Morning Brew Daily - How 'Barbenheimer' Can Save The Box Office & Kim Kardashian's 'Skims' Worth $4 Billion

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Episode 108: Kelsey Sutton joins the show! Kelsey is the Deputy Editor of Marketing Brew and lends her expertise as she and Neal break down all of the hype surrounding the opening weekend for blockbusters 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer'. Plus, Kim Kardashian's 'Skims' valued at a whopping $4 billion, stocks of the week, and how one family won a $800,000 lawsuit over... chicken nuggets? Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Good morning brew daily show. I am Neil Fryman. And I am Kelsey. On today's show, we are talking Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Barbinheimer. And Op and Barbie. And Op and Barbie, of course. We're also going to be talking about Kim Kardashian Skims and its new valuation. And we're also going to be talking about how one person who was victimized by McDonald's received financial compensation.

It's Friday, July 21st. That's right. Kelsey, thank you for stepping in and joining us on this historic day in American Entertainment. history. I wouldn't miss this for the world, Neil. I'm so happy to be back. So you're with marketing brew and stepping in for Toby, who's gone somewhere in Idaho. He's hiding out. But today is obviously Barb and Heimer. And I picked, I looked into my wardrobe and looked, you know, picked out the shirt that could possibly be closest in color to the hot pink Barbie. And I landed on this. I don't know what color it is, but it is closer to pink than anything you're wearing, Kelsey. Yeah. And I didn't

have a pinstripe suit to wear for Obenheimer. So I really dropped the ball. I apologize for that. It's okay, but thank you for joining us. We always have this Friday segment where I asked Toby, was it a fast week or a slow week? Oh, well, so this is very interesting,

Neil, because I have been on vacation until this morning. Until 4 a.m. this morning. Yeah, hard launch back into working. That is the worst. Coming back to work I've ever heard. Yeah, so it's been a slow, enjoyable week until now. And then this Friday has been real fast.

It was a fast week for me. I'm so sorry to hear that. Thank you again. Wow. All right, let's get into our first story. This is the day we've all been waiting for. It's finally here. Barbenheimer.

If you're not extremely online like we are and actually live a rich and fulfilling life away from your screen, Barbenheimer is the portmanteau given to the twin theatrical release of Christopher Nolan's. Oppenheimer about the development of the atomic bomb and Greta Gerwig's Barbie, which is about Barbie and has a star-studded cast. These wildly different movies hit screens in North America today. As one writer put it, this is Mattel meets mushroom cloud content, but it's been more explosive than anyone could have imagined. This odd couple has taken on a life of its own on the

internet, becoming a pop culture sensation that spawned memes, merch, and people debating which order to see these movies in a double feature. Kelsey, you've been on the front lines observing the marketing around Barbenheimer for the past few months. So my first question for you is, how did this happen? Like, what just happened? We've all kind of accepted that Barbenheimer is a thing. But when you step back and think about it, it's kind of a cultural moment that doesn't come around often. Right. And I think the thing that's so fun about this is that I don't think that Chris for Nolan or Greta Gerwig sort of could have foreseen this moment. I think that it's kind of rare, but we have had instances of these movies of two vastly

different movies kind of coming out at the same time. But ultimately, like, credit is due to the internet, the people who don't live rich and fulfilling lives or who do, but do it on, you know, on a laptop or on their phones. just recognizing like what these two wildly wildly different movies and then wouldn't it be funny if and it's not it's also not just wouldn't it be funny it's like this is a great moment for people who like film right like i mean this summer has so many movies to choose from and so this is kind of like the encapsulation of feeling like the box office is back right and so why not dress up and go watch know, either the most devastating three-hour film of all time, and then follow it by, you know,

pink glitter or vice versa. So pick your poison. You said that people didn't see this coming. Maybe Greta Gerwig or Christopher Nolan didn't see this coming, but from many articles that I've read, they quoting all of these marketing industry people and the CEO Fandango being like, yeah, I knew it was going to be big. As soon as they announced that both of them would happen on the same day, like this was inevitable, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you don't seem to agree with that. I think, I mean, it's a cultural moment. Like, the movies themselves are going to be big, right? Because Christopher Nolan is such a big, I mean, so in the case of Oppenheimer, he's such a big

director. There's so much, you know, excitement around his movies with his name attached, right, of course. And then Barbie is such a big, iconic brand. So I feel like separately you could have expected that they would have taken off, But this amalgamation of both of them, I think, is one of those things that is kind of the unique joy of, like, internet culture. It's like, who knew? Who knew?

