May 25, 2023 • 38 mins
Digital Ad Market Update: 5/12 - 5/25 2023
Joe and Kiersten are in the studio to break down the latest marketing, tech, and culture news. Hear it all in 39 minutes or less.
Top Stories:
The beer of the masses has many pouring out their glasses. What happened with Anheuser-Busch?
Pluto TV is giving away free TVs for what? Selling your soul? Nope, just every detail about you. Let's get into it.
Do you like pickles? How about pickleball, America's latest sports craze coming to old brick-and-mortar locations?
Articles Mentioned:
Pluto TV Free TVs: https://bit.ly/43tqKxb
Pickleball Craze: https://bit.ly/4357AxK
Joe and Kiersten are in the studio to break down the latest marketing, tech, and culture news. Hear it all in 39 minutes or less.
Top Stories:
The beer of the masses has many pouring out their glasses. What happened with Anheuser-Busch?
Pluto TV is giving away free TVs for what? Selling your soul? Nope, just every detail about you. Let's get into it.
Do you like pickles? How about pickleball, America's latest sports craze coming to old brick-and-mortar locations?
Articles Mentioned:
Pluto TV Free TVs: https://bit.ly/43tqKxb
Pickleball Craze: https://bit.ly/4357AxK
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
On today's of Record, a budLight countroversy update. Could you get a
free TV if you're willing to exchangesome information about yourself? And what's being
done with all these empty bed bathand beyonds and toys r uses around the
country on this week's record. OfRecord is a podcast focus on the marketing
(00:36):
and advertising industry from the perspective ofindustry expert Joe Clements. Joe Clements is
a co founder of Strategic Digital Services, a digital marketing firm based in Tallahassee,
Florida, and founded in twenty fourteen. Everybody, Welcome back to another
(01:03):
episode of the of Record podcast.Those two eves in a row always get
me here? With co host KirstenI'm sorry, go ahead, stepped on
you. I'm on the buttons today. Yeah, and pour one out for
producer Alex who's out of the officetoday. Just the two of us in
(01:25):
the studio with my dog Jasper isalways here. He works hard in his
own dog way. So I thinkwe're due for an update on the bud
Light saga. How's it going forthem? Honestly, more poorly than I
thought, And I've we've talked aboutthis on previous episodes I've done in prior
(01:49):
years before it was cool, alot of the research on brands and politics
and the intersection thereof. I'm surprisedat how much of a hit the company
has taken overall, including so backgroundhere. If you haven't heard is it's
been a month, maybe a monthand a half. Bud Light did a
(02:14):
influencer promotion with actually several dozen people. Dylan mulvaney, the trans influencer,
personality activist, you can throw whateverdescriptor you want on the end, did
this commemorative single can Mulvaney posted thatthat got attention as if bud Light was
(02:43):
making Mulvaney like the spokesperson. BudLight managed to really Anaheuser Busch to so
bungle that response. They had tolet the VP who had recently taken charge
of the brand, who was probablyfrom interviews previously poorly positioned to run that
brand. She was critical of thebrand, said it was to frat humor
(03:07):
despite that it had been the topselling beer for like twenty years, and
made and made the mistake that whenyou hear a marketing person say it,
you should always run, which isour consumers are getting old and dying whenever
somebody says that they always ignore this, the fact that a new cohort usually
(03:28):
ages in to a product, whichI don't you think that was true for
bud Light necessarily. So what endsup happening? This becomes an outrage thing
on social media, gets in themedia, there's a boycott. When this
happens, it's usually a week ortwo. But we're a month and a
half in and sales of bud Lightand I'll pull up the story here out
(03:53):
of Yahoo Finance title abmbev st stocksdrop. His analysts look for stables and
bud Light sales declines. The weekof May six, the most recent week,
it was down twenty three point sixpercent. That's actually marginally worse than
it was the week before when itwas down twenty three point four percent.
(04:13):
But not only is bud Light takinga hit, Budweiser is taking an increasing
hit. And by the way,the sales hits are down week over a
week from the first week of Maythrough I guess that would be a week
and a half ago. Now salesare down across all their major brands,
increasing week over week down, budLight down, Budweiser, side down,
(04:35):
mic Ultra mic Ulture is only downa few percent, down Bush Light even
and down Natty Light, so acrosstheir portfolio they're down enough to hit the
stock down nearly eight percent over theperiod. Now in the same time,
Coors Light and Miller Light are seeingtwenty two percent increases in sales. It's
(04:59):
like, give you one, howbig of a player bud Light was.
It was the best selling beer foressentially a decade by a long shot.
And so it going down twenty twopercent essentially lets its two biggest rivals both
rise twenty two percent. Plus whoknows, there's probably other places those beer
drinkers are going. So what happenedis it's funny. In the research I
(05:25):
did a few years ago, Budweiserwas actually an example of a company that
we said, oh, they actuallyhandle this really well. They're very good
at appealing to urban men and rulemen. It's like the only it's one
of the few brand products you cantake like pull you know, a Mexican
dude off the street in Chicago,and pull a you know, a Bubba
(05:48):
you know, off the street insouthern Alabama, and they're gonna think Budweiser
bud Light like represents them like istheir brand. What ends up happening for
them is their interest. It isvery easy to substitute out a product like
bud Light. How do you doit? You look at the beer and
(06:11):
you take like one step to theleft and take that other beer. And
in the product differentiation in that world, it's such that it's not very defensible.
It is so easy to substitute frombud Light to Miller Light or bud
Light to Cours that the consumer cando it. The product isn't that much
different, and the consumer can maintainthe habit of doing it. So once
(06:34):
you've broken the habit of ordering thatbeer, you're kind of in trouble.
Yeah, in a way that Idon't think is true of let's say a
grocery store. People are very grocerystore loyal the you know they're in a
certain place, they're on your wayhome. It's hard to change that behavior.
Even fashion brands, it can bedifference in quality a little harder to
(06:56):
change behavior. But with a beer, it appears to be so easy to
substitute out that it has no defenseoutside of the brand. So when you
do something that crushes the brand likethat, it's very hard to recover.
Yeah, I'm very interested to seehow football season goes. I know we
still got a couple of months outon that, but well even on that
(07:19):
the football season thing. So wetalked about this too before with bud Light.
Is so they're getting this problem fromlike the right, but because they've
kind of like backed down a littlebit, now they're having trouble with the
LGBT community so on the left.So now that brand is getting whacked at
(07:41):
from both sides, which is whatwe said was going to end up happening.
Was if you didn't do anything,you were going to get like you
were just using this for a publicity. Yeah, and then you're still going
to have the people mad at youfor and you said they should just double
down on it. Yeah, they'realready going to get it. Just go
double down. Yes, at leastyou have some fans left exactly. I
(08:03):
think that was the way they shouldhave gone. But I mean, this
is just a story that keeps giving. It's the first time I've seen a
politically driven brand crisis like this.Yeah, go on to have a more
than a week or so impact onthe brand, right, and they weren't
(08:26):
even able Like when Nike does thisNike does this very intentionally because they understand
their consumer, young, progressive,urban Nike will do this intentionally, and
so when Nike does this and getsin controversy, They're actually going to sell
more stuff as a result. Peoplemad at them aren't the people who are
usually buying the product. Anyway,it doesn't matter in this case. That
(08:48):
is not what happened. They justmanaged to not only the you know,
kind of the base drinker, butthen the CMO of the brand trash talking
the brand, and the humor andthe consumer of the brand hurt them even
more. Right, you know whatis kind of funny. As I've noticed
(09:11):
in the last couple of weekends I'vebeen out, like I've overheard people saying
things like, oh, not abud light, Like, oh no,
bud light, Like it's it's actuallylike weird. How like it's translated to
the bars, it's weird, howit's translated to like a thing. Yeah,
and it's like not like so muchLike I think people are being serious
about it, but everyone makes ajoke. Now, well, now it's
(09:31):
got that thing like drinking. Itis almost a statement, but it's unclear
what the statement is. So ifI drink it, Well, am I'm
I'm not drinking it and being supportiveof you know, any LGBT political issues
(09:52):
because it didn't end up overtly standingup for it. So if I drink
it, am I being anti lgBT or am I being pro LGBT political
interest? So if I drink it, like I'm really in this gray area
about what I'm supporting. Now,you're just virtue signaling at that point.
