the #MeToo campaign in the fall of 2017.
Following up on our foot traffic analysis at the Women’s Marches last year, we wanted to see how this year’s march attendance compared to last year’s and identify the brand preferences, demographics and behaviors in the two cities that gathered the most people this year: Los Angeles and Washington D.C.
Below shows the L.A. foot traffic patterns throughout the march.
What We Found
Before we analyzed the data, we wondered where all of the marchers came from this year. Given the swarms of people who flew to D.C last year from across the country to attend the march there, we were curious to see if that trend continued this year, or if people decided to stay more local. After looking at the data, we found that most marchers this year did indeed attend a march closest to where they live.
Brand and Buying Preferences
Auto
After analyzing the data on this year's marchers, we found that those in Los Angeles were 61% more likely to be auto shoppers and 74% more likely to own a car than the average American. As for buying preferences, they’re 37% more likely to be budget auto shoppers and 48% more likely to buy a used car. Similar last year LA participants are 28% more likely to visit a Toyota dealership, 26% more likely to visit a Honda dealership and 18% more likely to have visited a Ford and Nissan dealership. When it comes to filling up their tanks, they much prefer going to a Shell or Exxon Mobil and are 3% less likely to go to BP.
On the other hand, D.C marchers are 47% more likely to be auto shoppers and 59% more likely to own a car than the average American. They are only 23% more likely to be a budget auto shopper and 34% more likely to buy a used car. When it comes to most visited dealerships, D.C participants are 14% more likely to be in the market for a Ford and Toyota dealership and 13% more likely to visit a Dodge dealership. They are also more likely to stop at a Shell or Exxon Mobil to fill up their tanks.
Food and dining
Marchers from both cities are avid restaurant diners and prefer going to quick service restaurants and casual diners such as McDonalds, Subway, Panda Express and Dominoes.
Surprisingly, L.A. marchers are less likely to go to a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s compared to going to fast food restaurants, which is a different trend from what we saw in the data last year.
Both groups are avid coffee drinkers and Starbucks is both groups’ preferred brand. However, D.C marchers are also 34% more likely to go to Dunkin Donuts than the average American.
Shopping
When it comes to shopping behaviors and preferences, marchers from both L.A. and D.C are big family and apparel shoppers. They are both likely to shop at Walmart and Target, but L.A. marchers are more likely to shop at those stores and are also twice as likely to shop at Costco.
In terms of apparel, they both have a loyalty to Banana Republic, Macy’s, Nordstrom and Victoria’s Secret, which is a similar trend to what we saw from last year’s attendees.
Demographics and behaviors
Diving deeper into the demographic data presented by attendees’ device location signals, we found that overall, marchers from both cities represent demographics similar to the average American. D.C marchers are less likely to come from low income areas though. College students specifically were 12% more likely to go to the L.A. march and 17% more likely to attend the D.C march.
The data showed that marchers from both cities are about 63% more likely to be fitness enthusiasts and 25% more likely to be a live sports fan compared to average Americans.
Additionally, march attendees are about 25% more likely to be business and leisure travelers.
How We Did It
At Skyhook, our location network provides us with access to massive amounts of highly precise mobile device data. This data provides insights into anonymized behaviors of mobile users as they move throughout their day.
In this case, we gathered all of the device IDs belonging to people who were along the march route and ran these respective groups through our Skyhook Personas. Skyhook Personas are built by calculating how millions of mobile phones and other devices interact with millions of commercial places of business every day. This process calculates fan brand affinities based on where the devices have visited stores and other commercial businesses.
The Bottom Line
While we found the most differences between the marchers in both cities in their auto preferences, unsurprisingly marchers in both Los Angeles and D.C shared similar behaviors and interests in retail brands and and tastes in food and dining. Given that the march appealed to specific groups of people more than others, the data was more validating than shocking when it came to trends in their preferences and behaviors.
