FTAV’s Friday charts quiz

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
In case you missed it, this week’s quiz is your last chance to win the OG Alphaville Friday charts quiz I ❤️ Charts T-shirt. After three years and more than a hundred tees distributed to elite-tier humans, we have decided to mix things up and introduce the I ❤️ Charts baseball cap.
Caps may not be as ubiquitous as T-shirts, but haute couture is never about utility, it’s about signal. And nothing sends a stronger signal of your charm, power, intellect and all-round brilliance than a rounded crown and stiff bill in bisque pink and “I ❤️ Charts” on the front.
Anyway, that’s enough heart emojis. Here are the three charts you need to identify to have a chance to win the last-ever T-shirt. As always, send your guesses for what these show to [email protected] with QUIZ in the subject line. We’ll collect all the correct entries around midday on Monday, and from them select one lucky winner of the FINAL, glorious T-shirt.
Ready, set, go:
Good luck!
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Facts Only

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects favorite stories for a weekly newsletter. The quiz is for an OG Alphaville Friday charts quiz. The giveaway is for an I ❤️ Charts baseball cap, replacing the previous T-shirt. Three years and more than a hundred T-shirts were distributed previously to elite-tier humans. Guesses must be sent to [email protected] with QUIZ in the subject line. Correct entries will be collected by midday on Monday to select a winner for the final item.

Executive Summary

The content is a promotional quiz from FTAV for a T-shirt giveaway, asking readers to guess three charts. The contest involves submitting guesses to an email address, with correct entries being selected by midday Monday to determine the winner of the "I ❤️ Charts" T-shirt. The giveaway has transitioned from a T-shirt to a baseball cap after distributing over a hundred items to humans. Participants are asked to submit their guesses for the three charts via email with "QUIZ" in the subject line.

Full Take

The mechanism relies on leveraging a sense of exclusivity and achievement—the idea of winning a prize associated with "elite-tier humans" and "haute couture"—to drive engagement. The shift from T-shirts to caps is a subtle recalibration: while T-shirts offer broad visibility, hats imply status and refined taste, signaling charm, power, and intellect through aesthetic choice rather than mere utility. This frames the participation not as a simple guessing game but as an act of recognizing specific cultural markers. The use of a direct appeal regarding "charm, power, intellect and all-round brilliance" establishes an implicit hierarchy for the potential winners. The process intentionally builds anticipation around identifying specific visual cues (the charts) to reward those who recognize subtle aesthetic signals. This pattern suggests that value is derived not just from the prize itself, but from the curated experience of participation within a perceived elite group.