The Women’s March on Washington sparked a much larger movement than it’s name implies. From 2 women in the US offering their shared idea to the now historic 914 marches across all 7 continents, the organization is bringing people together across the globe. In our previous post, we compared brand affinity and geographic insights about the crowds at the Presidential Inauguration and the Women’s March on Washington. Now we'd like to shed light on the question: what’s the economic effect of attendee behavior across the country?
Women's March on Washington crowd movement.
Methodology
To do that, we first looked for cities in the US that boasted the largest crowds. To ensure a fair representation across the East and West coast we selected:
- Los Angeles
- New York
- Boston
- Denver
- Seattle
Before we dove into store visits, we wondered if all participants were native to the city - where did these marchers come from? We were interested to see if the numbers in any particular city would stand out. 
Surprisingly Boston was an outlier with 66% of participants being out of state residents. Seattle was on the opposite end with 94% of attendees living in-state. Boston’s high number of out-of-state marchers can be attributed to two factors: the large number of attendees coming from neighboring states like Rhode Island (13%), New Hampshire (12%), New York (11%) and Vermont (9%), along with a massive student population, which was the highest amongst all participating cities.
While Boston’s march attracted the largest percentage of out-of-state attendees, Los Angeles out-of-state participants traveled the farthest to get there: 565 miles on average. Faraway protesters that were present at the LA march came all the way from Nevada (6%), Washington (2%), Texas (4.5%) and even New York (4%).
With an understanding of the geographic movement of the crowd, we produced a wealth of behavioral insights and demographics. Our data allowed us to look at past behaviors of devices in attendence to see if any discernable trends appeared.
Brand Preferences
To understand the behaviors of event participants, we used Skyhook Personas. Personas are based on device movements that reveal user behaviors, demographics and visit attribution to venues. Using this engine to accurately filter and identify historical behavior, we learned more about the unique brand affinities for marchers across the country:
Automotive
LA marchers were more likely to be in the market for a Toyota compared to other cities (two times more than Denver dwellers) but Denver residents were 60% more likely to get a Subaru than their LA counterparts.
Bostonians are significantly more likely to purchase a Volkswagen (50%) or a Ford (30%) compared to New Yorkers. Lincoln, Acura and Chevrolet were New Yorkers’ brands of choice.
Seattleites love Volvos - they were nearly 2X as likely as any of the other city dwellers to be interested in the brand.
Food
Not surprisingly, the sister march audience throughout all cities preferred organic & natural food stores with significant preferences in Trader Joes (which Californians love) and Whole Foods.
Coffee drinkers are abundant in all cities (with New York being the most diehard coffee lovers). It’s now been supported by data that Seattleites love Starbucks more than Bostonians love Dunkins.
In quick-service restaraunt dining, Denver marchers were more likely to be seen at Burger King, Taco Bell or Wendy’s. Subway is preferred by New York, LA and Seattle marchers.
In terms of apparel, New Yorkers have a clear dominant interest in Banana Republic brands.
Retailers
Bostonians love BJs while Costco won out as the most popular big box retailer for Seattle, Denver and LA - more than 2x more popular than on the East Coast.
Los Angeles marchers were 50% more likely to shop at Target than any other city.
In terms of apparel, New Yorkers have a clear dominant interest in Banana Republic brands.
Behavioral Insights
New Yorkers are 20% more likely to be Fitness Enthusiasts than other cities. The data showed an even distribution of cities whose participants love to go to the movies. And finally, the vast majority of city march participants were avid restaurant diners.
Demographics
Diving deeper into the demographic data presented by device location signals, we found a few points that stuck out. The overwhelming majority of attendees could be classified as young adults with high income, however the one surprising insight was that Denverites were 3x as likely to have an associates degree than their counterparts.
The Bottom Line
The Women's March united Americans across the country and showcased a wide variety of behaviors and ways of life. Fueling 'crowd counting' efforts with in-depth participant insights from the start can reveal the multidimensional scope of these issues. Brands and agencies need to take note of where these audiences vote with their dollars, and similarly, participants need to make sure their purchasing behavior supports the causes they care most about. We’ll share more of these data pieces in the future, but in the meantime checkout some of our past analyses of mobile devices across the US here.
About Skyhook Personas
Skyhook can help brands, agencies and event organizers target their most relevant audiences and reach them with messages that speaks to their unique preferences.
