In this week’s Our Take: small homes make a big point, a new flavour of beauty products, Gen Z tunes in to radio, and Ben & Jerry’s are on the (pillow) case.
SIZE MATTERS
Sweden has a housing crisis. And at this point, another depressing statistic probably isn’t going to cut through.
So housing developer Riksbyggen decided to make the numbers a little harder to ignore.
Its new Square Metre Index calculates how much property the average 25-year-old can afford. In Stockholm, that’s apparently just 1.9 square metres. So, with BBDO Nordics, Riksbyggen did the obvious thing: it built a home that size.
And yes, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.
But that’s the point. We’ve heard so much about housing affordability that even the bleakest numbers can start to feel strangely abstract. A 1.9-square-metre home? Less so.
It’s a smart reminder that when the stats stop landing, sometimes you need to make them real. Because there’s a big difference between telling people how bad a problem is and showing them what it actually looks like.
CADBURY’S BEAUTY GLOW-UP
Cadbury Australia is taking chocolate somewhere it’s never been before: the beauty aisle.
The brand has teamed up with Australian beauty label MCoBeauty on a limited-edition range inspired by its watermelon skincare line, including a brand-new Dairy Milk Watermelon flavour alongside Cadbury-themed beauty products.
And yeah, we’re used to Cadbury going on our hips, not our lips. But here we are.
It’s playful, unexpected and just the right side of ridiculous. Putting a Dairy Milk bar next to an eyeshadow palette is guaranteed to make you look twice, which is exactly what makes a collaboration like this work.
Food and beauty have crossed paths before, but this feels like a particularly fun way to stretch what we expect from both brands. Cadbury gets to play outside the chocolate aisle, while MCoBeauty gets a little extra sweetness.
Whether watermelon Dairy Milk becomes a new favourite is another question. But as a way to make people stop scrolling and think wait, is that chocolate?, it’s pretty sweet.
THE RISE OF GEN Z RADIO FANDOM
If we asked you what Gen Zs are more likely to choose: Spotify’s AI DJ or traditional radio, what would you say?
According to recent findings, radio is proving to be surprisingly popular with Gen Z. iHeartMedia’s recent research found that music is deeply personal to this age demographic, but sharing their own comes with social pressure. 84% turn to radio when listening with others to avoid this, and 85% feel less judged when they do. While these findings are US-based, there’s an interesting Irish parallel too: the latest JNLR figures also show that 65.1% of 15–34s in Ireland listen to radio every day. At a time when so much of Gen Z’s media consumption is highly personalised, on-demand and algorithmically curated, radio offers something increasingly rare: you don’t always know what’s coming next.
This feels like part of a continual shift we’re seeing in our insights week after week. The more digitally-centred Gen Z’s lives are becoming, the more we’re seeing an appetite for experiences that feel ‘offline’ and less digitally manufactured. Radio is a great example of this: it isn’t built around serving every individual exactly what they want. Rather, it creates an authentic, shared and real-time listening experience, which Gen Z seem to value more than you might expect.
As brands lean further into hyper-personalisation and flashy tech innovations, these findings suggest a case for giving young consumers something a little less tailor-made. Perhaps the element of surprise, that radio can’t be entirely predicted or personalised, is part of the Gen Z engagement factor.
FREEZE BEFORE BED
The best side of the pillow just got a little more delicious.
Ben & Jerry’s has turned the universal joy of a cold pillow into ‘Ice Dreams’ — freezer-ready pillowcases inspired by Cookie Dough, Phish Food and Half Baked, all packaged in ice cream tubs.
Is it a completely unnecessary product? Yes. Do we suddenly need one? Also yes.
It’s a classic Ben & Jerry’s move: take an everyday moment, add ice cream, and make it impossible not to talk about. And with a year’s supply of Ben & Jerry’s up for grabs, we’d definitely be entering the competition before bedtime.