Live in the moment, celebrate life - Happy International Day of Happiness!

Our world is a better place when it’s full of smiles. Living in the moment and celebrating life with loved ones are some of the strongest motivations for smiling. That is what Mars Wrigley Confectionery discovered in a social listening study covering over 6 million public conversations across the world. And travel can play a big role!

Today is the globally celebrated International Day of Happiness. This year's theme is Happier Together - focusing on the importance of relationships, kindness and helping each other.

What makes people smile – based on social media conversations in the USA, UK, Australia and Singapore - is:

·      Living in the moment – being thankful about life by enjoying every moment of life.

·      Celebrating Life – expressing their love towards life and spending it with their loved ones.

·      Positive influencers – being positively influenced from others success stories.

·      Motivational Thoughts – sharing life philosophies with the people around us.

·      Pleasurable Experiences – By engaging in activities of interest and being with loved ones.

Travel, whether for business or pleasure, has an important role to play in all of these findings. Travel brings people together: for celebration, for business, for new experiences. Travel can be motivational, inspirational, exciting and stimulating. Travel widens our horizons, opens our eyes to other cultures, reminds of what we have, and gives us ambition to achieve more.

Enjoying and celebrating life is also, of course, a perfect fit with the confectionery category. When purchasing confectionery, consumers generally shop either to recharge or reward themselves, to connect with others, or to celebrate something with a gift. In global travel retail, purchasing is primarily to Connect, with Celebrate coming a close second. And these two motivations are all about connecting and making people smile. Returning to the social listening study, it’s clear that Connection (between people) and Celebration  (of seasons, events, important occasions) are key reasons for bringing us happiness and making us smile. We need these moments in our lives – all of us – and confectionery can be the perfect choice to meet and fulfill these necessary human requirements – especially when we are travelling.

There is no doubt the confectionery is a perfect choice for travel retail.  With its mass market appeal, value for money pricing, and often exclusive formats, confectionery is guaranteed to bring smiles to everyone – whether as a gift for a loved one, to share during a trip, a destination memento, or as a self-treat. Whatever the purchasing need, chocolate confectionery can fulfil it.

It is crucial that retailer employees on the shop floor are well informed about how confectionery can satisfy so many traveller needs and are ready to suggest how different brands and formats might be the perfect choice for that moment. Most importantly, today – and every day – shop floor staff act as ambassadors, not just for confectionery but for travel retail as a whole. A happy, smiling face will always help to reassure, inspire, enthuse and relax consumers, whatever their age, race or reason for travel. What better day to remind staff of that, than today!

Have a great day!

About International Day of Happiness.

International Day of Happiness was conceptualized and founded by philanthropist, activist, statesman, and prominent United Nations special advisor Jayme Illien to inspire, mobilize, and advance the global happiness movement. In 2011, Illien brought the idea and concept of creating a new global day of awareness, the International Day of Happiness, to senior United Nations Officials.^[7]

Illien successfully campaigned to unite a global coalition of all 193 United Nations member states, and secured the endorsement of then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki moon, to support the concept of establishing a new official international UN calendar day of observance known as the International Day of Happiness.

Illien authored UN resolution 66/281 ”International Day of Happiness”, which was ultimately adopted by the unanimous consensus of all 193 UN member states of the United Nations General Assembly on June 28, 2012.^[8] Jayme Illien chose March 20 for its significance as the March equinox, a universal phenomenon felt simultaneously by all of humankind, and which occurs the moment when the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun's disk. Wow. Seems like a lot of work for a day of Happiness!  The first officia international day of happiness was celebrated on March 20, 2013 and we’re proud to be taking part this year.

 International Day of Happiness in Travel Retail

 Today is a good day to take a step back from the day to day business that is travel retail and perhaps consider how happy your workplace is. We spend a great deal of our time at work, so it’s important that – as employers – we prioritize a happy work enviornment; it’s not only good for the workforce, its good for the bottom line.  According to LiveHappy.com, unhappy employees cost employers $300 billion each year in lost productivity. 

Happy, engaged employees who love their roles will be more loyal, less stressed and be a positive voice for the company. It’s a proven fact that happy employees will perform better, be healthier (less sick days), create improved morale and improved mind-set, improve intra-employee support and relationships – all leading to happier and better functioning work places.

**’Fractal analytics social listening analysis findings – 2018’. This research was carried out by Mars with Fractal and was a social listening study –an analysis of social media conversations in Australia, the UK, the US and Singapore around what people talk about when they talk about smiles.