The Best One Yet - “Did you just double-dip that chip?” — Spotify’s little secret. David’s Bridal’s dress pivot. Cheesecake Factory’s fib.

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

Weddings are off, but David’s Bridal emerged from bankruptcy because weddings haven’t changed. We’ve got our 1st publicly-traded company charged with lying in the pandemic: Cheesecake Factory. And Spotify’s stock is up 20% in the last week… and Spotify’s app is up 20 spots in the App Store in the last week.$CAKE $SPOTGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @TBOYJack @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. And this is Snacks Daily. It is Tuesday, Tebow, Tuesday, December 8th. Let's get into this, Nick, because it's the best one yet. Jack, this is a straight of TBOY. What do we got for the first story, by the way? The first officially charged pandemic liar.

Jack, going to have one serving of the cheesecake factory, please. I said, please. For our second story, Spotify's stock is up 20% in the past week. Funny thing, Jack, Spotify's App Store ranking is up 20 spots in the last week. We get excited when the numbers are the same. Love a little correlation. Maybe some clarification. Let's go to the third story, Jack.

David's bridle just emerged from bankruptcy protection in January. Jack, weddings have totally changed, but weddings also have totally not changed. So glad we squeezed our wedding in there last night. We snuck that guy. It snuck right in there. Now before we jump into that, honestly, a wonderful mix of stories today, Jack. Happy T-boy Tuesday to you. We know what you're thinking, Snackers.

It's December 8th, and you haven't bought a single Christmas gift. yet for anybody. Honestly, Jack, I spent 14 hours scrolling on Cyber Monday, ended up buying a sweatshirt and a full-year supply of deodorant. Funny, sweatshirt's the only thing I bought also on Cyber Monday for myself, though. Ersa Major, you're welcome. But a reminder snackers, Snuggies are now a socially acceptable work tire. Treat yourself. Well, Jack and I noticed something interesting going on right now before the holidays. Amazon just unveiled their top six top-selling products of the holidays already. And because it's list season, we're giving you another list. We want to make this clear. Number one, top purchase item on Amazon already.

The Echo Dot. Lame, a monopoly move, pushing their own product. Number two, Jack, we got the Barack Obama memoir. Now, this is actually his third memoir, but it's part one of his third memoir. It sounds like a lot. Basically, this is a seventh Harry Potter situation, it feels like. It was so much they had to break it into two. Jack, third most popular item right now being bought on Amazon, the Revlon volumizing hot air

brush. That sounds like a weapon? Yes. And it also sounds like a gift you're only going to be. gifting yourself. Let's be honest. Did you get it wrapped? You can get it wrapped for yourself. I think that's the thing. Fourth most popular purchased holiday item on Amazon. Number four, love this. The light bright. Throwback to the mid-90s. This was the touchscreen before the touchscreen. 1994, great year. And number five, kind of boring Amazon smart plug. Okay,

okay, okay. Is that the one with like three outlets plus two USB jacks? Doesn't even matter. It's a monopoly new thing. Number six, 23 and Me DNA test kits. Because the most exciting part of the holidays is finding out you're between zero to seven percent Russian Jewish. Yep, full disclosure here for both of us technically. Snackers, happy T-Boy Tuesday. But Jack and I have a curious question for you. What's going to be the seventh most popular Amazon product right now? Shake weight, perhaps, to work off that Christmas beast? Overdue for a comeback. Let's in our three stories. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. The snacks about the hair ain't food. It's air candy. They don't reflect them

user to robberhood family. It's all informational just so. You know, we're not recommending any securities. Nope. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Right. Snacks is digestible.

Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member Fenra slash SIPC. For our first story, Spotify stock, just jumped 20% in the last week for no obviously clear financial reason. We think it's the old podcasting double-distance. dip. Jack, that's like putting your whole mouth right on the chip. You dip the chip once and be done with it. Here's the thing, Snackers, Spotify didn't announce anything major over the past month, but you did. Yes, hashtag 2020 wrapped. It's when you can share with all your buddies what you listen to on Spotify

for the past 12 months. Basically, Jack found out he's the fifth Mumford son, and I'm like a stage five clinger stalker of this podcast. Nick, the first step is admitting that you have a problem. By the way, Snackers who did a Spotify wrapped and Snacks Daily was their number one. one podcast, that was like a life moment for Jack and I to see it. There were a lot of you. Incredible. It was very cool. My favorites, the ones who said they had no snacks portion control.

