Right About Now with Ryan Alford - The Week of March 1 2024 | Wendy’s Will Test New Menus That Will Change Prices Throughout the Day

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Welcome to the Radcast, your weekly source for the latest insights and discussions on marketing and business news. In this episode, Ryan Alford and Chris Hansen discuss various topics including cryptocurrency, dynamic pricing at Wendy's, top-valued e-commerce startups, the economy, Rockstar Energy Drink's scientific claim, Apple's abandoned electric vehicle project, and Gatorade's unflavored water.TakeawaysCryptocurrency continues to gain popularity, with Bitcoin breaking $60,000 and big institutions offering Bitcoin and ETFs.Wendy's plans to introduce dynamic pricing on its menu, allowing prices to fluctuate throughout the day based on demand.Fanatics is the most valuable e-commerce startup, followed by GoPuff, Fair, Thrasio, and Skims.The hosts discuss their predictions about the economy and how it has defied recession fears.Rockstar Energy Drink launches a campaign and claims to deliver sustained energy for up to five hours.Apple has officially ended its plans to build a self-driving electric car.Gatorade expands its product line with Gatorade water, its first unflavored water product.Introduction02:06Crypto and Tails from the Crypt05:23Wendy's Dynamic Pricing09:16Top Valued E-commerce Startups14:27Predicting the Economy15:24Rockstar Energy Drink's Scientific Claim21:38Gatorade's Unflavored Water23:31 If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

Cause now we're gonna do what you need now. You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. What's up guys? Welcome to the latest edition of The Radcast. It's Friday, March 1st, 2024.

Our weekly business and marketing news. We're taking the BS out of business, baby. What's up, Chris Hansen? What's up, my man? How are you today? I'm just ready to drop the BS out of everything. No more BS in life. I love dropping the BS. We don't want that. Get it out of here.

Yes. Everything is fantastic. Geared up for spring. We don't want that. Get it out of here. Yes. Everything is fantastic. Geared up for spring. We're ready. February, we get. New month. Yeah. Ready for February to be gone. Ready for March.

Turn the quarter. February, we get four seasons in one month in February in South Carolina. know like you'll get an 80 degree day 65 degree day a 40 degree day and a 23 day it's like all over the map bipolar weather it's all good how are you doing the vacay lounge there in miami we are sunny and beautiful this is my favorite time of year in Miami. Yeah. Yeah. Must be nice. Oh, sunny Miami. Come on down. Always got a place. Always got a place for you down here in the lounge, brother.

Oh, yeah. I want to cuddle up with Storm. Yeah, man. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. How's the, been a good week? Great week.

Love that it's Friday. Love that we're going into March to march some spring my birthday coming up so i'm ready for it yeah i've been thinking about some of the content for our show will be changing to right about now we're gonna do some segments and i don't mind sharing transparency here on the show something that crossed my mind we were talking about earlier because it's been a good week for crypto so i was thinking like stuff that's relevant with business and stuff i was playing around i was like tales from the crypt you're probably you might be too young for that i don't know if there's a trademark that might be a segment i'm i'm close yes it was yeah if there's

not a trademark on that i think we might have to have a five to 10 minute segment that's like tales from the crypt and we'll have a crypto specialist on. Yeah. So it's been a good week for the old Bitcoin, hasn't it? Bitcoin breaking 60,000. It's been the crypto bros are out in loud screaming from the rooftops. I told you so. We'd come back.

We'd come back. What do they think's channeling all that? What do they say? What's making it take the rise again? From my conversations, because I'm no specialist, but it was that now with J.P. Morgan and these big institutions

offering Bitcoin and the ETFs and that being approved, for see now, you're going to have people going to see their financial advisor and okay we'll put five ten percent of your holdings in crypto someone like my parents right yeah where they're it wasn't easily accessible to the general population prior to now perhaps if you're not tech savvy people yeah because i own some and i have you know the

apps and stuff but it, it's not easy. Like I'm trying to get even like some of my friends, my age that are somewhat on the digital age, they just never figure it out. Like you sign up for this app, you got to link this account, do this. It's 17,

the gymnastics of digital. And all of that with usually people that don't fully understand the value of it. Yeah. So like my parents, but I fully understand the value of it. Yeah. So like my parents, but I think that's part of it. But if you look at the history, it cycles every three to four years. Again, I'm no specialist, but I think this will be a good year. Yeah. I'm excited for it.

