The Best One Yet - “They Macchiato’d a sugarplum” — Dunkin’s experiential thing. Microsoft’s eSports binge. Boeing’s stunt marketing.

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

Dunkin’ whipped up a color-changing drink and it’s the opposite of every other food chain’s strategy right now. Microsoft just acquired an ecosystem for eSports (still sad it couldn’t buy TikTok). And Boeing stock jumped 8% because stunt marketing works, whether you’re the Brooklyn Bridge or a tainted airplane.$BA $MSFT $AALGot 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 Friday, the real Friday, December 4th. Markets rose yesterday to a record high on real traction in Washington, D.C. for another COVID economic stimulus package. Jack, I'm whipping out the storybooks here. Is this a Goldilocks situation we find ourselves in? It's not the $2 trillion that Democrats want. And it's not the half trillion dollars that Republicans want it. It's a warm, cozy, one trillion bucks. Oh, Jack, you're not going to burn your tongue, but you're not going to be left in the cold. either. T-B-O-Y. Nick, this is the best one yet. So, Jack, what's our first story? What do we got now? Duncan's newest drink is an eye-candy color-changing sensation that you got to post.

But Jack, it's actually a whole new category of commerce. What is commerce? It's like e-commerce, but without the way, it's offline. It's not online. Oh, yeah, I forgot that. It used to be a thing. For our second story, Boeing is pleased to announce that the 737 Max is safe and ready to fly you somewhere. We'll put it simple, snackers.

Stunt, marketing, works, elephants and all. Or our third and final story, Microsoft couldn't end up acquiring TikTok. So it's doing a little bit of revenge spending. Yeah, but just bought itself an esports startup because it's got some esports phoma. Before we hit those three great stories. Do you like tapping the iPhone to buy things, Nick? You know, Jack, do you like snagging that Zara scarf from the comfort of your couch from your iPhone? I've actually never really figured out how to fold a scarf around my neck.

I was just thinking the same thing. I know. It's really confusing. It feels like it would hurt. Well, Snackers, congrats. If you are an online shopper, your mobile shopping is destroying corporate. logos. That's right, Snackers. Unique creative logos are the victims of the mobile economy. Logos used to be an art form. My God, Jack, do you remember that whimsical, confusing lettering of the Eves Saint Laurent logo?

I do. It was like very Dan Brownian nature, like an anagram. It did look like it was messing with you. It was intense. Or Nick, how about the charmingly millennial script of the Pinterest P? It never gets old. That one's fantastic. Or perhaps you just appreciated those fantastic bees all over the Burberry scarfs. Again, they nailed it a whole lot of serif on those things. Actually, not the scarfs, the trench codes. That's what Berber does. But sadly, all three of those fascinatingly distinctive logos are no more. They're gone. They're done. They've been changed. That's because the size of an app on your foreign screen, you can't appreciate those fun little details packed into those logos. Squinting is the enemy of clicking. That's right. So logos overall across the whole economy, they've become more sans seraphis.

Yeah. More blocking. Boring. More similar, more ordinary. What we're trying to say is the iPhone shopping you're doing, it killed the cool logo. We'll tweet out some great examples from T-Boy Jack at Nick of New York. In the meantime, let's hit our three stories. You're tuned into snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. The snacks about the air-rain food is air candy. They don't reflect the views of the robberhood family. It's all informational just so. You know, we're not recommending any securities. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Right. Snacks is digested. Business news for you.

Robberhood Financial, LLC, member Fenra slash SIPC. For our first story, Duncan's newest drink isn't just a color-changing virality. Two pump Debra and our buddies at Duncan are pioneering an entirely new category of commerce. Are we going with Darlene or we go in Deborah? We haven't really decided that. We're going with Darlene. We're going with Darlene. By the way, Jack, you know it could really help you sort through these important issues?

Is it orange mocha frappuccino? It absolutely is. By the way, we got to get this out of the way. Viral drinks, they're nothing new. Starbucks has been doing this since 2003. Pumpkin spice latte back in 2003. They also came out with a pink and purple unicorn frappuccino, and now most recently, a Skittles Frappuccino.

They've got an entire secret menu devoted to these highly postable drinks. It's a simple playbook. Basically, you do this seasonally. So it's seasonally exclusive, which drive sales, because he can only get it like once a year. And then you get a bunch of free organic marketing because people talk about it and post pictures of it. It's a powerful one-two punch.

Now, that's what's happened typically when it comes to viral drink sensations. But Duncan has managed to innovate on that, and Jack and I just noticed it yesterday. They just launched the sugar plum macchiato. That's right. They machiatoed a sugar plum. This thing is like an alien berry smoothie.

It's kind of like a jamba juice exploded on a barista. Nick, it changes colors as you sip this thing. It's straight out of diagonal. Alan. And that's the kicker. This drink actually evolves as you're consuming it. Pumpkin spice can't do that. It took Duncan four years to concoct this thing, but it's only taken 24 hours for it to take over social media. Yeah, we haven't seen the financial numbers yet, but when it comes to the social numbers, this one drink got 250,000 TikTok views and 100,000 Instagram views in its first day. This glittery move by Duncan is the

opposite of what every other food and beverage chain is doing right now. And that's what Jack and I found so fascinating, because McDonald's, Taco Bell, Starbucks, all of them are streamlining their menus these days. Because of COVID, they're focusing on their core, simple, profit puppies, because they don't have time for everything else. Yeah, McDonald's doesn't want to get fancy with some plant-based chicken, this, or that. They're just doing the nuggets and they're just going to do the six-pack. On the other hand, Darlene and Duncan, they're whipping up their most complicated drink ever. dozens of flavors tossed into her cauldron. They got like an eye of the nudiness.