Yeah, Jack, there were some Snackers who listened to 11 episodes in a row. Honestly, it was like the most incredible feeling all weekend to see that. But Snackers, you're seeing a lot of buzz about Rapt. It's a total FOMO experience. In fact, there is so much buzz around Spotify wrapped. There are plenty of articles out there written on how you can see your Spotify wrapped 2020. It's that big a deal.

We don't have the numbers. yet for how successful this marketing campaign was. But last year's got 60 million Spotify users to participate. That's a lot. Also, kind of a fun fact, Jack and I noticed when we dove in snack style, an intern over at Spotify is who came up with the whole Spotify wrapped concept. So Snacker interns out there, when you're setting your like summer internship goals, this person boosted market cap by like $10 billion. You want to have that as a nice little personal OKR. So the big question, Jack and I are asking, when we noticed what happened to Spotify stock is, did viral marketing, like RAP 2020, did that boost Spotify's stock 20% in the last week?

Or was it something else? Yes. Was it Spotify's gated podcast garden? Could it be the gated garden? Now, to understand the gated garden, you got to think about the largest podcast on planet Earth right now. It's Joe Rogan's experience. He has tens of millions of listeners and he finally went exclusive last week with Spotify. But the keys that it was last week, because today, you can't get Joe Rogan on Apple Podcasts and you can't get Joe Rogan on YouTube. Spotify paid $100 million. to make him exclusive on Spotify online. All right, so Jack and I are now looking at this situation. We got a little more info.

We don't think that's the reason, though, because the Joe Rogan exclusivity wasn't new news. We've known about it since May when the announcement was made. Yeah. So we don't think it was Spotify wrapped. We don't think it was the Joe Rogan deal. We're still not sure why the stock's up 20%. Our calendars had been circled about this exclusivity for months.

Now, Spotify hasn't announced the success of the first week of Joe Rogan, but we think we can already tell you from publicly available information that it was a success. Because Snacker, Spotify's goal was to get all of Joe Rogan's Joe Rogan fans to come to their gated garden of Spotify by downloading the Spotify app. That's it. You can only come to Spotify. You need to download either the free or premium version. We don't care, but you can't hang out with Joe Rogan anywhere else. So here's what may keep you up at night.

We can't really evaluate how successful this Joe Rogan exclusivity was until Spotify finance his fourth quarter earnings in February 2021. Fact check. Yes. Nick, I think we can. I think we can right now without Spotify's official earnings report. Jack, let's go back to last week, December 1st, what happened? Joe Rogan fans did what they do every day.

They opened up Apple Podcasts or YouTube and were furious to see that the Joe Rogan experience was no longer there. Done, gone. Can't get an Apple Podcast. Now, on the bright side, our podcast definitely moved up one position in the ranking since Joe Rogan's got. No rounding error there. we're going to take that. By the way, thank you, Joe. And then on December 2nd, Jack, one day later, what happened with Joe Rogan? Spotify's app hits number five on the app store, up from number 24 the day

before. All right, so Jack, that's December 2nd. What happens one day on December 3rd? The Joe Rogan experience becomes the number one podcast on Spotify. So Joe Rogan leaves Apple, the next day, Spotify's surges, and then the next day, Joe Reckon's podcast is number one on the Spotify app. Wall Street didn't need Nate Silver to confirm that Joe Rogendale seems to be a success for Spotify. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy, George Costanza and our friends over at Spotify? With podcast, Spotify gets to double dip. Gets to double dip. Have you tried podcasts?

Try 10 episodes about murders of Tupac and Notorious B-I-G. Try podcast. Try podcast. The reason Spotify is pushing podcasts on us is because podcasts are better for their corporate profits than music is. So Snackers, here's how Jack and I do the math on this. You pay $9.99 for... premium Spotify, but most of that money is actually going to the music record labels. Every time you stream, all I want for Christmas is you this holiday season, which is going to be like two dozen. Spotify has to send a check to Mariah Carey's record label.