Overall, though, and look, we're going to go replay this. I always say we're going to do this and I never do it it but i need to go do it because i've been right i was right about freaking the whole metaverse i said that was a whole bullshit scam it's a game the only thing that's gonna matter way before it everybody thought it was gonna be a big deal it's like freaking out every company we're gonna move the metaverse like if you want to be smart you won't do anything i said this exact time last year that the negative news with the economy taking a shit was fake news and not going to happen. And it didn't. And I'm not saying it's, look, we got propped up by all the money that hit the market from COVID and all that stuff. But the reality is, even with that gone, the economy is still rocking. And so

everybody said, oh, recession. And I said, nope, not happening. There's too many other things out there. And I'm not the biggest of economy metrics. I could just tell that there was enough energy. And running multiple businesses and knowing and being on the ground floor of kind of the sentiment of small business i didn't think it was going to happen and sure enough here we are no the all recession fears put it to rest so you know a lot of waving of and but if you want to go follow the gurus like gary v you go see all his posts from last year and others they go, oh, be ready. You need to be prepared. It's going to be so bad.

No. Sorry. Didn't happen. Somehow we always survive and we keep trucking. Yeah. We're all still here. So anyway, we have some articles, some news today. Our good friends at CNN today.

Great friends of ours. Yes. Our good friends at CNN today. Great friends of ours. Wendy's will be testing new menus that change prices throughout the day. Wow. I think this is really interesting. The price of a Wendy's Frosty could soon fluctuate throughout the day as the chain looks to introduce Uber surge pricing on its menu.

looks to introduce uber surge pricing on its menu the practice known as dynamic pricing will begin testing in 2025 wendy's recently revealed in an earnings call it's part of a 20 million dollar investment new digital menu boards and it's u.s restaurants that will enable them to change prices depending on demand. Interesting. Take the stock market for your damn Frosty. I know. It's like, shit, honey, we got to get there before 10 a.m. They always raise it 20 cents. All right, I'm going live right now on Instagram.

Right now, Frosties are 20 cents. It'd be cool because you can create viral moments because they could play around with going hyper low. But it's crazy. The amount of opportunity that becomes when you have dynamic ability to change those things. And I'm sure you can add a lot to your bottom line. You have five cents here. I'm interested to see how big of the volatility of the prices. Are we talking a $1 bump, $3 bump bump does this mean this is what i think of driving by the mcdonald's or wendy's late night right especially when i live near college campuses

the drive-thrus are packed on a friday saturday night demands to the roof are you going to be paying five ten bucks for a frosty because there's i doubt there's going to be that many people so i don't think they're gonna jack it up to ten dollars or Cause there's, I doubt there's going to be that many people. So I don't think they're going to jack it up to $10 or anything. There's probably a pressure point there. That's too much, but I do think you'll see the small variations and then they'll do these little social things. Like you'll have people like,

you'll have people going through the line going right now. It's it's the cheeseburgers only 68 cents. It's brilliant. It makes sense. If. Or whatever. Yeah, dude, it's brilliant. It makes sense. If someone right now was like, hey, $1 burger and Frosty at Wendy's, I'd be like, that's... Yeah.

Catch my interest. And they could do those kind of things. Like, there's a million things they can do, play around with. Five burgers, $5, like there used to be. It's like a game kind of, a little gambling almost. Yeah, exactly.

