The Best One Yet - 🏖️ “Beach bum billionaire” — Tommy Bahama’s chair. Amazon’s LOTR trolls. Adidas’ Kanye crash.

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

While we were on vacation, we noticed that the #1 beach chair (by far) is made by one company… yet they don’t even make the product: Tommy Bahama. Amazon’s Lord of the Rings competed head-on with HBO’s House of Dragons — Amazon won, but its ratings may change ratings forever. And Kanye West is having a very public fight with Adidas because you live by the influencer and you die by the influencer.$COST $AMZN $OXM $GPS $ADDYYFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Check check. Massa. Dude, you know, I said Miguel when you jumped on. Bigel. I don't know why that was our thing, but it's like, do you guys do a mic check? It's like, no, we just repeat, my son. Make sure you're hitting the right tone. This is Nick.

This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-boy Tuesday, September 6th. And this pod is the best one yet. It's a T-boy for sure, Nick. T-B-O-I. We're back, baby, Jack. What is our first story for Teaboy Tuesday? This Labor Day, we can almost guarantee, statistically speaking, that you saw at least one, Tommy Bahama beach chair.

Tommy Bahama created the top-selling beach chair without making a single beach chair. For our second story, the numbers are in. Amazon's Lord of the Rings has beaten HBO's House of Dragons. But here's the funny thing. The reviews would tell you the opposite, and that is a new problem. And our third and final story is Kanye West. his favorite brand was Adidas until he started hating Adidas. Jack, you live by the influencer, you die by the influencer.

But Nick, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories, just a fantastic mix to kick off a four-day week. This is lovely. Today's pod is brought to you by Bronzer. Jack, you are looking tan from two weeks of Soleil. Nick, you're looking tan from two weeks of virgin olive oil. You don't just eat it, you lather it on. We both slathered on the SPFT boy.

Re-apply generously, reapply again. So, Jack, how was Block Island? Tell us about Block Island. Major family reunion, 13 adults, 3 babies, 5 dogs, and one Airbnb house, Nick. Or call Hulu. That is a Brady Bunch spin-off right there. It was a fantastic time. Oh, did you do the outdoor movies?

Did you pull off the outdoor movie? Claudio brought a projector screen. We hung a curtain on the barn and we watched Jaws. Bold move when you're swimming in the Atlantic the next day. It's also like your MacGyver meets Spielberg. That's how you engineer. that thing. Nick, how was the homeland? How was Italy? Full disclosure, I feel like Julia Roberts, we eat, pray loved our way from Rome to Umbria. I got to ask, did you enjoy the Tucson T-bone

with Mali? You don't do Apportivo. You get the Tucson T-bone, Jack. And didn't some Yetis recommend a gelato place in Milan? Best gelato in Milano? O.G. Joloterie. Eat the pistachio, sit down. Stand up, have another pistachio. Sit back down again. Yeah, and then you stay down because you had two pistachios. Yeties, we got it. Gotta say we have missed these mics. Jack and I have been salivating for some street juice. For two weeks, we've been graving a zucking. We have been twitching for a takeaway.

So Jack, what is the takeaway from our annual mandatory two-week summer vacation? Yeties, don't just celebrate the wins. Sometimes you gotta savor them. Let's savor our three stories. Wow! It's before this song. Two boys from the northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm.

It's the best. 50%. That's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more. So just start the show. Start the show.

For our first story back, the winner of Labor Day weekend, was the Tommy Bahama beach chair? It turns out Tommy Bahama managed to get everywhere without making anything. Nothing. Okay. Before we jump into this, Jack, can we talk about the hardest workout everyone did this summer? Because it wasn't Barry's boot camp, but it wasn't Soul Cycling, and it wasn't on your Peloton.

You're trudging across piping hot sand. You're walking up a dune and then down a dune, all while carrying a beach chair and a heavy cooler. A glutes are still feeling it. You're squatting, then, into a low-sitting beach chair. Oh, lift with your legs. At a certain point, you just release and hope that the chair catches you and doesn't break. Going to the beach is like the number one cause of herniating a disc.