But every podcast you listen to, Spotify doesn't have to pay anyone. Spotify doesn't pay anyone when you listen to Snags Daily on Spotify. Because podcasts monetize differently than music does. They do it through ads, and that's a whole lot better for Spotify right now. And here's the kicker. With Spotify's original podcast that they own, Spotify gets to double dip on you. Yep, they're double dipping. They're making $9.99 a month off the premium listeners, and they're making ad money off of everyone.

Even though you pay $10 a month to not hear ads, you're still hearing ads on podcasts. The double dip is why Spotify is pumped that podcast listening tripled in 2020. For our second story, the Cheesecake Factory, legendary, is the first officially charged pandemic liar. We're talking about a company that believes in the four key food groups. All right, Jack, so I got cheese, I got carbs, meat, and cheese. No, Cheesecake Factory is a publicly traded stock. So we jumped in snack style to their 10K, which is like the S1, but it happens every year, not just before the IPO. All right, so get this, Snackers. The Cheesecake Factory mentions the word cheesecake

183 times in their annual report. We were surprised to see they mentioned cheese zero times in their annual report. And the reason Jack and I were shocked, because when we checked their menu, they mentioned cheese 40 times on the menu. We looked at their dinner menu and Command F this thing. They mentioned cake 71 times in the menu. You live a life that's 5% desserts. Their sales are 16% desserts. That's got to be the highest percentage of sales that are desserts of any food company in the world. Jack, by the way, you know, the only dessert I won't eat is cheesecake. You know why? It's the only cake you don't like. Now, we believe cheesecake in its 211 locations have the lowest revenue per calorie in the restaurant industry. Jack, it's because

it's the only dessert that's going through an identity crisis. Now, let's bring you back to March. The whole restaurant industry wasn't trouble when the pandemic hit, and Cheesecake Factory was no exception. Yeah, that's what we thought. It's what we expected. It seemed like they would be along with every other restaurant. But then on March 23rd, they said something kind of shocking. They said they were operating sustainably, quote unquote, by shifting to pick up in delivery. And everyone's like, all right, cheesecake factory, we get it. We know you think you're unique. Are you sure everything's going okay over there? On April 3rd, they doubled down, saying once again, they are operating sustainably with

their shift to pick up and deliver it. Trust the factory. Stop asking questions and just eat this food. But then our buddies at the Security Exchange Commission said, were you cheesecake? Were you operating sustainably? It was a fair rhetorical question because the SEC is basically the police of the stock market, and then they decided to make a major announcement last week. They charged the cheesecake factory with quote-unquote material,

misstatements about how COVID-19 was impacting their business. You know it's serious snackers when Jack, I have to say, quote, unquote. That's the fourth time we said at this story. And they specifically cited out those March 23rd and April 3rd announcements. In fact, the SEC actually had like a whole major section in just facts in like big capital letters to prove that the cheesecake factory hasn't been telling the truth to us. The very first fact they cited as evidence was on March 18th. Yep. When the cheesecake factory apparently was telling their landlord, they weren't paying April rent. And then just a month later in April,

they gave a presentation to investors where they showed they were losing $6 million a week and only had like four months of cash left over at the Cheesecake Factory. And guess why they said they weren't paying April rent? They said because of a quote-unquote fifth time, tremendous financial blow to our business caused by the pandemic. All right, so we got a little summary here, Snackers.