I like it, Wendy. We'll see. You're going to see a lot of people doing this. I think you have the connectivity availability with Wi-Fi networks and or cell phone networks. You have these digital boards. I think you're going to see this sort of dynamic content in a lot of places and it was always the promise and like outdoor boards like we're always going to do this and they do it to a degree like with the digital boards but i could see a lot of other things as that connectivity and digital signage because

more and more like you'll see this kind of dynamic content coming so sounds like fun i think uh you'll see this kind of dynamic content coming. So sounds like fun. I think you'll see all the carriers or fast food places probably doing this or anywhere that has a dynamic and volume the way that fast food does. This comes to us from our friends at flyersonline.com. That's flyers-on-line. We do have some dashes in there. So just dash right on over there to flyers-on-line.com. Most valued e-commerce direct-to-consumer unicorns in the United States. As of December 2023, a recent study on e-commerce and direct-to-consumer startups by FlyersOnline.com, adding the dashes, uncovered that Fanatics is leading the pack at a staggering $3.1 billion valuation, followed closely by GoPuff, Fair, and Thrasio. It's evident that innovation knows no boundaries in this dynamic industries.

The top five, Fanatics. And that's $31 billion. Holy shit. I thought it was 3.1. $31 billion. Fanatics. The cap, hats, and jerseys and all that shit. Crazy.

It's the most valuable e-commerce startup. Licensed sports merchandise serving fans around the globe. T-Swift and Kelsey probably drove that valuation up a little bit this year. Yeah, probably. Good for them. GoPuff stands out for its rapid delivery model in the grocery sector. So $15 billion for GoPuff. FAIR, $12.59 billion.

It's a wholesale marketplace connecting retailers with thousands of small brands and artisan producers. Thrasio, innovative approach to acquiring and scaling Amazon businesses, has earned its valuation of $10 billion. And Skims rounds out the top five. $5 billion valuation, powerhouse in the body, inclusive shapewear and apparel market. So all these are direct-to-consumer brands in the billions. The top five, So all these are direct-to-consumer brands in the billions, the top five, according to research from flyers-on-line.com. It makes you want to go in the direct-to-consumer market, but at the same time, we've lived there. We lived there on a few different things.

It's not easy. It's a combination of things. And right product, right place, right marketing. It's branding. It's a combination of affiliates. And it's a ton of things. And even something like Fanatics is the world's changed, right? I look at them like lids of the mall.

Or those type of stores where people don't go to malls anymore. Think right time, right place. Ahead of the curve. Yeah. Even GoPuff, they were just niche. It was Uber Eats, but for really like weed smokers was what they were targeting. Yeah.

So I guess that shows the power of the niche too. Even Skims, it's a niche, what, for like kind of body shaping wear for women? Exactly. From my understanding. Yeah. What was the brand in like the 90s that did that? Spanx?

Yeah, Spanx. They're still around. They're still a billion dollar brand too. And it's going to be interesting because all of these, the bigger brands are doing DTC now. Nike and others that have, they're both sold in stores, have third-party resellers, have all kinds of layers. Versus the D2C.

And because the ad costs got so high and the targeting has gotten worse because of privacy and other things with Facebook and others. They still make decent ROI, but this is not what

it was five or ten years ago where you could run Facebook ads and get 20 X your ad spend on sales. Those days are over. You can get three to four X your ad spend. That's considered above average. And so the D to C model requires a lot of, it just used to be, okay, throw up a store. You have a good product. You run some Facebook, Instagram, Google pay-per-click. Hey, you're rocking and rolling. But now it's not quite that easy and you don't make the profit level.

So you've got to do all the other stuff. Influencers, affiliates, branding, and you got to play the game. There's no more short cutting what it was. So there's just, you have to play the game. There's no more short-cutting what it was. So there's just, you have to play so many levels now. And so the problem or the opportunity, it's still an opportunity, but it's like the challenge, Chris, is things like, okay,

if it's you and a buddy starting up a company and you both have a couple of different skill sets, you used to could just start it up, get it running and okay, run some ads, maybe pay one person and start moving this thing. But now you have to be good at like 20 things and or hire people that are 20 things. So I think it's just, you're going to see fewer of the overnight successes in DTC. fewer of the overnight successes in D2C. But you'll still see the ones that are highly organized that might take on some cash or do something with investors if they've got the right product and stuff. But it's not the easy climb that it used to be. But Fanatics is ahead of the game. 31 big ones. 31 billion.

And if you want to learn from me directly, join my newsletter. RyanOffer.com backslash newsletter. Sign up. I give daily advice on marketing, personal branding, podcasting, life. Give that a shout. Join that. It's free. It's daily.