Really, who knew? I think it's the power of these directors, at least in some part. You mentioned Christopher Nolan did Tenet, Interstellar, the Dark Night trilogy, Memento, the Prestige. So he's got a great Rolodex. And then Greta Gerwig's kind of come out in the most recent years as this, you know, feminist icon. with little women and what else did she do? Lady Bird. Lady Bird, that's right.

I haven't seen either of those, but she is kind of this cult hero in film. So you wrote this article and the headline was Barbie was made for this moment. And so I'm wondering, like, why was Barbie made for this moment in particular, in 2023 in the summer? So there are a few things that are all happening at once, Neil. And I think the first one is the Barbie brand itself. Think about it. Like, close, if you're like, okay, what is Barbie?

It's not just a doll. It's not just a like, it's not just hot pink. It's just kind of like a vibe. There's not like a particular story or a particular thing. It's very amorphous. And so that lends itself to being kind of malleable for all these different ways, right? You could have like a Barbie shirt. You could have Barbie rollerblades.

You can have a Barbie rug. You could have a Barbie this, a Barbie that. And it's all very, like, visual and just kind of perfectly suited for, like, Instagram and TikTok. And, like, so the brand itself is, like, I think, perfectly designed for 2023, right? Like, we love, like, people are just like, ooh, pink, ooh, like, color. Ooh, look at this thing. Like, it's just, it's, like, immediately satisfying that, that, that, Instagram id you know what I mean but then beyond that like the the this this moment for the

U.S. box office it is such a big moment you know the the movie industry has been so hammered by COVID the past couple of years and we've always been kind of waiting for this return to normal this return to normal this return to normal and like Barbie is kind of arriving in the we finally have this moment of normalcy. People feel super comfortable going to theaters. Studios are releasing lots of movies. So, like, it's kind of this force together. Like, the Barbie brand is, like, just, it's just fun. It's nostalgic. And that's a whole other element, right? Like, nostalgia is, I feel like, everywhere. Everyone's like, oh, my gosh, remember this from the 90s? Y2K. Like, all these little micro trends,

like, again, can all be Barbified very easily because Barbie is not like a specific moment in time. It's just kind of this, again, like this blob, this pink blob that can be formed to anything you need it to be. And then again, people are also really excited to go to movies. So they're like, what is this, what is this movie even going to be about? Right. That's a big question. The trailers did a great job of not telling you anything unlike many other movie trailers where it tells you exactly what's how. Right. So people, there's also like this curiosity gap. People are like, wait, what is this movie

even going to be about? And what's one really good way to find out is to go to the movies and find out what it's going to be. So I think that there's that element too that really works in this film's favor. Do you think there's anything to sort of the subversive political undertones of Barbie? Is it just the surface level, you know, pink and fun and nostalgic and going back to my childhood? Or is the Greta Gerwig, we're reclaiming Barbie to be this feminist icon playing into it? Or do you think that's kind of maybe reading a little bit too much

into why people are interested in this movie? No, I think that's definitely why people are interested because they're like, how can this, how is this going to be Greta Gerwig applied? Right? Like, what is this going to look like? And I have not seen the film yet. I will be seeing it.

So, you know, who knows? Right? And so that, again, that's kind of the element. It's like, what is she, what is this director, you know, who, who, I mean, Little Women's an amazing movie. You should definitely see it. But like, you know, what is she doing with this piece of IP, right? And I think that's, again, people are like, they have to know.

They have to know. Speaking of IP, I've seen approximately maybe 50 trillion LinkedIn posts praising the Barbie marketing team for its, you know, all out assault on licensing deals and just getting Barbie everywhere ahead of this movie. So I'm wondering, is there anything that marketing, you know, professionals can learn when they're promoting the next movie that comes out? Or is this just kind of lightning in a bottle that they're, you know, these Barbie people were dealt the best hand possible just because you said this is the moment for Barbie to thrive. So I think there are a few things. One of them is just like the power of being unmissable.

Like if you, unless you have fully lived under a rock for the last four months, like you know that there's that this movie is coming. Like it is like in the atmosphere. There's so much. And the way that they've been able to do that is because they did all these partnerships with different brands. I mean, I could just list them off. But like, you know, apparel brands, home decor brands, you know, makeup brands. Xbox has a Barbie console, right? It's literally everywhere.