The Cheesecake Factory wasn't paying rent and it was basically bound for bankruptcy unless someone gave them a new loan ASAP And yet, they were stating publicly and to their investors that they were operating sustainably, quote unquote, that's number six. At the end of all that, if you add it all up, the Cheesecake Factory did end up getting financially rescued and didn't run out of cash, but they also just settled with the SEC for those exact questionable charges. So the case is closed. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the Cheesecake Factory? Stock markets are actually a bastion of truth. Snackers, the SEC, it can and it does punish companies.

companies and executives all the time, four lines. We've covered stories on this pod about luck and coffee, which is being investigated for some sketchy accounting practices. Two victims right here. And Nicola, which is being investigated for claiming their trucks ran, but it might have just been gravity pulling them down a hill. It's the worst. Now, this all actually goes back to the Great Depression, because when the stock market crashed then, Congress ended up passing a very critical piece of legislation known as the Securities Act of 1933. Our compliance department is going to be thrilled that we're touting the Securities Act of 1933. And that's because this beauty requires an unexaggerated, honest truth with no emissions from a publicly traded company so that regular

investors can make informed decisions. And it's a beautiful thing that companies are required by law to tell the truth because it instills confidence in our markets and in our stocks. It's why Jack and I spend like a good portion of our Saturdays reading the S-1 annual reports and press releases and we encourage you do the same, but then we also jump at snacks. I'll tell you what's in them. Now, it's different like, in the... in the rest of society, where people can lie to you, including about a company you're thinking about investing in. Yeah, you're looking at like Anne Edna's 12th Facebook post of the day about lying about the earth being flat. But if you get information about a company from that publicly

traded company itself, then it has to be true. Or else they're going to get hunted down by our buddies at the SEC. Quote unquote. For our third and final story, this one's wild, David's bridle just got out of bankruptcy. And then the wedding world kind of, honestly, it kind of fell apart. Or did it fall apart, Nick? Fair question, Jack, because before the wedding season comes the pre-wedding season. Yeah, we're not talking like the spring before the summer. No, we're not. Right between now and Valentine's Day Snackers is when nearly half of all proposals to marriage occur in the United States.

Full disclosure, I feel a little weird right now, Jack. We were the opposite of this completely. Did we miss a memo? I'm a March baby. My wife's a March baby, but I proposed to her in April. So outside of pre-wedding season. Didn't know you were going to correlate the two. January May baby with an August proposal, I feel like I missed a Zodiac signal.

We're not contributing to these statistics that we're citing. In the meantime, though, David's Bridal emerged from bankruptcy in January, like right before the pandemic at brutal time. And David's Bridal sells one quarter of all U.S. wedding dresses, so this is an important year for them. Yeah, and they've had to, like, change some things up because more casual weddings and, like, backyards over the last few years, that means more competition from, like, the anthropologies of the world.

Exactly. The dress code at my wedding, for instance, was boho chic. Not exactly up David Bridal's alley. New company, new beginning. new dresses. Right. When they emerged from bankruptcy, they changed their style. They doubled their collection of white jumpsuit wedding dresses, and they have fewer of those huge, poofy, trainee, Princess Diana wedding dresses. Yeah, the stuff that could like poke an eye out. But here's the great news, now that they're out of bankruptcy over at David's bridle. The bankruptcy judge decided

David's Bridal doesn't have to pay back $400 million of debt. But here's the bad news, because they're now out of bankruptcy over at David's Bridal. David's Bridal is a now owned by the company that used to own $400 million of debt too. So like instead of being a publicly traded stock, David's Bridal is basically now owned by a hedge fund that it owed a lot of money to. All right. Post-bankruptcy, 2020 is their first year back. 2020 is a big problem. Yeah, that's because two-thirds of weddings these days, they've been postponed. So David's Bridal's like just trying to hang in there until 2021. Interestingly, while spending on prom dresses has fallen dramatically because most proms got canceled. Yes. The average price of a wedding gown is still selling.

Still steady, about $600 this year. That's right. Prices didn't fail because of two fascinating wedding trends we've noticed. The first is the rise of the micro wedding, which many of us have heard about this year, myself included. Like a fewer guess, but you splurge on the bride. You say yes to the dress, you say no to the third cousin. Yeah, you're trying to keep this under the 50-person limit for public gatherings.