Just like this show. Give away our best advice. I thought this was interesting. As an energy drink connoisseur, Rockstar Energy pushes scientific claim with campaign and brand refresh. Comes to us from marketingdive.com. Rockstar Energy Drink launched a campaign, You Can Own Any Moment, that is backed by a new science-based claim about the brand's ability to deliver sustained energy. The brand tested its proprietary formulas to measure caffeine metabolism and evaluate physical and mental energy levels over a 12-hour period, finding that its formulas with at least 160 milligrams

of caffeine delivered steady energy for up to five hours. Hey, that sounds familiar. Five-hour energy, baby. They were careful not to say it that way. That's the magic number right there, apparently. It must be. So, you're going to say new. Are you a rock star guy?

I'm an equal opportunity energy drink person. So depending on the. Which I kind of love that you have a different one literally every day in your hands. So I'll go in to a store, convenience store, gas station, wherever it might be. And I'll give a glance over because always new flavors, different things going on. I'm scanning, looking for it and i'll occasionally hit rockstar because they but the places i go it doesn't have the most flavors they'll have two or three a couple of them i don't really care about there's one flavor there's a couple flavors i like of theirs and think about the new flavor with this

campaign i'll give look a meek opportunity here. Democratizing energy drink choices. You can own any moment is the campaign. I like that better than you got this. Adidas. Adidas' new book. You got this. Yeah. You can own any moment. I like it better.

Even the science-backed claim, I don't see anyone else doing that in the energy drink space. They might need to put in parentheses, you can own any moment for five hours. Yes. That would be good. You have five hours to own any moment. So we'll see.

I don't know if people are going to buy it for the lane or not. Like the proprietary, all that stuff. You can't convince me it's healthy. I'll do a test with it. I'll do like a story if I can find one. Maybe it's their existing drink. So I don't know if it's a new formula or whatever, but I'll be on the lookout for it.

And I'll do a little test in the morning and post a story. Be like, all right, I'm trying to see if five hours and I'll still have energy. Yeah. Especially with your tolerance, I'd love to see it. Yeah. You're not a normal test variable, brother. No.

I can probably drink. I think I might get past the test of like drinks like five energy drinks and still fall asleep no in an hour and but this i don't do that regularly but i could drink five and i think i could fall asleep faster than anyone on earth i think i'd still get to sleep within 30 minutes to an hour after the five. I think I could totally shut it down. I mean, I can do that with coffee, but... Yeah, coffee, but give you a break.

I'm talking about, I think I could juice up 700, 800 milligrams caffeine and still sleepy time in an hour. If I lay down and got comfortable. The offers, we get laid down. Like, I don't and got comfortable, the offers we get laid down. Like I don't stop much. Like I don't sit down. I'm not a napper,

but the offers have the ability to get on the couch. If you, if I get comfortable and stable, I can fall asleep just about anywhere. Like I, I can kind of catch, catch me. My wife will make fun of me and even my

old friends like in college i would catch because you sleep deprived you're in college you're partying you're going to classes you're doing a lot of shit i was always known as the cat napper like i would catch 5 10 power naps like all the time in juicery and i was also always the one that could stay up the latest so i i was a partier and I never got, I could pull an all-nighter and be good the next day. I think it's because I could find my like five or 10 minute moments. The secrets to success, y'all. Yeah, exactly.

But my sister and dad are the exact same way. The offers don't stop moving much. They're not, we're not lazy folk. We move and just keep going and all that. But when we do stop, it's funny. In our house, we'd watch a movie or something, and you look around, and everybody's like, once you get stable, I don't know. Fun facts here on the Radcast.

Next up, from the Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com, Apple has officially, we talked about this a few weeks ago, that they were changing plans. Apple's officially ended its quest to build its own electric vehicle.