And so that really stretches like the, again, barbification of 2023. Like you can see, you can just see it everywhere you look, even if you're not necessarily like a traditional, like, I don't know. Like there might be like a very specific segment of someone who's like, I'm definitely going to be targeted with Barbie stuff. And then there's this like this extension just, again, through all these like brand partnerships. So I think that that's like the power of it because there are so few moments where like culturally there is like alignment and unity on something. But then again, there's like the magic of the of Barbenheimer, right?

Which is, I don't think. You can't predict it. Right. You can't predict it. And you just have to run with it. And I think that it's going to be really interesting to see how Oppenheimer does too because we've talked about this a little before the show started. but these double, these double features. Oppenheimer's, I believe that they have projected.

It's actually going to be more than what was initially projected, again, because of this Barbohimer effect. So it's going to be interesting to see, like, is this a halo effect just affecting? Who does it affect? Or does somebody go see Barbie and then go see the new Mission Impossible movie? Like, you could have a halo effect for a lot of films. I think that's the goal of these kind of things is that it's a one plus one equals three scenario, which is why you see Tom Cruise taking Instagram pictures saying holding up tickets to Barbie and Oppenheimer

saying like I'm going to go to both of these movies and then each of the stars of Oppenheimer and Barbie are have sort of promoted their films in conjunction with other ones and I think it is this is the definition of synergy it's why car dealerships all locate on the same road it's because people are going to the movies they might see more than one or they might go back the next day and see the other one it's why there's a bunch of trailers for movies in front of other movies. So I think this is a halo effect that is going to lift all boats here. And this is a tried and true strategy from Hollywood for decades. There have been a lot of this what's known as counter programming where you put maybe a kid's movie next to an action movie so the dad can go see the action movie. The kid can go see the kid movie. One of my favorite ones

is known as the Dark Mama. And 15 years ago, Christopher Nolan had the Dark Night and it came out the same day. as Mamma Mia. So those are two very different movies. It was the same July weekend and the Dark Night kind of obliterated Mamma Mia. And then another famous counter-programming example was Pitch Perfect 2 and Mad Max Fury Road. To me, those are the same movie. Those are the same movie. But for, you know, for whatever reason, it didn't get the explosive virality of Barbenheimer. But studios have been coordinating and doing this for a while because they think, you know, the more options people have, it's not necessarily putting movies in competition with one another. It's, you know, generating value across the spectrum. Yeah, but I think that it's interesting because in those instances, it was really like,

which one are you going to see? And this weekend, it's like, I'm seeing both. Maybe. You know, a lot of, I think that, I think that AMC said that they've seen tens of thousands. 40,000. I don't know if that's a lot or a little. though. I guess it's more than zero. Yeah. I just, I think, you know, I don't know how many people are actually going to see both. Whenever I ask her on the office, I mean, that's been the main topic of conversation. What are you going to see? I've only heard people say I'm going to see one or the other. I haven't, I haven't heard any double bills. So I'm a little skeptical that people are actually seeing. It's a long time to spend in a movie. I mean, Barbie's definitely over two hours.

Oppenheimer's three hours. I think Oppenheimer is also limited by the fact that it. it can only be seen, not it cannot only be seen, but a lot of people want to see it in IMAX because Christopher Nolan shot it on the best camera possible for movies in history, the 7mm, 70mm, IMAX film. And there's only 30 theaters in the entire world that you can see this at its, you know, peak quality. And I want to do that. So, and I was looking at the Lincoln Square AMC, which has one of only 19 screens in the United States that shows, you know, Oppenheimer at 70 millimeters, and I couldn't get a showing until August 8th. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. I mean, that's a great, great sign for Oppenheimer. It's a good sign, but it might limit their ticket sales. It might also boost the cost per ticket, certainly. So we'll just have to see. I mean, if you look at what the projections are, Barbie is expected to reach at least $90 million this weekend in North America, and Oppenheimer is supposed to come in at $60 million,

which makes sense. Oppenheimer is fewer screens. bigger, you know, rated R, maybe less appeal, a little darker. But we're going to have to leave it at there. Great discussion about Barbenheimer. Let us know what you're going to see or what order you're going to see it in. The correct answer is Barbie Oppenheimer. No, Oppenheimer than Barbie.

Yeah, you need a pallet cleanser after Oppenheimer, I think. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days. at the Home Depot. Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179, like the next grill three-burner gas grill. Or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard.

