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Why Some Boston Area Streetlights Are Purple

In your evening travels, have you come across any street lights in the Boston area that are blue or purple? It’s not meant to be that way. They’re not some…

LED purple light
Geno / WROR

In your evening travels, have you come across any street lights in the Boston area that are blue or purple? It's not meant to be that way. They're not some kind of upgrade or an energy-saving invention like I assumed. A listener in Saugus called today and said she heard they heard using these special lights is to help prevent crime. So I looked it up.

None of these theories are true. And no, the blue or purple lights are not used to determine if you've had the vaccine or not. (Seriously, some wackos said that too.)


As you see from this TV report, the problem isn't unique to the Boston area. Or even Massachusetts. The problem is all over. An effort to save energy by converting to LED light has sort of backfired. Turns out that blue or purple color... it's a manufacturing defect.

It's not the lights that are actually defective. LED lights normally have a blue / violet color. It's the covering that has worn off and needs to be replaced. The coating is supposed to turn that blue'ish or purple'ish light to a bright white so you can see better. Any streetlights you see that are blue in color should actually be reported so they can be fixed. Where have you seen lots of them? Tweet @Geno1057WROR.

What is Massachusetts favorite national brand... from Massachusetts?? Dunkin' Donuts was founded in Quincy, MA in 1950. It's kind of a no-brainer with all of our Dunkin' locations literally everywhere and the way even A.I. thinks we're obsessed with Dunkin' that the chain would be named our most-loved national brand that was born here. Not so, according to a new study.

Qualtrics Research commissioned the study which looked at over 2 million tweets about brands from each state, using an A.I. sentiment analysis tool to figure out which national brands are talked about most favorably in their home state.

So we'll go through every New England state (I'll throw in a few extras as well). For each state I'll let you know which brand came out on top - that is, which national brand from that state got the highest positive score from consumers based on how favorably they were talked about by the people from the brand's home state. I hope that that makes sense and that I didn't just confuse you even worse.

Let's just give it a go! The Most Loved National Brand from Every New England State (and beyond):

NEW HAMPSHIRE

BROOKSTONE
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 67.0%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_ocWG5zb8

VERMONT

DARN TOUGH VERMONT SOCKS
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 92.6% (This was the highest in the country! I gotta get me some of those socks!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fOysno6opI

CONNECTICUT

NEWMAN'S OWN
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 54.3%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JXOA-BSJvQ&t=202s

MAINE

L.L. BEAN
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 52.1%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrwdiyjAiuY

RHODE ISLAND

OCEAN STATE JOB LOT
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 52.1%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Suv3a2tOVhs

NEW YORK

CALVIN KLEIN
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 64.3%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSvx5aImEi8

NEW JERSEY

PRINCE SPORTS
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 57.1%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lae5UaxRPQ

TENNESSEE

MASTERCRAFT BOAT COMPANY
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 62.1%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS2FF5rhv10

CALIFORNIA

INTEL
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 44.2% (Not too great!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRlcZqqyBM8

MASSACHUSETTS

BIG Y GROCERY STORE
Positive Tweets about the brand in-state: 67.8%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzW4ACQREJQ

And All the Rest of the States!!

CLICK HERE to check out all of Qualtrics Research findings including every state's most beloved local brand.

GenoEditor
Hear Geno on the air weekday afternoons. Geno's passions include fat guy food, concerts, sports, travel to Europe and South America. He loves 80s and 90s music, from MTV hairbands to old school freestyle, alternative rock to TRL era jams. Geno's radio career began in his hometown of Portland, Maine. Since then he's been on the air coast to coast from Boston to Las Vegas, Tampa to California.