Apple has ended its secret plans, not so secret, plans of building a self-driving electric car a decade-long effort that was seen as one of the most ambitious undertakings in the company's history apple executives on tuesday informed teams working on the vehicle called project titan internally that hundreds of employees who worked on the car will be shifted to divisions working on the vehicle called Project Titan internally that hundreds of employees who worked on the car will be shifted to divisions working on artificial intelligence, according to multiple reports. So the unnamed, unplanned, secret Apple car is going to remain secret by not launching at all. This doesn't surprise me. I think it was ambitious. It's funny how they choose to release certain things or let certain secrets out that

may or may not be secret. But this is when it blows up in your face because you do it for PR reasons because you want the buzz out there. You want the cachet and all that. It's going to happen. But then when it doesn't, it looks like a failure. So sometimes it's good for business to leak these things. And who the hell knows if they leaked it? They're so fucking big. It's like the employees are probably going to talk about it. But nonetheless, for all you people that are waiting on the Apple car,

it doesn't look like it's going to happen. So instead, they're going to focus on AI. That's all we need. More maybe another gpt an apple gpt is what we need on other news coming up also from our friends at marketing dive gatorade is expanding its presence in hydration with Gatorade water. You start with the flavor. Gatorade launched Gatorade water, the brand's first unflavored water, and will support the introduction with a digital-first campaign titled Always in Motion. Probe 2 is provided by the brand. Activations to get people moving are planned in New York, L.A., Miami, and Chicago.

All the big cities get all the love. The new product from the PepsiCo division comes as sales of hydration products are booming. Consumers look for ways to adapt more wellness habits. This will be interesting because, obviously, if anybody's going to launch water or something that's going to hydrate you, Gatorade's right there. I think they'll be successful. You've got brand, cachet, brand name. I do think it's a little bit interesting because you just think of flavor in your Gatorade. So you're going to downgrade potentially in your mind just to water.

So it'll be interesting how they state the claims for what makes their water better. state the claims for what makes their water better. So obviously there's no aid in water aid. Hey, there you go. Could have called it that. Nonetheless, it is popular. A lot of people are selling water. We talked about liquid death last week. So it obviously is an obvious brand extension and always in motion. So we'll see. That sounds like a campaign for everything that people do. Because you think of it purely active, no matter what. So we'll see. I do the potential.

It'll be interesting how they position it and what makes their water better. What is the aid in the water? So Gatorade expanding thank you marketing dive we appreciate all of their articles they bring a lot of great marketing news every week to our listeners marketingdive.com also want to give a shout out to our sponsor macfox m-a-c-f-o-x.com you're gonna be seeing some content on my feed and the Radcast. It's a new ultimate performance bike, e-bike. It's got fat tires, goes up to 28 miles per hour. I've got the X2. It looks like a mountain bike slash scooter. I rode it actually this weekend with the kids.

We went down to the park. We live really close to downtown here in Greenville. A lot of bike riding, a lot of easy access to trails and things like that. And you probably may have used one of these before. I don't know. They've become fairly prevalent. But it's great because you've got the option of pedaling or adding a little gas if you're going up a huge hill. I pedaled most of the way. But admittedly, i hadn't slept that great the night before i was just feeling a little drained on the ride back they hit just some large

hills the kids around i'm like turn the gas on baby it's really easy it's got long range i'll say this i used it a few times on some big hills and we rode probably for i don't know five to seven miles total and that battery lasted. It didn't even come off the full mark. So the battery is incredible. Got a really comfortable seat. That's a big thing for a big guy like me. And look, I'm 6'5", 260.

Big dude. This X2's comfortable, long range. You got the option. You almost like scooter this thing around town. If you live in a, I don't know, tight geographic area or something like this, perfect little city cruiser. But we really appreciate Mac Fox, newest sponsor of the Radcast. And look, get $100 off with Ryan Alford 100 or Ryan Alford 150 on the X2.

So you get $150 off the X2 or $100 off the X1. Use Ryan Alford 100 for the X1. Ryan Alford 150 for the X2. Go check out our friends, MacFox, M-A-C-F-O-X.com to learn more. Tell them I sent you. Go give them some love on social media as well. You'll see some posts of different stories on mine

and the Radcast feed, and we appreciate them. That's really all we've got today, folks. Appreciate everyone for listening, making us number one. Find us at theradcast.com. You can find me at social media, at Ryan Alford. You can find Chris Broby Hanson. Give him some love.

A few technical difficulties with Chris's feed, but you know what? Show business has got to go on. And we appreciate you. We'll see you next time on the Radcast. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account,

the.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.