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All right. Neil, I want to talk to you about a celebrity brand shocker, which is Kim Kardashian's Skims, which is now worth, do you want to guess? I mean, I know. I'm not going to, I'm so bad at acting. They would never cast me an Oppenheimer, Barbie, because I'm just a terrible actor. It's $4 billion. It's $4 billion. It's $4 billion. They raised, Skins has raised $270 million in a new funding round. I want to talk to you about this, Neil, because I think that Skims is one of those few examples. There are so many celebrity brands, so many. Yeah.

And this one is such a huge, huge success. Yeah. So the Skims chief executive said that the company is now on track, was now profitable and is on track to make $750 million in sales this year, which is up from $500 million in 2022. of a lot of its sales are online and because it started as a DTC brand but now it's expanding into physical retail which is honestly it's smart as anything as I'll get out um and there you know we've seen this before right a DTC brand says okay we're expanding which is harder than it sounds I think

is also a big takeaway here but the power of Kim Kardashian so I want to hear what your thoughts are here with just the success of this brand. Have you heard of skims? Yes. Well, I own any skims. Not yet, but they are expanding into men. And I don't know, you know, Lulu Lemon successfully did it.

I don't know if Kim Kardashian can get men to buy her stuff. But I would guess yes. I remember when this first launched and it was called Camono a few years ago. And Kim was accused of massive cultural appropriation. So she went back to the drawing board and then came back with skims. And then all of a sudden, I blink and it's worth $4 billion, which is more than twice as much as Victoria's Secret. This is really the crown jewel in her business portfolio. And she has so many businesses.

But all of a sudden, we wake up and we see the paper and we see that Skims is worth $4 billion. And we're like, what is going on? Like, this is a massive company. And, you know, it's plotting expansion, which is obviously easier said than done. We've looked at a lot. We've seen a lot of apparel brands kind of flounder when they have their core. product and then they try to get into more things and then people don't end up wanting it. I'm thinking of Allbirds, which is completely floundered after it went, you know, try to expand

beyond sneakers. But I think they're doing this the right way. They're opening up, like you said, flagship stores in L.A. and New York, those are going to be overrun, right? I can only imagine because, again, the power of the power of the brand as it's associated with Kim, right? like people are flocking to that. Also in celeb brands,

Selena Gomez, who has a beauty brand called Rare Beauty, is selling $70 million of blush a year, according to Bloomberg. And I think that this is so interesting because, again, like, so her brand is on pace to triple sales from last year, but they've really kind of zigged a little bit

where a lot of other celebrity beauty brands have have zagged. So, so a lot of celebrity brands in particular, they come out and they're like, oh my gosh, look at this like special edition makeup palette, whatever, kind of these like gimmicky sort of things in rare beauty has really kind of focused on almost like the staples. And it's relatively affordable. And so that again is like one of these examples of a of a success. I could rattle off some of the failures, especially in the beauty, the celebrity

beauty brand space. So Kristen Bell shut down her skin care line. Addison Ray from TikTok had something with Sephora and Ariana Grande had a makeup line and that I think was kind of sold off in parts.

So, you know, it's not... It's not a guarantee. Just because you have 500 million Instagram followers doesn't mean you can create a physical product. And I think both Kim and Selena are showing, we're on a first name basis. Kim and Selena are showing that you need to have actual quality behind it. So much quality that it might even be life-saving because did you see the woman who credited wearing skims with saving her life? She was shot four times. And she said that the body suit that she was wearing from skims kept her from bleeding out.

And if that doesn't get you to buy one, I don't know what will ultimately. Kim Kardashian skims to the moon. It's going to IPO probably soon. And yeah, I'm going to get on that on day one. Speaking of stocks, let's head to our Friday segment stock of the week, dog of the week, where we bring you one stock that's sword and another that tumbled. Remember, we are not financial advisors, so don't take this as investment advice. In fact, I'm just awful at giving advice across the board.