In the meantime, Tommy Bahama has entered the scene, which is a brand that's like Jimmy Buffett merged with Old Navy. Tommy Bahama is Margaritaville. without the tequila. Jack, I admire Sir Tommy Bahama an awful lot. He's a talented man. Launched in 1992. Tommy Bahama is not an actual person, by the way. No, it's not. It's actually a made-up name that boomers got amped up about while they were hanging out in Naples, Florida. Oh, no, not the shirt. Take my eyes, but not my Tommy Bahama shirt. Jack and I jumped in T-Boy style. Turns out Tommy Bahama is actually owned by publicly traded $1.5 billion, Oxford Industries.

That's the publicly traded fashion brand. that loves Tommy Bahama. And loves pastels. But Yeties, here's what Jack and I find fascinating about the story. We noticed a lot of Tommy Bahama beach gear over Labor Day weekend, but then we found out they actually officially won Labor Day weekend. Tommy Bahama brand has become by far the number one beach chair and beach umbrella in all of the beach. Okay, Jack, can you go on further?

Can you whip up that hero stat for us over there? The manufacturer of these chairs estimates that 80% of the premium beach chair market. 80% is Tommy Bahama. Okay, if that chair has a built-in iPhone holder, then there is a four out of five chance the butt sitting on it is sitting on a Tommy. Here's the wildest part. Tommy Bahama became the number one beach brand without making any beach stuff itself. This is a wild story and it all goes back to 2009.

That's when the Great Recession was happening. It was a tough time. Tommy Bahamas' country club clientele. was struggling financially. Okay, so the brains over at Tommy Bahama got together and came up with an idea. Let's put the Tommy Bahama name on the back of a beach chair. Yeah, maybe we'll toss on an ambiguously large trophy fish as well, just to be attractive. I got another idea.

Let's add a built-in cooler. Let's give it some backpack straps and let's give it a padded headrest. Basically, let's go full lazy boy on this. They were doing White Claw summer before White Claw even existed. Nick, but here's the best part. Let's let someone else make it. We're just going to sit back and license the name. Boom. Tommy Bahama pivoted their entire business model in 2009 to become a licensee.

And here's the kicker. Let's target Costco Carroll with these beach chairs. So Costco and some other company are making the beach chairs, selling them at all the Costco's, and Tommy isn't selling or making anything. The results have been phenomenal. Talk to me, Jack. What do we got? They sold two million beach chairs last year. They sold almost one million umbrellas last year.

Meanwhile, Tommy Bahamas just sitting in the sand, collecting the sun and collecting royalty checks. And that's not all. Costco's looking at this situation. And even Costco is impressed. One executive at Costco said the numbers are simply crazy. And it's year-round that people are buying these beach checks. Not just selling Tommy here in the summer. They're selling Tommy in November.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Tommy Bahamas? Distribution determines destiny. Destinies, we're just going to put this out there. Tommy Bahama may be the only boomer brand that millennials actually care about. I agree. Our generation only eats grass-fed tofu smoothie balls. And yet we're buying these mass-produced Tommy Bahama tank tops our dad's way. And it's not because of the Tommy Bahama brand. It's because of the overwhelming power of Tommy Bahamas distribution.

Costco's 60 million member club guarantees a faithful middle and upper class customer base for these Tommy Bahama chairs. So Tommy Bahamas umbrella isn't much different than any other. other sunblock and parasol that your grandmother whips out. But Tommy Bahamas umbrella struck a primo deal for distribution. And the way Jack and I see it, distribution is destiny. For our second story, Amazon's Lord of the Rings series beat Game of Thrones last week. They got 25 million viewers in the first 24 hours. But the real story isn't the or the rings.

It's the online reviews. Okay, Jack, let's travel back in time right before. for our vacation break. Our very last episode before vacation, we previewed the Lord of the Rings series on Amazon Prime. Our takeaway was that budgets reveal everything. And Amazon was spending double

what HBO was spent. Amazon was spending half a billion dollars on their Lord of the Ring series. Well, during our break, Nick and I, at one point, casually opened up the Amazon app to buy some more SPF, and we saw the same thing.

