Pumpkin spice products on shelves

As pumpkin spice products have proliferated, more babies have been named Maverick, a correlation of 0.984 that connects autumnal flavor marketing to fighter pilot baby naming with the bold confidence of a chart that smells like cinnamon and sounds like a jet engine. The spice launches, the Maverick is born, and both trends are expressions of a culture that values intensity in all categories: food, names, and scatter plots.

Pumpkin spice products grew from about 60 to over 150 SKUs. Maverick grew to over 4,000 babies per year. Both are eighteen-year upward curves driven by the same cultural forces: consumer boldness and the mainstreaming of unconventional choices. Pumpkin spice succeeded because brands realized seasonal products generate free social media coverage, and Maverick succeeded because parents realized unconventional names generate compliments. Both are marketing stories.

Eighteen years of Maverick and pumpkin spice is the millennial boldness correlation: a generation that puts pumpkin in everything and names its children after movie characters, with equal conviction and no apology. The flavor is limited edition, the name is permanent, and both are chosen by someone who decided that traditional was boring.