But to who all saying is likeit's like people that are negatively signaling to
(10:15):
both sides, right, Well,it's the same. I mean, like
I said, it's like the performativeactivism is like where you people will get
on you know, their Apple boxor whatever create box and they start you
know, going off, Oh whatam I saying? Apple blox Um,
and they'll just go on and onand on, but they never actually like
(10:35):
they're not volunteering, they're not helpingpeople out. They go home and they
don't you know, engage on thetopic anymore. It's almost like they just
want the pat on the back.It's almost that's what the butt light drinker
is doing. However, like yousaid, they're patting themselves on the back
for what, Like we don't know. Well, if you're drinking it,
right, and so I think therisk is now, if you're going to
(10:56):
order it, you look like youdon't know. You look like you're just
ignorant of what's going on. Youlook like you want at Yeah, I
mean it would be uh, it'sa statement now, but it's not clear
what it's a statement of. Maybeit's a statement of rejecting the overall intersection
(11:16):
of politics in product. I don'tknow what you'd even be rejecting. Oh
that's someone I'm avoiding at the bar. Yeah, up too metaphor me?
Yeah, like what's them like?Because now it would be a conversation piece.
Yeah, I kind of want togo out and like order it and
see what happens. Order like thebiggest like bubba in the bar, a
(11:39):
bubb light. Wait, wait tostart doing that for fun? That's funny.
And then I'm gonna act real KOIand be like we should record it
for your TikTok Oh yeah yeah,oh that's really funny, and I'm just
gonna be like super quick, likewhat do you mean? I don't know.
That's like giving the drunk people theirbusiness cards back when I see them
(12:01):
a second time and they don't rememberme. Yeah, that's funny. That's
a really good social experiment too.Yeah, just go out and see what
happens. Yeah, Like, Ithink I got you a beer? Is
this good? I kind of wantto ask the bartenders, like, hey,
who's still ordering bud Light. You'reeither gonna get bartenders that are like
the brutally honest ones, which aremost bartenders are They're gonna be like,
(12:22):
I don't know, man, Ijust work here, Like are they're just
gonna say something like that, Oryou're gonna get somebody be like it hasn't
changed anything, nothing, and they'regonna be starting to inject their own like
viewpoint. Well, no, becauseregardless of which side you are politically on
the issue, you're gonna want totake a dump on bud Light. I
don't know if everybody is in thatviewpoint yet. I still think there's people
(12:48):
that are very defensive on it,are they? Because I think what happened
is even the tide turned on defendingit because Annheiser Busch made the mistake of
being very like wishy washy on theissue. They didn't double down on the
support part. Yeah, you're correct, Like you're totally correct, But I
do think people still are sitting onthe base principle of like people are afraid
(13:11):
of gay beer because they don't likegay people. Like That's literally what people
are like. That's the only thingthey care about and the only takeaway they're
getting from this. They don't care. No, trans isn't necessarily gay.
Well you know what, those peopleneed to get educated LGBTQ plus. Sorry
I'm uneducated. That was my bad, um, But that's I think more
people are just hung up on thatissue more than anything else. We're going
(13:33):
in the Pride month. It's gonnaprobably get fired up all over again.
Oh good point. Oh man,it's gonna I think you're right. I
think it's gonna get fired up allover again. It's probably gonna get even
worse for Anheuser Busch prediction. Shortit. I'm not a financial not a
financial advisor. This is not financialadvice. Doge coin? Am I going
(13:58):
to press the right? Hey youwere right about something. By the way,
what I think you said we needsomebody to do a super cut on
this. But you said brand mostlikely to take advantage of this yeling.
Yeah, and they did. Theydid. They got what do they got
the American flag. Can is thatwhat it was? Yeah, with a
big bald eagle on it. Yeah, I mean they've always had the eagle
(14:18):
as like they're like their logo,but like they doubled down on the Patriots.
I mean, like I thought thatwas gonna be an easy one because
yeah, like they're America's oldest brewery. Yeah, they're in Pennsylvania. Like
they they check all the box andthe thing is yingling. People that drink
it are usually like lower class,like and I say that fine working class,
working class. Look I'm saying itfor myself. Man, I'm from
(14:39):
Pennsylvania in that class, Like,I mean, that's why my family drinks
it, like uh, and that'swhy I love it. Like it feels
patriotic when you drink it. Youdon't feel oubitsy and you don't feel like
as like Nascar trashy when you're drinkinglike a bud Light Nascar trashy. Oh
(15:00):
great, Kirsten, Now we're goingto get attacked. Just attack me.
I'm sorry, I'll add off myApple box, my Apple box. So
that kind of ties into another thingI noticed. So that Miller Light commercial
we talked about a month or soAgo where it's the send us your Ship
(15:20):
where they're taking the old like bikinibeer ads and then turning them into chemical
leaden compost one of the things.I really it's funny that is resurfaced to
get that campaign has been around forfive months now, which I think,
by the way, is overall likenot a great campaign for that brand,
but like doesn't create as you know, I don't think it's necessarily politically tinge.
(15:43):
Nobody is getting it all been outof shape over that. Yeah,
it's just like why yeah, andthen people just move on from it.
Yeah. The thing I realized aboutthat ad when I watch it is it
is still like women they're probably allactresses, yeah right, who are in
(16:03):
that like very like college educated kindof that vocal pattern speech Like those look
like they're supposed to be like,you know, educated professional women, which
again is the wrong target to sellMiller Lite too. Well you go sew
that to working class women. Putworking class women in that ad. Put
(16:26):
women who have like working class jobs, like you know, I don't know
what it is, like retail hair, salon, nails, uh, you
know, like white white collar administrativework. Like put working class women in
those ads. Don't show me likethe women who work in like marketing and
(16:47):
run I don't know, some kindof composting business, which I guess would
be kindas yeah, but I feellike that ad kind of misses. They're
portrayed like scientist. Yeah yeah,not like oh I work on the farm
and I make composts like yea,which I know is not how like you
know composts, Yeah, but notlike the average. If you're Miller Lite,
(17:10):
you're not selling to like some ladythat makes you know, buck twenty
a year in I don't know,pick your major city DC has a lobbyist.
You're you're really selling to like alady who probably like drives uber at
night for extra money and then inthe day works at uh, you know,
retail restaurants something like that. Yeah, you know, maybe she's in
(17:33):
construction, just more rare. Right. I would love to see the statistics
on how much stuff actually got sentto Miller Lite to company composted zero point
zero zero, because all they didwas make that stuff more desirable. I
was gonna say, I don't thinkanyone would be giving up their vintage Miller
(17:55):
Lte stuff, especially now then peopleare saying, oh, this is racy,
Like yeah, I mean like that'slike stuff you like hang up in
your like TV room, your garage, Like I don't know, like it's
a it's an aesthetic, like yeah, I like that collect that kind of
stuff. Like I think that's fine. It's like the modern version of like
the pin up poster. Almost.I was literally gonna say, I just
(18:18):
watched a TikTok of a girl whowas like, get your coffee table books
off your coffee table, like nobodywants to talk about like your pictures of
Italy or stuff like that. She'slike, you know what's going to get
people talking and is actually interesting isbuy a vintage Playboy magazine and put that
on there. And she's like,your guest will think that is so cool
and they will think you were solike like hot shit, and like I
(18:40):
was like, you know what,you're edgy. I was like, that's
not bad because I was in avintage store. I'm on a uranium glass
kick right now for everyone listening,and there was a pile of old vintage
Playboys and I was thinking about thatand I was like, you know that
the articles such a great conversation starterand it's just art it's a piece of
art, like and I don't know, and everyone kind knows about it.
