Inspired by the wheel of hunger visualisation from the other week I started to look into food trends around the world with the ultimate aim of making a “World food trends” visual in the near future.
Along the way I stumbled across a beautiful demonstration of how Google insights for search can show a trend sweeping the globe.
The video below shows searches for cupcakes from 2004 to the present day (The darker blue the country gets, the more popular cupcakes searches are). I like to think you could probably substitute ‘cupcake’ for ‘American fad’.
And this is what happened where it all started, in America. Note, California starts the trend swiftly followed by those North East regions.
And here is the global search demand for cupcakes mapped out since 2004. Note all of the peaks occurring in the early years in October (Halloween?) and now we have peaks in February and March too.
Global searches for cupcakes since 2004
Cupcake sites I came across during my research
- 10 Ways to Decorate With Cupcakes (casasugar.com)
- That’s What Friends are For: Cupcake Review (planetpookie.com)
- Pumpkin Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Icing (familyof7.wordpress.com)
- Babycakes Friday: Chocolate Cupcakes (yesiwantcake.com)
Johnny Cullen
October 6, 2011
Great post, thanks. I’d like you to do a guest piece on my blog please – would you be interested? Cheers
Duncan Bloor
October 7, 2011
Would love to write on http://www.eustondoyoucopy.com thanks for the offer! I’m getting grammar anxiety already though what with all those copywriters reading it and everything.
Nicholine@gmail.com
October 25, 2011
In trying to find an answer of my own to the question ‘why are cupcakes so popular?’, I tracked searches for cupcakes with some of the attributes they are most associated with: pretty, small, cute, pink, glittery, homemade etc. The search term that most closely tracks ‘cupcakes’ is ‘cute’.
See the chart here: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%20cupcakes%2Ccute&cmpt=q
So in our increasingly harsh and unforgiving world, maybe cupcakes have tapped into our desire for intimacy and smallness, something that’s just for us – a little bit of sweetness and colour and a return to a childhood when to be cute meant to be carefree.
Duncan Bloor
October 25, 2011
That’s really interesting Nicholine. Pleased you could dig a little deeper into this.
Keneth Blanchard
October 31, 2011
like it
Anonymous
November 2, 2011
Just thought i’d comment and say neat theme, did you code it yourself? Looksamazing.