We noticed something strange in the Amazon app. When you open it up, you saw a full screen ad sitting on the screen for five seconds. You couldn't do anything. Okay, full disclosure, first time we have seen Amazon do a full app takeover for anything. So we couldn't buy SunBomb without first experiencing a full court press from Amazon's marketing department trying to get us to watch their new Lord of the Rings show. Okay, the greatest billboard in all of media.

Yeah, it's an Amazon shopping app. And guess what? The strategy worked for Amazon. Get these numbers. A whopping 25 million house. It turns out, watched that Lord of the Ring show in the very first 24 hours. That announcement from Amazon is more than double the number of viewers who watched episode one of House of Dragons on HBO.

I'm sorry, I just spat out my second breakfast. And that's more than the 19 million who watched the finale of the original Game of Thrones. You want even more context on that 25 million households who watched the first episode of Lord the range. Jack, can you sprinkle on some more magical context for us? It's just shy of the 33 million households who were estimated to have watched Stranger Thinks

Season 4 in the first 24 hours. Jack, can you give us a Schmeagle over there? What do I got to do to get a Gallum impression? He stuck the landing. There we go. I mean, I guess we are kind of appropriating Smeagel's culture on that one. Hobbit culture.

We apologize to all of you orcs out there. So, Yeties, Jack and I saw this date And we said, okay, our initial conclusion, it appears that Jeff Bezos succeeded in sharing his affinity for elf culture. But what's more interesting to us than the viewership numbers is the surprise ratings numbers for this Lord of the Ring series. Jack, you watch the first episode of the series. How did it go? What are you thinking? What was the CGI? The CGI wasn't TMI. How was the musical score? It was harmonic. How was the plot? It ended episode one with an intriguing cliffhanger. Okay, so Jack, I hear you, man. I'm feeling all this positivity. It sounds like a show.

should be getting fantastic consumer reviews. That's why I was surprised to see the abysmal 39% score that this series got on Rotten Tomatoes. 39% rating. Bad. That's bad. It's bad. Which leads to the big question. Did Bezos' half a billion dollar budget for Lord of the Rings actually bust?

No, we don't think. It turns out Lord of the Rings is getting review bombed. And Lord of the Rings isn't just getting review. the Lord of the Rings's review situation may change reviews forever. This show is getting so many bad ratings at such an alarming rate that Amazon decided to suspend ratings on IMDB, which they own. Because, and this is the key, it appears that internet trolls are ganging up to tank the Lord of the Rings ratings. Some fans are angry that Amazon cast a diverse range of actors to populate Middle Earth in this new series. Yeah, so 39% that brutal score is partly

genuine reviews, but it's also sabotaged from angly online trolls, like real trolls, or not real trolls. It seems the eye of Sauron has inspired these online trolls. Who are not real trolls, but they're fake trolls, but they're all real trolls. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in Lord of the Rings at Amazon? The death of the online review would mean the return of the critic. Yeties, the promise of the core of the internet was the democratization of information. They no longer need individual experts. Instead, with the internet, we can crowdsource reviews from the masses with the one to five star rating everyone gets to leave. Well, Amazon just admitted that those democratized online ratings, they're not exactly valid for their biggest show ever.

And this isn't the first issue. Nick, remember this summer? Amazon sued people who are organizing Facebook groups that were getting paid to leave fake reviews on Amazon products. We did an episode on it. I totally remember. And this issue with Lord of the Rings, this is now just. the highest profile failure of the whole online review concept. IMDB's movie ratings, Yelp's restaurant reviews, and even that spatula you bought online.

Look at all of them. Those online customer ratings are increasingly manipulated by bots and trolls. Real trolls. Now, if you really want to know how Lord of the Rings was, ask the professional critics. And the professional critics, they gave an 84% positive review of the new Lord of the Rings series. That's a lot better than the 39% of the series. that trolls gave it. So the pendulum is swinging back from customer reviews to professional critics.