Instead of sea bass, maybe you're going to splurge instead on the extra long train with a matching COVID mask that is also made out of lace. That's been a nice trend for David's bridal rule. 76, no excuses, play like a champion. Well, play David Spraddle. But then the second fascinating trend here is the future potential rise of, get this, the sequel wedding. So you didn't go big in 2020 because of COVID, but you plan to go huge in 2021 once we get a vaccine. Dave and Lisa 2021, Kenabunkport, the sequel.com. We are actually expecting a matrimonial doubling in the next couple years because of pent-up demand for weddings. We're talking two years of pent-up winnings, meaning

venues, they're like already booked Friday and Saturday. Again, Dave and Lissa, we can't wait for the wedding, please, in 2021. I've heard even Sunday's book, Nick. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at David's bridle? They're about to test the limits of loyalty program. Snackers, the most shocking part of this pandemic pivot over at David's bridle to Jack and me, they're actually doing a loyalty program. What is this like a loyalty card? Buy six wedding dresses, get your seventh free? Yeah, it's an awkward situation, Jack, because the problem here, David's bridle, ideally, you you're only visiting one time in your life and then never again. So they're getting creative with this loyalty program. They're going to give you loyalty points if you become an ambassador for the brand, what we're calling a David Angelus. Yeah, they want you doing this often and coming in frequently. So they're going to give you loyalty points if, like, you know, your bridesmaids may be buy at Davids or extra points if your mom of the bride shops at Davids.

Then they'll give you even more points if you share the link to your referral code on your invitation so that your guests buy dresses at Davids. Boom, a couple of years later, you've got to, thousand dollars worth of points. What are you going to do, Jack? Well, they're actually offering you non-wedding dress options to redeem those points like just other dresses for a cocktail partner. Or maybe you pop in later on when you're a bridesmaid at one of these sequel weddings. David's bridal is testing the limits of a loyalty program. Jack, can you whip up the T-by-T-Tuesday takeaways for us over there? Spotify stock was up 20% for no particular obvious reason.

We did some digging and found out it was the Joe Rogan podcast and the double-dip. For our second story, the Cheesecake Factory's stock ticker symbol is cake, C-A-K-E. Wonderful thing. And stock markets, they're a bastion of truth. For our third and final story, David's Bridal has emerged from bankruptcy into a postponed 2020 wedding season. We're talking a one-off retailer that is testing the limits of a loyalty program. Now, time for our snack factor today.

This one's ended by a legendary snacker, Adam Tatusco, in lovely Woodland Park, Colorado. Adam is a prolific corrector of Nick and me when we make errors on this podcast. even if they're just tiny grammatical errors. Is it Nick and me, or is it Nick and I? It depends on the context of the sentence, actually. Adam's going to let us know tomorrow. But we mentioned Microsoft acquiring a little gaming startup called smash.g.

Just last week, and Adam got interested. Well, Nick and I didn't know what Gigi stood for. And he told us, Gigi stands for good game, which is typed in often by gamers after a game to, like, you know, acknowledge the other's effort. It's actually a really nice virtual sign of real world sportsmanship, so that's true. Now, actually, lots of Snackers corrected us here.

So great work, Adam. We're giving you credit, but thank you to the other Snackers who chirped up. Also, happy birthday, Adam. Happy birthday, Adam. Snackers, you looked fantastic for T-Boy Tuesday. Remember, if you think you know what the seventh most popular Amazon holiday gift is already, tweeted us at Robin Hood Snacks, Arena, T-Money Mohan over in New Delhi, India. And happy birthday to Grace Young.

Also, congratulations for buying an apartment in Chelsea, New York City, not too shabby. Unreal, let's hang out at the High Line. Fantastic. James Post, happy birthday in Beaufort, South Carolina. And happy birthday to Coco from Charlotte, North Carolina. And happy birthday to Yosci Bolini in Seattle. And George Collar in Seattle also. And Rachel Ryan in Astoria Queen's Great Greek Food.

And Vince Tehada in Lompoc, California. And Musk and Jane in Montgomery, New Jersey. And for real, Ahmed, in Chicago, Illinois. does logistics. Nice. Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby. Of course.

La. Definitely. That was perfect for the last one. Perfect. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon and Spotify. Nick on stock of Apple. And we both still humbly own stock

of luck and coffee. The Robin Hood Snacks podcast you just heard reflects the opinions of only the hosts who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a recommendation to buy or sell any security and is not an offer or sale of a security.

The podcast is also not a research report and is not intended to serve as the basis of any investment decision. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC.