The Best One Yet - 🧸 “Soft Bear Energy” — Build-A-Bear’s surge. Netflix’s naked data. Fossil Fuel’s End.

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

 TBOY Merch Drop: Get The Best Gifts Yet at www.tboypod.com Build-A-Bear is having its best year ever, despite its friction-full buying experience — Because soft is security.Nearly 200 countries just pledged to “transition away from fossil fuels” to conclude the big UN climate conference — So why did Exxon Mobil’s stock rise? And Netflix just became the 1st streaming company to share all the data on what you’re watching — Their transparency is their competitive advantage (fyi, link to the spreadsheet below )Netflix’s 1st Viewership Report: https://assets.ctfassets.net/4cd45et68cgf/1HyknFM84ISQpeua6TjM7A/97a0a393098937a8f29c9d29c48dbfa8/What_We_Watched_A_Netflix_Engagement_Report_2023Jan-Jun.xlsx$BBW $NFLX $XOMSubscribe to our newsletter: tboypod.com/newsletterWant merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: www.tboypod.comFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on Youtube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, December 14th. And today's pod is the best one yet. Jack, this is a T-Boy. It's the top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Oh, Jack, you're wearing a crewneck. I'm wearing a crewneck.

The T-Boy merch is looking fantastic right now. We still got inventory for your holiday shopping at T-boypod.com slash shop. Speaking of which, stocks just jumped, man. We're almost at record highs. Stocks jumped on a surprising up. update we got yesterday from the Fed. The Federal Reserve may cut interest rates next year. It's a sign that they think their battle to slay inflation may be over. Which means you may have more money, which means you can buy more T-boy merch.

First story for today's show, what are we got, Jack? For our first story, I can't believe it, we're covering Build a Bear. The Teddy Bear Workshop just had their best year ever. Bill DeBair is winning because nothing sells like soft. For our second story, 200 countries just signed an agreement marking the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. Those are great words, but will they lead to great actions? And our third and final story. For the first time ever, Netflix divulged all of our binging numbers for the world to see.

Because transparency is a competitive advantage. But Nick, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a wild mix of stories for the new Friday. Love the mix of stories. Today is Thursday. The New Friday. In the middle of December. You know what that means, Yeties. Oh, what does that mean, Jack?

It's time for a holiday office party. Holiday office parties. Tis the season for the holiday office party. One second, I'm on my way. I'll be there in a sec. It's time for you to loosen up with your coworkers, but don't loosen up too much because they're your coworkers. They're going to be serving enough crudeatee to feed a horse stable, Jack.

Yeah, Santa Cingria's on the bar, Kwanza cocktails on the dance floor. And don't forget about the lotkas and vodka. But get this, Yeties. There's a new trend in holiday office parties, holiday office activities. Yeah, less drinking, more. we're doing. That's the new thing in the office party situation. Nick, can you give us an example of a holiday party that's actually a holiday activity? Well, Jack, that would be like a team pickleball tournament in the middle of Philadelphia. Or the cupcake bacon competition for the whole

team. Or a candle making workshop with like 12 consultants you didn't mean to pay by your company's paying. You're not drinking Chardonnay with Carol from accounting this year. You're rapid homemade raviolos with Carol and you're entering the office party competition. And yeties, how do we know that your office party is today? Well, we know your office parties today because Jack and I, we got the data. You know paperless post. They track the RSVPs for online invitations to real-life events. And paperless post discovered the optimal time for your office holiday party is Thursday in mid-December. Yeah, according to the data, today, Thursday, at 4 o'clock specifically, is the optimal time for American holiday office parties. So, Yeties, this afternoon, enjoy playing pickleball with Paul.

from payroll. Enjoy baking a cake with your boss, Beck. Shoot your shot, ask for that promotion. Don't give any feet forward. And remember, loosen up, but don't loosen up too much. Undo the tie. Don't unbutton the shirt. I'll have a vodka and a vodka. Time for the mandatory speech, Jack. Let's in our three stories. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. I don't even think they need to practice. 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 Bill DeBear is on pace Forget this

Their best year ever Because Bill DeBear is doing The opposite Of what every other company is doing Jack before we begin this story Can I ask you a bear question please? I'm just wondering this Why we're praying?

Okay Fuzzy Wuzzy was he was a bear Who was he? That's not the question. You know what I mean? Like who was he then? Fuzzy, Buzzy, Buzzy, no. Fuzzy Wuzzy was he was a bear, but who was he?