Now, a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. You can do just about anything from your phone, but some industries, they've just been slow to move. The finance industry was slow to move from phone to computer and then from computer to app. Robin Hood wasn't. It's the Silicon Valley-based brokerage that's been updating app since it was born in 2015. Using the Robin Hood app for your stocks and crypto is almost as easy as downloading it. So you can invest to your pace on your terms by downloading the Robin Hood app. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robinhood.com slash

T-Boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y limitation supply. Stocks are offered by Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Crypto offered through Robin Hood. All investments involve risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robin Hood. For our third and final story to savor, Kanye West has a new,

beef. He's ripping into his business partners, Adidas and the Gap. He's doing it publicly because you live by the influencer and you die by the influencer. Okay, Jack, how many DMs did we get over the break from people seeing a zucking and then saying zucking? A handful. If you see zucking, you say zucking. That's what you got to do. You do. And was this a zucking? This feels like it was the most controversial copycatting that we've seen all summer. And it involves Kanye, not Facebook. In June, Kanye West posted on Instagram that the Adidas Adilat 22 sandals are fake Yeezies. Okay, and he's got a point here. Adidas was putting out sandals that really kind of remind us of the designs that Kanye does for his sneakers.

These sandals look like Yeezy sandals. Which is weird. And they sell like Yeezy sandals. Which means fast. But there's no Yeezy branding on them. And therefore, Kanye doesn't get a dime when Adida sells them. But it's not just Adidas. Turns out Kanye last week also had a problem with his other business partner over at The Gap.

He accused the Gap's leadership of having meetings about the Yeezy line at Gap without Yeezy being there. Okay, now here's where things get freaky. Kanye got so angry at Adidas that he posted a fake news headline on Instagram saying the CEO of the company was dead at 60. Now, Kanye for a while now appears to be mentally unwell. His relationships are crumbling. It's honestly pretty sad to see. But even we're surprised to see his. public spats affecting stock markets. Kanye is not saying she's a gold digger, but he is saying that people are copying his designs

and not including him in the process. Now, the big question that Adidas and the Gap must be asking themselves right now? Right now. Was doing a deal with Kanye West worth it? So Jack and I jumped in T-boy style to the numbers. And Jack, what were the Yeezy numbers for sales over at Adidas? Adidas' Yeezy products sold 1.7.7. billion worth in 2021.

Okay. Jack, can we sprinkle in a little numerical context on that? That is 15% of total sales for Adidas, the German apparel giant. Oh, Yetis. Are you not satisfied with that yet? Because get this. Sales of Yeezy shoes for Adidas in 2021, beat

Allbirds, the entire Allbirds company, by six times. All right, so if you're like walking around San Francisco and you see a pair of Alberth on some tech engineer, guess what? There are six people wearing Yeezy shoes for every one Allbirdswear. Okay, now that Yeezy ROI for Adidas isn't just benefiting Adidas, Jack, what's going on with The Gap? The Gap doesn't break out sales of their Yeezy

collaboration, but the Yeezy deal did end 10 years of sale stagnation for the Gap. The Gap's Huites, YEEZEE perfect hoodie became the top selling online item in the history of the GAP, which goes back quite a few decades. And this wasn't people who used to wear that big G-A-P sweatshirt. And size Husky. 70% of easy hoodie buyers were first-time Gap customers. If you didn't have a Gap hoodie in your closet when you were seven years old, you didn't have a childhood. Based on these huge numbers, it appears that the Kanye deal revived sales for both the Gap and for Adidas. And yet the stocks of both Gap and Adidas are down 60% in the last year. Maybe on fear that the Yeezy bump they've been enjoying could come to an end.

Okay, so when we add up all these numbers, whether doing business with Kanye was worth it, kind of unclear still. It kind of depends on the fallout of this potential breakup that we're all seeing publicly with Kanye. And there's a very high potential that Kanye just tweeted something that ruins everything we just said in the story. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at The Gap and Adidas? Influencers like Kanye, they're also risk fluencers. Okay, Yetis. The way Jack and I see it on Wall Street, influencers have become institutionalized risk, like the risk of a natural disaster or like a product defect. Casper Mattress said it nicely in their S-1 document when they went public. We remember it well.

