Last month The Week ran the headline "What big data can tell us about the things we eat".  It then went on to describe the differences between what, when, and where men and women consume food with the conclusion that "men are loafers who eat junk while women are ambitious calorie crunchers". The insights were drawn from a white paper published by GrubHub based on data harvested from its operations.   Let me propose the following less misleading headline for The Week's story: "What big data can tell us about the food GrubHub's customers order from the takeout restaurants it represents"

As discussed in a previous post, when using big data to formulate conclusions about the world at large, one must always consider what and who is being left out.  I had a dig around GrubHub's site and found a number of potential caveats to its position as an authoritative voice on the "gender wars" of America's eating preferences:

• GrubHub acts as an intermediary between consumers and restaurants offering takeout ONLY. It is not involved in transactions between consumers and grocery stores, farmers markets, and non-takeout restaurants.   To be fair, GrubHub doesn't claim that its data represents anything other than takeout dining.

• GrubHub has 4.57million “Active Diners”, so less than 2% of Americans.  To engage with GrubHub, customers must have Internet access so its user base will skew white, young, educated, wealthy, and urban.

• GrubHub’s analysis is based on a year’s worth of GrubHub orders.  At no point in the current ordering process is the customer asked to confirm their own gender (possibly assumed from the customer's first name) or the gender and number of people that will actually be eating the food that is being ordered.

• GrubHub offers its customers a choice of 30,000 takeout restaurants but its partners do not seem to include the top ten takeout chains (McDonald's, Subway, Starbucks, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut, KFC, or Applebee’s).

Image from Wikipedia

China is second only to the US for the size of its economy and imports. For some markets, however, China has overtaken the US. The Chinese car and light truck market is now bigger than the US market. What’s more, the Chinese – with their increased wealth and diminishing trust in local brands – have a fast growing appetite for Western products especially those that are consumed in public such as fashion, cosmetics, personal technology, food and drink, movies, and automotive.  In 2013, for example, 60% of all vehicles purchased in China were not homegrown brands, an increase from the previous year.

Annabel recently attended a Q&A with Steve Hafner.  Steve was a founder of Orbitz, sold it for $1.25billion and two weeks later created KAYAK.  The travel site recently announced its acquisition by Priceline for $1.8billion!  The event focused on the story of KAYAK and was hosted by the Stamford Innovation Center in Connecticut. 

Top takeaways from Steve:

• Invest in branding from the get-go.  KAYAK spent 25% of its initial capital money to find the right name, much to the chagrin of their VC backers
  
• Work with the best:  You can control media spend and placement, but you’ve got to have the right creative team working on your campaign to get results 
  
• Spend on digital:  KAYAK bids on around three million ad words in 15 countries at a cost of $85million
  
• ROI is still a challenge for offline marketing:  Steve estimates a 50% hit rate when it comes to his offline marketing. He admits there is huge waste and it is difficult to accurately report ROI.