I know he had no hair. No, but who was he? All right, we'll deal with this after the show. Yet he's Bill DeBair is a two-ton, $400 million, publicly traded grizzly beast. It's got a publicly traded stock, and it ain't no Beanie Baby. Founded in St. Louis, 1997. This company disrupted the 100-year-old.

Teddy Bear. They're doing Teddy Roosevelt proud because since then, they've sold 225 million stuffed animals. Here's the shocking thing about Buildabair Yetis. Um, Buildabair just hit peak profitability. They are finishing their best year in company history with teddy bears. Buildabair is on pace for a record-breaking $500 million in revenue this year. And Jack, can we talk about the stock chart over there? It's up 5x in the past five years. If you own Build a Bear stock, you're a really happy teddy bear. And you may be saying, oh, I'm noticing more builda bears around. Oh, yeah, you are noticing more build a bear stores around your neighborhood. Because they just hit 500 brick and mortar's build a bear workshops.

Jack, can you build some context for us over there? That's twice as many builda bears as there are Shake Shack restaurants. Oh, and 40% of build a bear buyers are adults. They're kiddals who are buying all these builda bears right now. Yeah, adults want to snuggle with a custom teddy bear that's hanging out on the edge of their Zoom screen. What's a fun fact about you? I love my bear. Jack, did you see you can get a Swarovsky crystal build a bear these days? Double income, no kids, with a build a bear.

It's the perfect build a bear for that dink in your life. But yet as Nick and I have said on this show before, friction is the enemy of sales. Which is why Jack and I found this one thing about build a bear to be very funny, didn't we, Jack? They add in extra layers of friction before you can take your bear home with you. Oh, you want to build a number. actual bear at Build a Bear, Jack? You better clear your calendar. It's a half day of fare when you want to build a bear.

These workshops have a mandatory six-step process to customize your one-of-a-kind bear. Step one, you got to pick a color like Hazel or Dark or Grizzly. Step two, you got to pick an outfit. Is this going to be a police bear, a nurse bear, or a Jedi lightsaber bear bear? Step three, you got to pick a bear sound, like squeeze their paw. Are they going to play a sound, a noise, a podcast? That would be nice. That would be nice.

And finally, you get to pick a bear. That's right, Yetis. For $4.50 of pure profit for Build a bear, they will put a scent of your bear. They're just spraying some cheap cologne on that thing. $4.50. You get yourself a build-a-bear that smells like cotton candy. The final step, though, you get a Build a Bear birth certificate that confirms this is yours. And then you graduate to the heart ceremony to bring your bear to life. No defibrillate or needed. In the age of Amazon Yetis, Everyone wants the one-click, super-friction-free checkout. The package is on your door tomorrow.

But Build a Bear is doing the opposite and the business is thriving. Build a Bear's friction-full experience is working because you're not just buying a bear. You're buying an experience. Cancel my 2 p.m. We've got to go to Build a Bear. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Build a Bear? Soft sells because soft is security. Yeties, last month, Jack and I told you, about the theme of this holiday season. It's soft. Plush toys are just killing it right now.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the toy industry is in an arms race for softer, more huggable, plusher toys. And the reason why isn't just kids. The reason why is larger, it's bigger. It's more macro than just kids soft toys. Here's what the founder of Beanie Babies, Ty Warner, said about that trend. He said that when the world feels insecure, we crave softness, literally more than ever. That's why since the pandemic, The Bilderbear stock has quintuples. And that's why this year, 40% of Buildabare buyers are adult kidults. Because as Beanie Babies founder puts it, Soft sells.

Because soft is security. For our second story, 200 countries just shook hands and agreed on one huge crucial thing to transition away from fossil fuels. Yeties, let's set the scene at COP28 over in Dubai. What do you think, Jack? Let's head over there. The headline of that conference was that an oil country was hosting the UN's climate conference. Yeah, it was actually kind of an awkward situation, wasn't it, Jack? Even more shocking, the president of the event was the head of the UAE's state-owned oil company.

But yet, he's, all of that makes this new headline all the more shocking. Yesterday, nearly 200 countries signed a pledge to transition away from fossil fuels this decade. They're going to stop emitting carbon dioxide. completely by 2050. And after 28 years of having these UN climate conferences, that's the first time the words fossil fuel were explicitly singled out. As the United Nations put it, this is the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.

Our first reaction, this sounds like great news for the world. This seems pretty pretty good, Jack. It's an admission even by oil countries that fossil fuels are a problem. All right. Our second reaction, what was it? This agreement's going to move a lot of money over the next 15 years. For example, there's going to be more money going into renewable energy. The pledge included a tripling of wind and solar energy by 2030. There's also more money that's going to go into nuclear energy.