Casper said use of social media and influencers may affect our reputation or subject us to fines or penalties. They said that. Kanye is now demanding that both the Gap and Adidas stop selling his easy designed apparel in their stores. Okay. So the Gap and Adidas got this huge boost from Kanye, but now they might end up competing against Kanye. Major companies are seeing sales surge powered by AC. single influencer like Kanye. But now Wall Street is realizing influencers aren't just assets. They're also risks. Jack, I know it's been a while, but can you whip up the takeaways for us

over there? Tommy Bahama is not a person. It's not even a company. It's just a licensed brand. But it's got the number one beach chair because distribution is destiny. For our second story, Lord of the Rings beat House of Dragons for viewers, but it's getting review bombed. The death of the online review means the return of the professional critic. Our third and final story is Adidas and the Gap. They're getting publicly ripped on by their business partner, Kanye West. Honestly, influencers now, they're not just assets. They're risk influencers too.

Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in from Brian King from lovely Washington, D.C. Brian King likes to go by BK because the Burger King Whopper just turned 65 this year. It's called the Whopper everywhere, everywhere in the world, except, interestingly, in one specific city. That one city is San Antonio, Texas. It is. Because in that city, there was a burger chain that happened to be called the Whopper before Burger King's Wopper.

And because that chain over in San Antonio had the rights to the name Wopper, Burger King's lawyers wouldn't let Burger King open a Burger King in San Antonio for years. Eventually, though, San Antonio, like, they have an NBA basketball team. They're a pretty big city. should probably have a Burger King. So when Burger King did finally open there, the lawyer said, okay, you can open, but you can't call it the Whopper. You can't even call it the Whopper with all caps.

No, you can't. You have to call it something else. Yeah, so Burger King finally opened in San Antonio, but they had to call their prime burger the deluxe. I'd like a deluxe with extra cheese, please. If you're in San Antonio today, you can now get the Whopper, but for a long time, you were getting the Deluxe. Yeah, but now if you get it, it's all caps, because that's how the Wapper rolls.

I think the bottom line here, Jack, is that people want to hear you say the precious one more time. Hold on, let me get ready. I had to get into character. They stole it. They stole pressure. Stadies, you look fantastic. We've missed you for weeks. Hold on.

Let me get out of character again over here. Jack, you look great. I can't wait to see you tomorrow. Yeties, we've missed you. We're pumped to be back with it. Let's do it. Savor the way. And before we go, congratulations.

That's to Yeti, Sean and Rima, who just got married down in Las Vegas. And big shout out to Amy and Trey, who have three kids and have moved 10 times to four different countries because they're a Navy family. And they just celebrated their 30th anniversary. And happy birthday to Jay Agascar in Bangkok, Thailand. And a happy birthday to Jeremy Hahn over in Hong Kong. And a big shout out to Spencer Perry, who's turning 26 and taking his first international trip. And Labrini Savides is turning 30 over a year. in Newington, Connecticut. And look at this, Anna and Victoria Lehman. Mother and daughter, same

birthday. Happy birthday. We literally don't see that every day. And Ergen, the firefighter Mujah Mujahideen is turning something over in Houston. Happy birthday to Kelvin Wambura in Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Nick and I both own stock of Airbnb, Pelton, and Robin Hood. Now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. Jack, rule number one about a kitchen renovation, tell your friends about your kitchen renovation. We know the cabinets are expensive. Well, in the pandemic, a lot of companies renovated their businesses focusing on apps and digital. Robin Hood didn't have to. It was built digital from the start.

Robin Hood's mobile first and intuitive design makes investing a little easier for every stage of your investing journey. Whether you want to trade options, ETFs, or stocks through Robin Hood Financial, or buy some Bitcoin on Robin Hood Crypto, you can do all that right on the Robin Hood app. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to Robinhood.com. slash T-Boy and choose your free stock. That's robinood.com slash T-B-O-I. Limitations apply. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member S-I-P-C, all investments involved risk.

By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robin Hood. I feel great, man. That felt great. I feel really good. I'm sweating. I actually am sweating. I'm sweating too.