So let's start out with our stock of the week, which is down on its luck used car dealer Carvana. Its shares are up 27% this week after it released better than expected profits and restructured its massive debt load to wipe 1.2 billion off its books. Carvana is still reeling from higher interest rates and a down-used car market, but this debt restructuring at least allows it to survive, which wasn't always a guarantee. Carvana is nowhere near the heights it achieved during the pandemic when there were no cars available and everyone was scooping up. secondhand vehicles. But the stock is up over 900% a year to date. To sum this up, Carvana will exist for a little bit longer, and that gives investors hope that it may be a sustainable business in the long term. Yeah, going from bad to a little bit less bad. So we'll take it. Yeah. And right now, there's kind of a slump in used car prices. I remember Toby and I were

talking about the CPI, the inflation report a few weeks ago, which showed that used prices. were down, which you wouldn't think was good for Carvana. Carvana really benefited from when I'll use car prices went through the moon in 2021. But the CEO said, look, we may not sell as much per car, but we're being able to push more volume through. And that overall will be good for our business. We'll see. It's definitely what's called a lottery stock right now because it's so far down and you just have no idea whether this company is going to survive. So you can either make a lot of money on Carvana stock, or you will just completely lose it all. There's maybe no in between.

Just kind of like the lottery. So let's move on. Plot Twist. There wasn't a compelling dog of the week because that was probably Tesla or Netflix, which both fell and we covered in yesterday's show. So let's run it back with another stock of the week, and that is the Atlanta Braves. Yes, MLB team, the Atlanta Braves. This week, the best team in the league also became the first you can buy a share in

after a parent company Liberty Media split it off and listed shares on Wednesday. The idea is that carving out the Braves will unlock more value and also make a potential sale in the future more seamless. Kelsey, you're scooping up some Brave stock? I think this is so interesting to buy, like, what a different way to engage with your favorite sports team is you're like, no, I'm actually, I'm financially invested in this. other than I bet my buddy 20 bucks. As if people weren't already always angry about sports in the first place, if your team loses and you're like, well, I'm stocking them. But it's not the first sports team to be listed publicly.

There's a lot of European soccer teams like Manchester United and Juventus that are publicly listed. And it is kind of funny to watch their stock price fluctuate with their win-loss record. And if they get accepted into the major tournaments, you can buy like Blue J's stock, Toronto Blue Jays, but that's through its owner Rogers Communications, and also the Knicks and the Yankees you can buy through Madison Square Garden Sports Corporation, something like that. So there is ways to, you know, engage financially with your favorite sports team, but this is kind of the first real MLB team you can own a Sharon.

So I'm a Phillies fan, so I'm definitely, I'm shorting the Braves. They're really good. Liberty Media also kind of under the radar, but a huge company. They own the Braves and also Sirius XM and maybe the crown jewel in their portfolio, which is Formula One. Yeah, absolutely. Neil, we're going to finish out the show with a little bit of legal discussion, which is a jury has awarded $800,000 in damages to a four-year-old who received second-degree burns from a chicken McNugget a few years ago. So a few things that are interesting here. So the lawyers for the family had argued that $15 million was what they were going for. That's a low ball.

And the girl's now eight years old and she has a scar remaining on her inner thigh. So here's a thing that's super interesting. This is reminiscent of for some of you younger listeners, maybe you were not alive for this, but there was a infamous case in 1994, the McDonald's coffee case. There was a lawsuit in an older woman got third degree burns horrific. I don't know if you've seen these photos. You can look them up on the internet, but she spilled a cup of coffee on her lap and had to get like skin grafts, third degree burns on her thighs. And so she, McDonald's was ordered to pay her $3 million. It was later reduced.

I think she got less than $500,000. But that case in 1994 kind of created this concept of excessive litigation. No kidding. So the coffee case sort of was just like interchangeable with like, oh, they're like people will sue over everything. And this case is so reminiscent of that in, you know, in so many ways. I do want to emphasize that this girl got second degree burns, which is not like just a, it's not like, oh, that was hot. Like, that's very hot. But I'm not, I mean, it just.

We don't always take McDonald's side, but I am very curious what law McDonald's broke. I guess too hot. Too hot. The nuggets were too hot. Their defense was that I'd rather it be too hot than too cold and everyone gets salmonella. Well. I can see that being a safety violation, obviously, but this is ridiculous. I wonder if it just straight out of the fire.

Let's go to McDonald's. We're ordering a thousand nuggets, throwing them all in our lap and seeing I would take a second degree burn for 800K. I mean, look. I would take a third degree burn. I mean, somewhere on my body. I don't know if I would, there would be some off-limits places. All right, we have to wrap it up there. Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday.

Thanks again for waking up early and joining us, Kelsey. Your Barbenheimer takes were excellent. If you want to write in and let us know what order you plan to see Barbenheimer in, our email is Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com. Emily Milliron is our editor and producer. Samantha Velas and Raymond Liu are associate producers. Euchenawa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio.

Hair and makeup took the entire day off to see Barbie Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer again before finishing the night with Barbie. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage

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