Many countries will replace their coal power plant with a nuclear power plant. And of course, it means less money is going to go into oil and gas and coal. Less fossil fuels means less fossil fuel money. But yeties, here's what Jack and I were kind of confused by. If all of that is true, then why did we notice this about? out ExxonMobil stock. Yesterday, Exxon Mobil stock rose on word that 200 countries pledged to transition away from their product. Sit down, stand up and drill again. Yet he's the world is basically committing to banning oil by 2050. And yet an oil stock rose on that news? The reason that

explains it all, Nick, is that pledge? 200 countries signed. It's a voluntary pledge. It's voluntary. There's no enforcement, which led to our third reaction about it. the news. So is this just a glorified New Year's resolution for these 200 countries? Last year was no carbs. This year it's no carbon? Yeah. Is that what's happening here? I'm giving up sourdough and big oil, Jack. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone on earth? The words have moved in the right direction and actions follow words. Yet he's Bill McKibbin, a climate activist, said he was underwhelmed by this transition from fossil fuel sentence that we just said. Well, Nick and I jumped in T-boy style.

In the 1995, first UN climate conference, environmentalists were also underwhelmed by the words of that agreement. But here's the key. In the 28 years since then, we've actually made a lot of progress. So a bolder commitment should lead to more progress. Plus, the United States, China, Russia, and Iran all signed this pledge to transition away from fossil fuels. I'm sorry, Jack, one second.

I'm checking the record books. When was the last time those four countries agreed on any? I don't think those four countries have ever agreed on anything. Yet these actions are louder than words. And we still need really big actions on climate change. But the words have moved in the right direction. And actions follow words. For our third and final story, for the first time ever,

Netflix just gave us your viewing data on 18,000 shows and movies. They gave us data on all the shows on the Netflix platform. Has anyone done this before, by the way? No other streamer is doing this. And that's exactly why Netflix is. Yetis, toss on the pajamas and whip out the whiteboard. Jack, what are the top shows on Netflix? What do we think are the top shows on Netflix?

It's got to be the crown. Oh, yeah, absolutely. In fact, I think today, the second half of the final season premieres. I think you're right. And if it's not the crown, it's got to be Squid Game. Wrong, wrong and wrong. Netflix just revealed the winners of the first half of 2023 on Netflix. The biggest show on Netflix in the first six months of this year was the night agent

Season one. The world watched 812 million hours of that show in the first six months of this year. Hey, Princess died. Pump the brakes. This is an emergency phone call show about the FBI that led to a deadly conspiracy involving the White House. That's what was number one on Netflix this year. The rest of the top five was Ginny and Georgia, seasons one and two. Very nice. Wednesday, which is about Beetlejuice, right? It's an Adam's family spin-off. And then Queen Charlotte, a Bridgeton story. We're all living in the Bridgeton universe, Jack. Yeties, Netflix just revealed their viewership data in terms of numbers of hours watched

for all the shows and movies on their platform. In fact, they gave you a downloadable spreadsheet that you can just, like, put on your computer. We'll add a link to it to today's episode's description. How do we do that, Jack? It has 18,000 rows, because that's how many titles they're showing you the data on. They literally broke Excel in order to share this data with us.

They're going to want to control F this thing and see where your favorite show it lands. Now, Yetis, we know what you're wondering here. Why is secret of Netflix suddenly sharing all this incredibly valuable, imported, and critical data with the entire world? Because the actors and writers made them

with their strikes this summer. It is, you can't buy trust, but you can build trust. And data is how Netflix is now building trust. Historically, Netflix and streaming in general was one big black box. Totally. You couldn't get anything out of streaming or Netflix, right, Jack?

They wouldn't share their viewership numbers, so actors and producers, they didn't trust the numbers they were being told by the streamers. Jennifer Aniston would call up Netflix and be like, read, what are my numbers for murder mystery? And he would be like, click. Actors had no way to confirm whether their show was a hit or whether it was a flub. So if you're Robert Patrick, the star of Night Agent, you didn't know if your show was number one or number 50 on Netflix. So you didn't know if you had leverage to demand more money or if you were just lucky to be keeping your job. Well, now Netflix is going fully data naked for us. They are going to bear all and tell us their numbers every six months.

They're going to show us the number of hours watched, which is the key metric for all their shows and all their movies. Netflix is going naked. Maybe that's what we should title today's episode, Jack. I think we have to now. But yet, these Netflix wasn't required to share this data publicly. They were only required after the strike to share it with the actors and the writers guilds. Now I'm wondering if I've gone too all in on the naked Netflix thing. for us, Jack. If you have to ask, then we went too deep.

Yeties, why is Netflix publishing all their viewership data when nobody else is? Because of our naked takeaway. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Netflix? Transparency is a competitive advantage. Yeties, Jack and I noticed this fascinating telling quote from Netflix's CEO about sharing this data. He said it makes Netflix very easy to compare to other streaming services. Exactly. Because Netflix is sharing this data publicly since it makes them look so good.

No other streamer has shared data like this, and they possibly never will. Because according to Nealson data, Netflix gets more than double the viewership of Hulu or Prime. And more than triple the viewership of Disney Plus. So the more that Hollywood knows about Netflix's lead, the more actors and producers are going to want to work with Netflix. It's easy to share your data when your data is the best. And that is why Netflix's transparency is also their competitive advantage. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us before the office holiday party? Build a bear stock has had an all-time high, as adults make up 40% of sales.

Because soft sells, and soft is security. For our second story, the UN Climate Conference ended with a global agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. The words have moved in the right direction, and actions follow words. And our third and final story, Netflix published a spreadsheet with viewership hours of every single show of theirs. It's unprecedented. Because transparency is a competitive advantage. But yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals are moving across the river over to Virginia. The basketball and hockey teams, they're moving from the city of Washington, D.C. to the suburbs of Alexandria. And second,

Starbucks is officially in the electric car industry because Starbucks is adding electric car chargers and they've already started doing it. Volvo's making the chargers, but there's going to be Starbucks branding, and they're going to be right outside the Starbucks stores. And finally, Doritos just unveiled the most controversial drink of the holidays. Get this. Doritos alcohol.

There might be one at your holiday office parties tonight. 42% alcohol tastes like nacho cheese, but it will not turn your fingers orange. Do we get any more info on this, by the way, Jack? They have not clarified what kind of alcohol is. I think it's a fermented chip of some kind, Jack. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Savannah Westwood from lovely Orlando, Florida.

It's really a trivia question, which I love. Oh, this is good. What is the snowiest country in the world on average? You're thinking Canada, you're thinking Russia. Maybe you're thinking like a Finland situation. You're going to throw Iceland in there. Who wouldn't throw Iceland in there? You're not thinking the United States.

I mean, San Francisco has never gotten snow, right? If it got snow, we would really slip down that hill jack. The answer of the snowiest. country in the world is Japan. It's Japao, Yetis. The top three cities for snow in the world are all in Japan. Japan gets up the 50 inches of snow every single year, not too shabby. Actually, I think they call it Japau because the powder is particularly light, right?

It's a champagne powder from what I understand, Jack. Yeah, that's what I understand, too. Pairs well with the Doritos alcohol. I think they'd kick you out of Japan, actually, if you tried to bring that in. It's a good place to get a third Christmas tree, Jack. Yetis, you look fantastic for your office holiday party. Jack, what are you going to wear? What should we wear for this office holiday party?

We're going to undo the tie, but I'm not going to unbutton the shirt. No, you are not. Yeties, we are low on T-boy merch. If you want to get a sweatshirt, a crewneck, a t-shirt, a hat, a beanie for your best buddy, timie out there, head to t-boypod. com. Still got plenty of time for it to arrive before Christmas. Yes, you do, but we're running out of smalls. Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow.

Can't wait. And before we go, a congratulations to John Engerman, a Yeti who's had 1,000 straight days of over 10,000 straight steps across New Jersey. Wow, that's awesome. I'm speaking. All the way from Hoboken. And congratulations to Alexa Marie Manta, who just got accepted to college in Revere, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. And a huge shout out to Nico Ventura, who's been listening every day. This nine-year-old is a bestie.

And Vinnie and Beth in Long Beach, California, congratulations and just being awesome. Thank you for being a couple of legendary longtime besties. Congratulations to Josh Cohen, who just got promoted in logistics over in Overland Park, Kansas. And Vita and Tejas are celebrating an anniversary in Media, Pennsylvania with their new baby boy, Rion. And happy birthday to Dave Smolensky, the legend of LinkedIn and renovator of homes in Highland Park, Illinois. And Jason Farris is turning 30 in Nashville with a birthday crows. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack. I own stock of Disney and Netflix, and Nick and I both own ETFs of the S&P 500. So who was he, Jack? Nick, I don't know. He was a bear. Was he? I plead the fifth. Who was it, Jack?