Yeah, I don't know. Ithought it was really an interesting take on
(19:03):
like what do we call it?Reclaiming like something that like instead of being
like just thrown away and burn it, it's like, no, I'm reclaiming
this as a piece of art.I do think it isn't an example of
like, especially in the beer industry, they're usually so good at being in
touch with how most Americans think canfeel about things that they are the best
(19:29):
at it. In this case andthese two examples, I think they're way
off the mark for where most Americansare consumers of that product, especially on
those issues. Yeah, I agree, but the market seems to be correcting
itself. So let's finish on this. What would you do so your Anheuser
(19:49):
Busch. They've hired you to comein and fix it. What are you
doing to fix it? We aredoubling down for June Pride month. Man,
these cans, all of them aregoing to be rainbow. You can't
even get them in blue. Nothing, no platinum, no zero calorie as.
All that's gonna be rainbow is gonnabe doubled down. Yeah, so
you're going hard, like, hey, we're never gonna get those other people
(20:11):
back, Like we're gonna go We'regonna go at that group hard. And
I would be like sponsoring every prideof it. I would make a campaign
and have a camera at like everybig city pride parade that you are giving
out free bud light to people andyou're talking about how you're building bonds and
making friends and being equal. Yeah, I would do I would run that
(20:33):
thing. So you're actually gonna dolike the hard pivot on yeah, which
I think could work. I thinkthat's more likely to work sooner than just
people on the right forget that they'remad at bud Light. Right, what
would you do? I would Iwould do the opposite of what you said.
(20:59):
I think that could work. Ithink it probably would work. Yeah.
My advice though, in terms oflike market share, would be no,
get me the guys who were doinglike the real men of Genius ads
and like two thousand and five orwhatever, bring them back, like I
need to, you know, browdown on this again. Uh in like
(21:22):
craft me some sort of like apologythat sincere but funny, uh, and
like let's let's let's change that sowe're gonna meet this arrative like you know,
we actually we accidentally stumbled into politics. You know. Sorry, well,
big mistake spoiled the party there.But here's what you can expect from
(21:45):
us. This is the beer foreverybody. And then it's like, you
know, some bro and a Trumphat, you had a beer too.
And then it's like somebody at thedrag race or at the drag race,
at the drag race, he's he'sthe guy in the red hat at the
drag show. You hand a beertoo, and you're just gonna pivot hard.
I'll be the all American beer.Uh, you know, we want
(22:06):
to unite all Americans. We're herefor the party. We're here for the
good time. We're here for theplace that everybody gets along. We'll never
do that again, all right,got it? The ad opens with the
bud Night coming out of the pitof misery, and oh yeah, it
goes into that. I don't knowI would start No, I think you're
right. I think you'd started throwingeverything that people loved at one point,
(22:27):
bringing it back the pit of misery. The frogs I'd bring out. The
frogs are like ninety eight eight SuperBowl Whatsop again, I would. I
would just go so over the topand the apology that it is still sincere
but very humorous, and deal withlike the limited fallout. I think you
(22:49):
would have on the left who weren'treally in a lot of cases your core
customer anyway. Yeah, I thinkthat would work too. And then I
take another one of my brands andmy catalog and just do what you said
with it, so you could beon both sides. And that's what they
do fundamentally, like I'm aware.Yeah, I would. Now, look,
(23:11):
maybe what they need to do isjust take Bud Light and do what
you said with it, and thentake another brand like Bush or something or
Natty and do what I just saidwith it. I think that's what they
were going to do with like regularBudweiser. It seemed like because they put
out that all American Bud Heavy.Yeah Bud Heavy got hammered by the way,
(23:32):
but well because they were trying toflip like the narrative so quickly that
they were putting out this all Americanthing when someone raising the flag and putting
their hand over their heart like aweek after they put out that, Yeah,
and you know, and I meanpeople aren't dumb with advertising anymore.
You can't really pull fast ones onpeople as quickly because people all commented on
a very well produced ad, I'dhave to say, wait, you just
(23:55):
said this, So now you're tryingto backtrack. Yeah, Like, and
people aren't dumb. And that's allthey got. That's all they took away
from that. They didn't take awaya wholesome American, like hard working the
message like it was trying to portray. They just took away, Oh,
you're a flip flop. Yeah.Best case study in a politically driven brand
(24:15):
crisis I've seen so far in termsof what not to do right, Like,
it'll be interesting to see how itresolves. Maybe it just resolves very
slowly over time. Yeah, we'llfind out. What's our next story.
We got called so out of theHollywood Reporter, a startup from the co
(24:37):
founder of Pluto TV thinks America isready for free TVs. Telly, founded
by Posen who's the co founder ofPluto, will give away um fifty four
K TV sets for free, bettingthat it can build a sustainable advertising business
around them. So it's getting away. I think it was fifty thousand of
(25:00):
them. I want one, andthey're really nice, fifty five inch.
They have a sound bar with abuilt in LED screen underneath the sound bar.
In the sound bar can be theLED screen under the sound bar can
display whether kind of whatever you want, like a ticker on it, and
then they also have the lighting onthe back of the TV. Now,
the this is this is a smartidea if it works. What you have
(25:23):
to do to get it is,in order to get the TV, you
have to first, first person,disclose all kinds of information about yourself income,
how many people in the household,what kind of car do you drive?
Like it's a pretty lengthy questionnaire,and then they'll send you the TV.
(25:45):
But it's so like they're advertising catalogas like direct first party data.
So if you go buy ads throughthem, they know exactly who's on the
other end. Bro, I alreadyused TikTok. That's like nothing. It's
easy, man, I sell thatstuff for free. I can get a
TV. That's his that's his case. His case is hey, for too
(26:06):
long, consumers have just exchanged thislike privacy for basically nothing. We're going
to give them a piece of hardwarefor it. Man, I will do
one hundred question questionnaire if they wantto know about my health, my blood
type, my last four, mysocial Yeah, I'm cool and it's a
it's a nice TV. And he'ssaying, hey, that data is worth
at least a thousand bucks essentially,Dude, I think that's a great idea.
(26:30):
What do you think do you thinkpeople are going to do it?
I think it'll skew heavily towards uh, middle and lower income people and younger
so like younger people, yeah,uh and like you know, most people
are going to take the time todo it or hear about it, or
(26:51):
they're gonna have to be convinced thatit's not a scam, etc. But
I think there's an outside chance thatin like ten years, you consider it
to be like, uh, yeah, I don't buy my own TVs like
those are those are free? Kindof like the way a lot of people
on service plans think about phones now, yeah, phone free? Like why
would I pay for the TV?Like that is what I get my Like
(27:15):
they serve me ads on that andthat's our exchange. They give me a
new TV every five years, andI give them all the information about myself.
That's a great metaphor because that's exactlywhat it is. Yeah, and
I think there's an outside chance youcould just see the TV has another device
for which you exchange some level ofprivacy or commit to have free access to.
Yeah, dude, i'd update myinfo every like five years, get
(27:37):
a new TV. I have somany TVs in my house by the end
of twenty years, or I guessI would have four. But yeah,
you know, like I mean,I don't think it's a bad deal.
Like you said, a lot ofpeople are giving this up for free,
so yeah, and they don't carewhat device you plug into it and stream
over. Yeah. So yeah,you can add your own os on there.
(27:59):
So like I really like Roku.Yeah that is just I can't even
like use other ones. It justfeels like wrong. And if I could,
and then that's kind of what tethersme to my I have a weather
call them tcl TV, and Ialways buy those TVs because I love that
interface. If I could get thaton another TV, that would be really
(28:22):
cool. And that's you know,the advantage of owning the hardware is it
doesn't really matter what software is beingrun on it. Yeah, so look,
it could work. It's one ofthose things that maybe has a ten
percent chance of working. But ifit works, it fundamentally changes the way
you think of TV TV. Purchasingthe device itself. Yeah, so you
(28:48):
know the other thing it has onas like a camera for video calls,
I'm all tracking. Oh oh man, I'm gonna put a sticker on that
one. Yeah, but you mightnot be able to if you want the
free TV. Wonder if I justput like a little ittybody sticker on it
that makes it look like I'm justsitting there all the time and like the
cats are sitting next to me.The way I'd probably control for that over
(29:12):
time is like you can't. Ifthe TV doesn't detect anybody's looking at it
for ten minutes, it turns itselfoff. Oh hell no, I cannot.
I disabled that because I am abig background noise like person, like
I just play yeah, like twitchor likes people playing SIMS or Overwatch,
(29:32):
and I just like to listen tonoise. Just it keeps me focus,
all right. Last story out ofCNN, America's fastest growing sport is coming
to your mall. Pickleball is comingto your local mall, replacing shuttered Bedbeth
and beyond Old Navy and old SaxfistAvenue stores. So one of the more
interesting use cases I've seen for allthe empty big retail box space is pickleball
(29:59):
clubs. There's other things in here. Do you recall what we had in
here that they said, hold on, let me find it. So the
ideas consumers are craving fun social experiences. After years of limited gatherings due to
the pandemic, they have shifted theirspending from goods and services to experiences like
theaters, arcades, and amusement park. Malls are turning to a wider range
(30:23):
of tenants to draw traffic. Itincludes skydiving, virtual golf, and breweries,
but pickleball is perhaps the biggest one. And so these are like clubs.
So one of them it Mentions andMichigan is themed after like a nineteen
fifties like camp out. Oh cool, Yeah, that's so cool. I
(30:45):
think that's a great idea. Yeah. I think people would one hundred percent
do it. You could probably sellmemberships for it. Yeah, so you
have recurring revenue. The locations areusually pretty good in the towns they're in.
I think it's a great use ofthat space, yeah, because I
mean, what else is going tofill that spot that's going to be as
(31:07):
successful nothing. But I also thinkthere's a demand for like the social club
thing. Oh yeah. I thinkit's hard to get people, you know,
joining like country clubs anymore, butI think that And I've you know,
in the last five or six months, done some traveling to some of
these newer social clubs that are onthe higher end that have recently opened up
in some cities. So they're likethemed after different things, speakeasy stuff like
(31:32):
that. And these are like highhigh end stuff, you know, initiations
at like ten thousand bucks or whatever. But I think there's demand down market
for something, you know, maybea little more family friendly, single not
overtly professionals, you know, networkingrelated to emerge there. Yeah, and
(31:52):
especially in the North in the winterand in the South in the summer,
having an indoor place to do someof those activities, oh for sure.
Because out here in the South alot of things are like golf course,
pool. Yeah, and that's cool, but like it's hot out, I
think that's great. I mean,there's a place out in Jacksonville called Smash.
(32:15):
I'm not sure if it's a brand, but it's a total ping pong
social club and it's just ping pong, bar board tables geez yeah, and
like a bar, you can getfood there. They have TVs and stuff,
but it's just to go out andplay like ping pong. And I
think that's such a cool idea tolike. And we have similar things here
in Tallahassee that are kind of upin that same vein, not as nice,
(32:38):
but yeah, I think what youdo with that, with that big
of a footprint is you're gonna havethere's enough space to do a lot of
different stuff. I think the firstthing is you want to be able to
sell memberships. You want the recurringfixed revenue. Then you want bar food,
you know, some some open socialspaces that member can use for like
(33:00):
whatever birthday greeting, watch the game. Like I think another like social club
idea for this that I have,which I think could be really successful,
is you take the idea of asuite at a sporting event, but you
(33:20):
package that into a suite just builtaround watching the game or games on like
game day with your friends. Soyou have the suite, you get it,
you throw a party with your friends, so there's food, there's drinks,
there's you know, activities, thegames on TV, there's places for
people sit to sit, and soyou're creating this like private social activity spot,
(33:46):
but outside of your house, soyou don't have to do the clean
up. You can have you know, twenty thirty people there just red zone
on a giant projector. Yeah,and people are gonna do different things.
Sometimes it's gonna be oh, we'regonna watch the championship game here. Oh
we're just gonna watch baseball all dayon Saturday here, Or we're gonna watch
(34:07):
the Florida State game on Sunday.Yeah. I think you could do that
at a pretty I think that couldbe a pretty successful business. I think
so when you eliminate the cleanup feesand the burden of having like twenty people
at your house, I think that'sa huge But it's especially if it's a
(34:27):
reasonable price. It's going to bethe hook. Yeah, what do you
think a price point would be forthat? I think just to get in
the door, we're not talking aboutlike food and drink here would probably be.
I would charge maybe like eighty anhour. Yeah, I think that's
(34:49):
good, not quite a hundred.Look, I think if you're charging that
baseline eighty an hour, you probablymaybe able to do that with food and
drinks, Like you can probably doublethat with food and drink sales for our
yeah, because I think what peoplewill do is they'll probably split it,
right. Oh yeah, so youmight even be able to go higher than
(35:13):
eighty an hour, depending on whatthe experience is in the suite. Sure,
so you might be able to havesome of those that go at like
two hundred dollars an hour. Butthere's like the virtual golf screen in there,
or you know other things like that. There's a top golf sweet sweet
in there, and yeah, justhave people we throw in the football or
playing golf while everyone else is watching, or like corn hole in the middle,
(35:34):
Like you have all kinds of optionsfor that. Oh. I think
that's a great idea. I mean, especially for people with like families and
stuff. You have your kids,there's spot for the kids to play,
there's a place for people who watchthe games, a place for people to
stand around and talk. And greatplace for an old mall where you have
a ton of parking yeah for noreason now honestly concrete jungles. So I
(35:57):
think there's some definitely up demand forthose kind of social experiences in a in
a membership swort away where oh youyou gotta pay your fifty dollars a month
flat or whatever to have access toit. But people are doing it because
it's a cool place to bring yourfriends, and in a situation like that,
it probably lets you swap out concepts. Has trends chained? Oh yeah,
(36:21):
this is something you had mentioned about, like the selfie room yeah,
um, and just swapping out thestations as they yep, if all um
yeah, I mean like pickleballs totNow, who knows what's going to be
the next thing, um, butyou know those sweet things works. People
pay insane amounts of money for likepool suites at nice hotels really oh the
(36:43):
cabana oh oh pool the pool cabana, Like it's a command suite. Yeah,
like the like the game like withlike the balls on the table.
Oh no, no, like athotel, like swimming pools, like the
caban as you reserve for a halfdair day. People pay a lot of
money for that. You can't justgo to a bar and play pool.
I mean some of these pool yeah, some of these pool camanas are you
(37:05):
know, essentially work out to twohundred and fifty dollars an hour. Yeah,
in Vegas, you know, pickpick the number. You can probably
get a five thousand dollars a daypool Caamana, Oh for sure. Yeah,
because I mean the space is cleaned, it's taken care of Youre's usually
someone there with the town server.Yeah. Yeah, the clean the service
fee for me would be the biggestselling point is like I don't have to
(37:29):
clean and manage things like cool,Like I can actually enjoy the party now.
Yeah. But the private suite.So if anybody wants to build that
entertainment venue, let me know,I'll sign up. Yeah. Membership,
membership. Okay. This has beenanother mildly successful episode of the Record podcast.
(37:52):
Who knows the audience will decide basedon your reviews. If you like
the show, leave us a reviewat your podcast app of choice. Until
next time, This has been theRecord podcast. Of Record is hosted by
me Joe Clements with the assistance ofproducer Alex Reinhard. Of Record is produced
(38:12):
at the Trailway Studio in Tallahassee,Florida. Our theme music is composed and
performed by Rob Goki Special thanks toour entire team. Here at SDS you
can see more information about the showon our website, Podcast of Record dot
com. As always, we'd appreciateyour reviews and ratings in your podcast app
of choice. These ratings and reviewshelp more people discover the show, which
(38:36):
helps us keep delivering quality content eachweek. Thanks for listening.
On today's of Record, a budLight countroversy update. Could you get a
free TV if you're willing to exchangesome information about yourself? And what's being
done with all these empty bed bathand beyonds and toys r uses around the
country on this week's record. OfRecord is a podcast focus on the marketing
(00:36):
and advertising industry from the perspective ofindustry expert Joe Clements. Joe Clements is
a co founder of Strategic Digital Services, a digital marketing firm based in Tallahassee,
Florida, and founded in twenty fourteen. Everybody, Welcome back to another
(01:03):
episode of the of Record podcast.Those two eves in a row always get
me here? With co host KirstenI'm sorry, go ahead, stepped on
you. I'm on the buttons today. Yeah, and pour one out for
producer Alex who's out of the officetoday. Just the two of us in
(01:25):
the studio with my dog Jasper isalways here. He works hard in his
own dog way. So I thinkwe're due for an update on the bud
Light saga. How's it going forthem? Honestly, more poorly than I
thought, And I've we've talked aboutthis on previous episodes I've done in prior
(01:49):
years before it was cool, alot of the research on brands and politics
and the intersection thereof. I'm surprisedat how much of a hit the company
has taken overall, including so backgroundhere. If you haven't heard is it's
been a month, maybe a monthand a half. Bud Light did a
(02:14):
influencer promotion with actually several dozen people. Dylan mulvaney, the trans influencer,
personality activist, you can throw whateverdescriptor you want on the end, did
this commemorative single can Mulvaney posted thatthat got attention as if bud Light was
(02:43):
making Mulvaney like the spokesperson. BudLight managed to really Anaheuser Busch to so
bungle that response. They had tolet the VP who had recently taken charge
of the brand, who was probablyfrom interviews previously poorly positioned to run that
brand. She was critical of thebrand, said it was to frat humor
(03:07):
despite that it had been the topselling beer for like twenty years, and
made and made the mistake that whenyou hear a marketing person say it,
you should always run, which isour consumers are getting old and dying whenever
somebody says that they always ignore this, the fact that a new cohort usually
(03:28):
ages in to a product, whichI don't you think that was true for
bud Light necessarily. So what endsup happening? This becomes an outrage thing
on social media, gets in themedia, there's a boycott. When this
happens, it's usually a week ortwo. But we're a month and a
half in and sales of bud Lightand I'll pull up the story here out
(03:53):
of Yahoo Finance title abmbev st stocksdrop. His analysts look for stables and
bud Light sales declines. The weekof May six, the most recent week,
it was down twenty three point sixpercent. That's actually marginally worse than
it was the week before when itwas down twenty three point four percent.
(04:13):
But not only is bud Light takinga hit, Budweiser is taking an increasing
hit. And by the way,the sales hits are down week over a
week from the first week of Maythrough I guess that would be a week
and a half ago. Now salesare down across all their major brands,
increasing week over week down, budLight down, Budweiser, side down,
(04:35):
mic Ultra mic Ulture is only downa few percent, down Bush Light even
and down Natty Light, so acrosstheir portfolio they're down enough to hit the
stock down nearly eight percent over theperiod. Now in the same time,
Coors Light and Miller Light are seeingtwenty two percent increases in sales. It's
(04:59):
like, give you one, howbig of a player bud Light was.
It was the best selling beer foressentially a decade by a long shot.
And so it going down twenty twopercent essentially lets its two biggest rivals both
rise twenty two percent. Plus whoknows, there's probably other places those beer
drinkers are going. So what happenedis it's funny. In the research I
(05:25):
did a few years ago, Budweiserwas actually an example of a company that
we said, oh, they actuallyhandle this really well. They're very good
at appealing to urban men and rulemen. It's like the only it's one
of the few brand products you cantake like pull you know, a Mexican
dude off the street in Chicago,and pull a you know, a Bubba
(05:48):
you know, off the street insouthern Alabama, and they're gonna think Budweiser
bud Light like represents them like istheir brand. What ends up happening for
them is their interest. It isvery easy to substitute out a product like
bud Light. How do you doit? You look at the beer and
(06:11):
you take like one step to theleft and take that other beer. And
in the product differentiation in that world, it's such that it's not very defensible.
It is so easy to substitute frombud Light to Miller Light or bud
Light to Cours that the consumer cando it. The product isn't that much
different, and the consumer can maintainthe habit of doing it. So once
(06:34):
you've broken the habit of ordering thatbeer, you're kind of in trouble.
Yeah, in a way that Idon't think is true of let's say a
grocery store. People are very grocerystore loyal the you know they're in a
certain place, they're on your wayhome. It's hard to change that behavior.
Even fashion brands, it can bedifference in quality a little harder to
(06:56):
change behavior. But with a beer, it appears to be so easy to
substitute out that it has no defenseoutside of the brand. So when you
do something that crushes the brand likethat, it's very hard to recover.
Yeah, I'm very interested to seehow football season goes. I know we
still got a couple of months outon that, but well even on that
(07:19):
the football season thing. So wetalked about this too before with bud Light.
Is so they're getting this problem fromlike the right, but because they've
kind of like backed down a littlebit, now they're having trouble with the
LGBT community so on the left.So now that brand is getting whacked at
(07:41):
from both sides, which is whatwe said was going to end up happening.
Was if you didn't do anything,you were going to get like you
were just using this for a publicity. Yeah, and then you're still going
to have the people mad at youfor and you said they should just double
down on it. Yeah, they'realready going to get it. Just go
double down. Yes, at leastyou have some fans left exactly. I
(08:03):
think that was the way they shouldhave gone. But I mean, this
is just a story that keeps giving. It's the first time I've seen a
politically driven brand crisis like this.Yeah, go on to have a more
than a week or so impact onthe brand, right, and they weren't
(08:26):
even able Like when Nike does thisNike does this very intentionally because they understand
their consumer, young, progressive,urban Nike will do this intentionally, and
so when Nike does this and getsin controversy, They're actually going to sell
more stuff as a result. Peoplemad at them aren't the people who are
usually buying the product. Anyway,it doesn't matter in this case. That
(08:48):
is not what happened. They justmanaged to not only the you know,
kind of the base drinker, butthen the CMO of the brand trash talking
the brand, and the humor andthe consumer of the brand hurt them even
more. Right, you know whatis kind of funny. As I've noticed
(09:11):
in the last couple of weekends I'vebeen out, like I've overheard people saying
things like, oh, not abud light, Like, oh no,
bud light, Like it's it's actuallylike weird. How like it's translated to
the bars, it's weird, howit's translated to like a thing. Yeah,
and it's like not like so muchLike I think people are being serious
about it, but everyone makes ajoke. Now, well, now it's
(09:31):
got that thing like drinking. Itis almost a statement, but it's unclear
what the statement is. So ifI drink it, Well, am I'm
I'm not drinking it and being supportiveof you know, any LGBT political issues
(09:52):
because it didn't end up overtly standingup for it. So if I drink
it, am I being anti lgBT or am I being pro LGBT political
interest? So if I drink it, like I'm really in this gray area
about what I'm supporting. Now,you're just virtue signaling at that point.
But to who all saying is likeit's like people that are negatively signaling to
(10:15):
both sides, right, Well,it's the same. I mean, like
I said, it's like the performativeactivism is like where you people will get
on you know, their Apple boxor whatever create box and they start you
know, going off, Oh whatam I saying? Apple blox Um,
and they'll just go on and onand on, but they never actually like
(10:35):
they're not volunteering, they're not helpingpeople out. They go home and they
don't you know, engage on thetopic anymore. It's almost like they just
want the pat on the back.It's almost that's what the butt light drinker
is doing. However, like yousaid, they're patting themselves on the back
for what, Like we don't know. Well, if you're drinking it,
right, and so I think therisk is now, if you're going to
(10:56):
order it, you look like youdon't know. You look like you're just
ignorant of what's going on. Youlook like you want at Yeah, I
mean it would be uh, it'sa statement now, but it's not clear
what it's a statement of. Maybeit's a statement of rejecting the overall intersection
(11:16):
of politics in product. I don'tknow what you'd even be rejecting. Oh
that's someone I'm avoiding at the bar. Yeah, up too metaphor me?
Yeah, like what's them like?Because now it would be a conversation piece.
Yeah, I kind of want togo out and like order it and
see what happens. Order like thebiggest like bubba in the bar, a
(11:39):
bubb light. Wait, wait tostart doing that for fun? That's funny.
And then I'm gonna act real KOIand be like we should record it
for your TikTok Oh yeah yeah,oh that's really funny, and I'm just
gonna be like super quick, likewhat do you mean? I don't know.
That's like giving the drunk people theirbusiness cards back when I see them
(12:01):
a second time and they don't rememberme. Yeah, that's funny. That's
a really good social experiment too.Yeah, just go out and see what
happens. Yeah, Like, Ithink I got you a beer? Is
this good? I kind of wantto ask the bartenders, like, hey,
who's still ordering bud Light. You'reeither gonna get bartenders that are like
the brutally honest ones, which aremost bartenders are They're gonna be like,
(12:22):
I don't know, man, Ijust work here, Like are they're just
gonna say something like that, Oryou're gonna get somebody be like it hasn't
changed anything, nothing, and they'regonna be starting to inject their own like
viewpoint. Well, no, becauseregardless of which side you are politically on
the issue, you're gonna want totake a dump on bud Light. I
don't know if everybody is in thatviewpoint yet. I still think there's people
(12:48):
that are very defensive on it,are they? Because I think what happened
is even the tide turned on defendingit because Annheiser Busch made the mistake of
being very like wishy washy on theissue. They didn't double down on the
support part. Yeah, you're correct, Like you're totally correct, But I
do think people still are sitting onthe base principle of like people are afraid
(13:11):
of gay beer because they don't likegay people. Like That's literally what people
are like. That's the only thingthey care about and the only takeaway they're
getting from this. They don't care. No, trans isn't necessarily gay.
Well you know what, those peopleneed to get educated LGBTQ plus. Sorry
I'm uneducated. That was my bad, um, But that's I think more
people are just hung up on thatissue more than anything else. We're going
(13:33):
in the Pride month. It's gonnaprobably get fired up all over again.
Oh good point. Oh man,it's gonna I think you're right. I
think it's gonna get fired up allover again. It's probably gonna get even
worse for Anheuser Busch prediction. Shortit. I'm not a financial not a
financial advisor. This is not financialadvice. Doge coin? Am I going
(13:58):
to press the right? Hey youwere right about something. By the way,
what I think you said we needsomebody to do a super cut on
this. But you said brand mostlikely to take advantage of this yeling.
Yeah, and they did. Theydid. They got what do they got
the American flag. Can is thatwhat it was? Yeah, with a
big bald eagle on it. Yeah, I mean they've always had the eagle
(14:18):
as like they're like their logo,but like they doubled down on the Patriots.
I mean, like I thought thatwas gonna be an easy one because
yeah, like they're America's oldest brewery. Yeah, they're in Pennsylvania. Like
they they check all the box andthe thing is yingling. People that drink
it are usually like lower class,like and I say that fine working class,
working class. Look I'm saying itfor myself. Man, I'm from
(14:39):
Pennsylvania in that class, Like,I mean, that's why my family drinks
it, like uh, and that'swhy I love it. Like it feels
patriotic when you drink it. Youdon't feel oubitsy and you don't feel like
as like Nascar trashy when you're drinkinglike a bud Light Nascar trashy. Oh
(15:00):
great, Kirsten, Now we're goingto get attacked. Just attack me.
I'm sorry, I'll add off myApple box, my Apple box. So
that kind of ties into another thingI noticed. So that Miller Light commercial
we talked about a month or soAgo where it's the send us your Ship
(15:20):
where they're taking the old like bikinibeer ads and then turning them into chemical
leaden compost one of the things.I really it's funny that is resurfaced to
get that campaign has been around forfive months now, which I think,
by the way, is overall likenot a great campaign for that brand,
but like doesn't create as you know, I don't think it's necessarily politically tinge.
(15:43):
Nobody is getting it all been outof shape over that. Yeah,
it's just like why yeah, andthen people just move on from it.
Yeah. The thing I realized aboutthat ad when I watch it is it
is still like women they're probably allactresses, yeah right, who are in
(16:03):
that like very like college educated kindof that vocal pattern speech Like those look
like they're supposed to be like,you know, educated professional women, which
again is the wrong target to sellMiller Lite too. Well you go sew
that to working class women. Putworking class women in that ad. Put
(16:26):
women who have like working class jobs, like you know, I don't know
what it is, like retail hair, salon, nails, uh, you
know, like white white collar administrativework. Like put working class women in
those ads. Don't show me likethe women who work in like marketing and
(16:47):
run I don't know, some kindof composting business, which I guess would
be kindas yeah, but I feellike that ad kind of misses. They're
portrayed like scientist. Yeah yeah,not like oh I work on the farm
and I make composts like yea,which I know is not how like you
know composts, Yeah, but notlike the average. If you're Miller Lite,
(17:10):
you're not selling to like some ladythat makes you know, buck twenty
a year in I don't know,pick your major city DC has a lobbyist.
You're you're really selling to like alady who probably like drives uber at
night for extra money and then inthe day works at uh, you know,
retail restaurants something like that. Yeah, you know, maybe she's in
(17:33):
construction, just more rare. Right. I would love to see the statistics
on how much stuff actually got sentto Miller Lite to company composted zero point
zero zero, because all they didwas make that stuff more desirable. I
was gonna say, I don't thinkanyone would be giving up their vintage Miller
(17:55):
Lte stuff, especially now then peopleare saying, oh, this is racy,
Like yeah, I mean like that'slike stuff you like hang up in
your like TV room, your garage, Like I don't know, like it's
a it's an aesthetic, like yeah, I like that collect that kind of
stuff. Like I think that's fine. It's like the modern version of like
the pin up poster. Almost.I was literally gonna say, I just
(18:18):
watched a TikTok of a girl whowas like, get your coffee table books
off your coffee table, like nobodywants to talk about like your pictures of
Italy or stuff like that. She'slike, you know what's going to get
people talking and is actually interesting isbuy a vintage Playboy magazine and put that
on there. And she's like,your guest will think that is so cool
and they will think you were solike like hot shit, and like I
(18:40):
was like, you know what,you're edgy. I was like, that's
not bad because I was in avintage store. I'm on a uranium glass
kick right now for everyone listening,and there was a pile of old vintage
Playboys and I was thinking about thatand I was like, you know that
the articles such a great conversation starterand it's just art it's a piece of
art, like and I don't know, and everyone kind knows about it.
Yeah, I don't know. Ithought it was really an interesting take on
(19:03):
like what do we call it?Reclaiming like something that like instead of being
like just thrown away and burn it, it's like, no, I'm reclaiming
this as a piece of art.I do think it isn't an example of
like, especially in the beer industry, they're usually so good at being in
touch with how most Americans think canfeel about things that they are the best
(19:29):
at it. In this case andthese two examples, I think they're way
off the mark for where most Americansare consumers of that product, especially on
those issues. Yeah, I agree, but the market seems to be correcting
itself. So let's finish on this. What would you do so your Anheuser
(19:49):
Busch. They've hired you to comein and fix it. What are you
doing to fix it? We aredoubling down for June Pride month. Man,
these cans, all of them aregoing to be rainbow. You can't
even get them in blue. Nothing, no platinum, no zero calorie as.
All that's gonna be rainbow is gonnabe doubled down. Yeah, so
you're going hard, like, hey, we're never gonna get those other people
(20:11):
back, Like we're gonna go We'regonna go at that group hard. And
I would be like sponsoring every prideof it. I would make a campaign
and have a camera at like everybig city pride parade that you are giving
out free bud light to people andyou're talking about how you're building bonds and
making friends and being equal. Yeah, I would do I would run that
(20:33):
thing. So you're actually gonna dolike the hard pivot on yeah, which
I think could work. I thinkthat's more likely to work sooner than just
people on the right forget that they'remad at bud Light. Right, what
would you do? I would Iwould do the opposite of what you said.
(20:59):
I think that could work. Ithink it probably would work. Yeah.
My advice though, in terms oflike market share, would be no,
get me the guys who were doinglike the real men of Genius ads
and like two thousand and five orwhatever, bring them back, like I
need to, you know, browdown on this again. Uh in like
(21:22):
craft me some sort of like apologythat sincere but funny, uh, and
like let's let's let's change that sowe're gonna meet this arrative like you know,
we actually we accidentally stumbled into politics. You know. Sorry, well,
big mistake spoiled the party there.But here's what you can expect from
(21:45):
us. This is the beer foreverybody. And then it's like, you
know, some bro and a Trumphat, you had a beer too.
And then it's like somebody at thedrag race or at the drag race,
at the drag race, he's he'sthe guy in the red hat at the
drag show. You hand a beertoo, and you're just gonna pivot hard.
I'll be the all American beer.Uh, you know, we want
(22:06):
to unite all Americans. We're herefor the party. We're here for the
good time. We're here for theplace that everybody gets along. We'll never
do that again, all right,got it? The ad opens with the
bud Night coming out of the pitof misery, and oh yeah, it
goes into that. I don't knowI would start No, I think you're
right. I think you'd started throwingeverything that people loved at one point,
(22:27):
bringing it back the pit of misery. The frogs I'd bring out. The
frogs are like ninety eight eight SuperBowl Whatsop again, I would. I
would just go so over the topand the apology that it is still sincere
but very humorous, and deal withlike the limited fallout. I think you
(22:49):
would have on the left who weren'treally in a lot of cases your core
customer anyway. Yeah, I thinkthat would work too. And then I
take another one of my brands andmy catalog and just do what you said
with it, so you could beon both sides. And that's what they
do fundamentally, like I'm aware.Yeah, I would. Now, look,
(23:11):
maybe what they need to do isjust take Bud Light and do what
you said with it, and thentake another brand like Bush or something or
Natty and do what I just saidwith it. I think that's what they
were going to do with like regularBudweiser. It seemed like because they put
out that all American Bud Heavy.Yeah Bud Heavy got hammered by the way,
(23:32):
but well because they were trying toflip like the narrative so quickly that
they were putting out this all Americanthing when someone raising the flag and putting
their hand over their heart like aweek after they put out that, Yeah,
and you know, and I meanpeople aren't dumb with advertising anymore.
You can't really pull fast ones onpeople as quickly because people all commented on
a very well produced ad, I'dhave to say, wait, you just
(23:55):
said this, So now you're tryingto backtrack. Yeah, Like, and
people aren't dumb. And that's allthey got. That's all they took away
from that. They didn't take awaya wholesome American, like hard working the
message like it was trying to portray. They just took away, Oh,
you're a flip flop. Yeah.Best case study in a politically driven brand
(24:15):
crisis I've seen so far in termsof what not to do right, Like,
it'll be interesting to see how itresolves. Maybe it just resolves very
slowly over time. Yeah, we'llfind out. What's our next story.
We got called so out of theHollywood Reporter, a startup from the co
(24:37):
founder of Pluto TV thinks America isready for free TVs. Telly, founded
by Posen who's the co founder ofPluto, will give away um fifty four
K TV sets for free, bettingthat it can build a sustainable advertising business
around them. So it's getting away. I think it was fifty thousand of
(25:00):
them. I want one, andthey're really nice, fifty five inch.
They have a sound bar with abuilt in LED screen underneath the sound bar.
In the sound bar can be theLED screen under the sound bar can
display whether kind of whatever you want, like a ticker on it, and
then they also have the lighting onthe back of the TV. Now,
the this is this is a smartidea if it works. What you have
(25:23):
to do to get it is,in order to get the TV, you
have to first, first person,disclose all kinds of information about yourself income,
how many people in the household,what kind of car do you drive?
Like it's a pretty lengthy questionnaire,and then they'll send you the TV.
(25:45):
But it's so like they're advertising catalogas like direct first party data.
So if you go buy ads throughthem, they know exactly who's on the
other end. Bro, I alreadyused TikTok. That's like nothing. It's
easy, man, I sell thatstuff for free. I can get a
TV. That's his that's his case. His case is hey, for too
(26:06):
long, consumers have just exchanged thislike privacy for basically nothing. We're going
to give them a piece of hardwarefor it. Man, I will do
one hundred question questionnaire if they wantto know about my health, my blood
type, my last four, mysocial Yeah, I'm cool and it's a
it's a nice TV. And he'ssaying, hey, that data is worth
at least a thousand bucks essentially,Dude, I think that's a great idea.
(26:30):
What do you think do you thinkpeople are going to do it?
I think it'll skew heavily towards uh, middle and lower income people and younger
so like younger people, yeah,uh and like you know, most people
are going to take the time todo it or hear about it, or
(26:51):
they're gonna have to be convinced thatit's not a scam, etc. But
I think there's an outside chance thatin like ten years, you consider it
to be like, uh, yeah, I don't buy my own TVs like
those are those are free? Kindof like the way a lot of people
on service plans think about phones now, yeah, phone free? Like why
would I pay for the TV?Like that is what I get my Like
(27:15):
they serve me ads on that andthat's our exchange. They give me a
new TV every five years, andI give them all the information about myself.
That's a great metaphor because that's exactlywhat it is. Yeah, and
I think there's an outside chance youcould just see the TV has another device
for which you exchange some level ofprivacy or commit to have free access to.
Yeah, dude, i'd update myinfo every like five years, get
(27:37):
a new TV. I have somany TVs in my house by the end
of twenty years, or I guessI would have four. But yeah,
you know, like I mean,I don't think it's a bad deal.
Like you said, a lot ofpeople are giving this up for free,
so yeah, and they don't carewhat device you plug into it and stream
over. Yeah. So yeah,you can add your own os on there.
(27:59):
So like I really like Roku.Yeah that is just I can't even
like use other ones. It justfeels like wrong. And if I could,
and then that's kind of what tethersme to my I have a weather
call them tcl TV, and Ialways buy those TVs because I love that
interface. If I could get thaton another TV, that would be really
(28:22):
cool. And that's you know,the advantage of owning the hardware is it
doesn't really matter what software is beingrun on it. Yeah, so look,
it could work. It's one ofthose things that maybe has a ten
percent chance of working. But ifit works, it fundamentally changes the way
you think of TV TV. Purchasingthe device itself. Yeah, so you
(28:48):
know the other thing it has onas like a camera for video calls,
I'm all tracking. Oh oh man, I'm gonna put a sticker on that
one. Yeah, but you mightnot be able to if you want the
free TV. Wonder if I justput like a little ittybody sticker on it
that makes it look like I'm justsitting there all the time and like the
cats are sitting next to me.The way I'd probably control for that over
(29:12):
time is like you can't. Ifthe TV doesn't detect anybody's looking at it
for ten minutes, it turns itselfoff. Oh hell no, I cannot.
I disabled that because I am abig background noise like person, like
I just play yeah, like twitchor likes people playing SIMS or Overwatch,
(29:32):
and I just like to listen tonoise. Just it keeps me focus,
all right. Last story out ofCNN, America's fastest growing sport is coming
to your mall. Pickleball is comingto your local mall, replacing shuttered Bedbeth
and beyond Old Navy and old SaxfistAvenue stores. So one of the more
interesting use cases I've seen for allthe empty big retail box space is pickleball
(29:59):
clubs. There's other things in here. Do you recall what we had in
here that they said, hold on, let me find it. So the
ideas consumers are craving fun social experiences. After years of limited gatherings due to
the pandemic, they have shifted theirspending from goods and services to experiences like
theaters, arcades, and amusement park. Malls are turning to a wider range
(30:23):
of tenants to draw traffic. Itincludes skydiving, virtual golf, and breweries,
but pickleball is perhaps the biggest one. And so these are like clubs.
So one of them it Mentions andMichigan is themed after like a nineteen
fifties like camp out. Oh cool, Yeah, that's so cool. I
(30:45):
think that's a great idea. Yeah. I think people would one hundred percent
do it. You could probably sellmemberships for it. Yeah, so you
have recurring revenue. The locations areusually pretty good in the towns they're in.
I think it's a great use ofthat space, yeah, because I
mean, what else is going tofill that spot that's going to be as
(31:07):
successful nothing. But I also thinkthere's a demand for like the social club
thing. Oh yeah. I thinkit's hard to get people, you know,
joining like country clubs anymore, butI think that And I've you know,
in the last five or six months, done some traveling to some of
these newer social clubs that are onthe higher end that have recently opened up
in some cities. So they're likethemed after different things, speakeasy stuff like
(31:32):
that. And these are like highhigh end stuff, you know, initiations
at like ten thousand bucks or whatever. But I think there's demand down market
for something, you know, maybea little more family friendly, single not
overtly professionals, you know, networkingrelated to emerge there. Yeah, and
(31:52):
especially in the North in the winterand in the South in the summer,
having an indoor place to do someof those activities, oh for sure.
Because out here in the South alot of things are like golf course,
pool. Yeah, and that's cool, but like it's hot out, I
think that's great. I mean,there's a place out in Jacksonville called Smash.
(32:15):
I'm not sure if it's a brand, but it's a total ping pong
social club and it's just ping pong, bar board tables geez yeah, and
like a bar, you can getfood there. They have TVs and stuff,
but it's just to go out andplay like ping pong. And I
think that's such a cool idea tolike. And we have similar things here
in Tallahassee that are kind of upin that same vein, not as nice,
(32:38):
but yeah, I think what youdo with that, with that big
of a footprint is you're gonna havethere's enough space to do a lot of
different stuff. I think the firstthing is you want to be able to
sell memberships. You want the recurringfixed revenue. Then you want bar food,
you know, some some open socialspaces that member can use for like
(33:00):
whatever birthday greeting, watch the game. Like I think another like social club
idea for this that I have,which I think could be really successful,
is you take the idea of asuite at a sporting event, but you
(33:20):
package that into a suite just builtaround watching the game or games on like
game day with your friends. Soyou have the suite, you get it,
you throw a party with your friends, so there's food, there's drinks,
there's you know, activities, thegames on TV, there's places for
people sit to sit, and soyou're creating this like private social activity spot,
(33:46):
but outside of your house, soyou don't have to do the clean
up. You can have you know, twenty thirty people there just red zone
on a giant projector. Yeah,and people are gonna do different things.
Sometimes it's gonna be oh, we'regonna watch the championship game here. Oh
we're just gonna watch baseball all dayon Saturday here, Or we're gonna watch
(34:07):
the Florida State game on Sunday.Yeah. I think you could do that
at a pretty I think that couldbe a pretty successful business. I think
so when you eliminate the cleanup feesand the burden of having like twenty people
at your house, I think that'sa huge But it's especially if it's a
(34:27):
reasonable price. It's going to bethe hook. Yeah, what do you
think a price point would be forthat? I think just to get in
the door, we're not talking aboutlike food and drink here would probably be.
I would charge maybe like eighty anhour. Yeah, I think that's
(34:49):
good, not quite a hundred.Look, I think if you're charging that
baseline eighty an hour, you probablymaybe able to do that with food and
drinks, Like you can probably doublethat with food and drink sales for our
yeah, because I think what peoplewill do is they'll probably split it,
right. Oh yeah, so youmight even be able to go higher than
(35:13):
eighty an hour, depending on whatthe experience is in the suite. Sure,
so you might be able to havesome of those that go at like
two hundred dollars an hour. Butthere's like the virtual golf screen in there,
or you know other things like that. There's a top golf sweet sweet
in there, and yeah, justhave people we throw in the football or
playing golf while everyone else is watching, or like corn hole in the middle,
(35:34):
Like you have all kinds of optionsfor that. Oh. I think
that's a great idea. I mean, especially for people with like families and
stuff. You have your kids,there's spot for the kids to play,
there's a place for people who watchthe games, a place for people to
stand around and talk. And greatplace for an old mall where you have
a ton of parking yeah for noreason now honestly concrete jungles. So I
(35:57):
think there's some definitely up demand forthose kind of social experiences in a in
a membership swort away where oh youyou gotta pay your fifty dollars a month
flat or whatever to have access toit. But people are doing it because
it's a cool place to bring yourfriends, and in a situation like that,
it probably lets you swap out concepts. Has trends chained? Oh yeah,
(36:21):
this is something you had mentioned about, like the selfie room yeah,
um, and just swapping out thestations as they yep, if all um
yeah, I mean like pickleballs totNow, who knows what's going to be
the next thing, um, butyou know those sweet things works. People
pay insane amounts of money for likepool suites at nice hotels really oh the
(36:43):
cabana oh oh pool the pool cabana, Like it's a command suite. Yeah,
like the like the game like withlike the balls on the table.
Oh no, no, like athotel, like swimming pools, like the
caban as you reserve for a halfdair day. People pay a lot of
money for that. You can't justgo to a bar and play pool.
I mean some of these pool yeah, some of these pool camanas are you
(37:05):
know, essentially work out to twohundred and fifty dollars an hour. Yeah,
in Vegas, you know, pickpick the number. You can probably
get a five thousand dollars a daypool Caamana, Oh for sure. Yeah,
because I mean the space is cleaned, it's taken care of Youre's usually
someone there with the town server.Yeah. Yeah, the clean the service
fee for me would be the biggestselling point is like I don't have to
(37:29):
clean and manage things like cool,Like I can actually enjoy the party now.
Yeah. But the private suite.So if anybody wants to build that
entertainment venue, let me know,I'll sign up. Yeah. Membership,
membership. Okay. This has beenanother mildly successful episode of the Record podcast.
(37:52):
Who knows the audience will decide basedon your reviews. If you like
the show, leave us a reviewat your podcast app of choice. Until
next time, This has been theRecord podcast. Of Record is hosted by
me Joe Clements with the assistance ofproducer Alex Reinhard. Of Record is produced
(38:12):
at the Trailway Studio in Tallahassee,Florida. Our theme music is composed and
performed by Rob Goki Special thanks toour entire team. Here at SDS you
can see more information about the showon our website, Podcast of Record dot
com. As always, we'd appreciateyour reviews and ratings in your podcast app
of choice. These ratings and reviewshelp more people discover the show, which
(38:36):
helps us keep delivering quality content eachweek. Thanks for listening.
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