By the way, there is a Deborah in Boston who's really unhappy with the change we just made. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Duncan, which, by the way, is being taken private, won't be a public company for much longer? We're seeing an evolution. Experiences, experiential retail. Now we have experiential products. All right, so Snackers, here's how this goes down. Jack and I are writing the history books on this thing. First, we saw an overall shift among millennials, and that was to start paying for experience.

instead of buying things. If you graduated between like 08 and 14, you weren't dreaming about buying a house or a boat. You were dreaming about booking an Airbnb to experience a new city in somebody else's house. It's about sharing, not about owning. But then we started seeing that carryover into stores with experiential retail from all those experiences.

Our favorite example, Allbirds, which stuck a human-sized hamster wheel in its New York City's Soho location, so you could try on the shoes and run in the shoes in the store in a hamster wheel. But here's the insane thing about this moment. You can't do experience travel right now and you can't walk into experiential retail stores right now.

Duncan's response? An experiential product. The sugar plum macchiato drink transforms as you consume it, so you enjoy it more as you use it. In a world where experiences and experiential retail aren't possible, Duncan just macchiatoed a sugar plum. It turned its product into an experience. for our second story, Boeing 737 Max has finally been cleared to take off.

Well, now they get the real challenge. Convincing everyone that the plane is safe to fly on. Now, Snackers, we have not talked about Boeing in a while here. Jack and I have not even seen much news out of Boeing, but it's been about 20 months since their second 737 max plane crashed, which sadly took 346 lives. The two crashes combined took 346 lives. And it's been about 20 months since then.

and hundreds of 737 max jets have just straight up in on the ground, completely grounded, literally raking up parking fees. Boeing's employee parking lot is filled with over 400 completed planes that nobody's bought yet. No one wanted to fly in them, no one wanted to buy them. They just sat in their parking lot. Now, after improving the software and the safety that led to the crashes two years ago, the FAA has finally cleared the 737 max to fly again. So this is a powerful moment that requires.

requires one big question you've got to ask yourself, do you want to fly on a Boeing 737 max jet? Well, American Airlines already has 24 of these planes, so they really hope that you're going to say yes. Kind of an awkward situation over at American Airlines, and on Tuesday, American Airlines CEO decided to do something about it. He and his wife decided to fly on one of these planes, along with a bunch of other executives from the airline, on a flight to nowhere. Straight up joy right here. And then on Wednesday, he kicked things up a notch, said he paid a dozen. dozen journalists to take a flight to and then write about it, same situation. The goal of these flights to nowhere is to restore flyers confidence in the 737 max plane. Honestly, it feels at this point we could just wait a week and they'll pay for us to go on a flight to anywhere. True, but Nick, this reminds us of

the Brooklyn Bridge. I love this story, Jack. I love this story. The city of New York was trying to convince New Yorkers that the Brooklyn Bridge, the first ever suspension bridge, was safe to walk across so they got a pack of elephants. Yeah. In a major publicity stunt to cross the bridge before everyone's eyes. May 17th, 1884, P.T. Barnum marches 21 elephants and 17 camels across the tallest structure in New York, which was the Brooklyn Bridge at the time. It was a Brooklyn Bridge at the time. It's a great regret of mine that video photography didn't exist because I would love to see this thing. I feel like you're taking personal responsibility here, Jack, which is nice of you, but not necessary. And I appreciate it. Now, what we're seeing with Boeing and American Airlines is a fresh,

case of similar stunt marketing. Yeah, get this Snackers, American is doing five more of these flights to nowhere just for employees just to build confidence. Assuming everything goes well, December 29th. That's the day that commercial flights resume with the 737 max between Miami and LaGuardia. And get this, Snackers, this marketing stunt just got a major win. On Thursday, Ryan Airline, the major discount airline of Europe, they announced they're buying 75 brand new 737 maxes for $9 billion. Boom, Boeing stock jumps 6% Thursday. Jack, we've even seen their stock jumps since, I don't know what, hands across America? Yes. Now, Ryanair is famous for getting discounts, like literally buying planes for cheap to keep their prices low. They got these 737s like a Maxinista over an aisle 6.

Big sum of blowout, $30 million, $737. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Boeing? Boeing needs to recognize this is a rebrand moment. Snackers, it's time to rename the 737 max to something else. Boeing needs this plane to work because this is their profit. for the future. If they were going to try to do a new one, it would take years and a whole lot of money to develop a new plane and then replace this concept. And while Ryanair was willing to buy some airplanes, Southwest Airlines asked flyers if they were willing to fly on this, and 25% of Southwest customers said they were uncomfortable getting back on the 737 max. So Jack and I jumped in Snacks down, and renaming has helped a whole lot of other companies erase some baggage after a scandal,

and the fast timing was key. Take SAC Capital, for instance. They were embroiled in the neat. insider trading scandal that made the company, rightfully so, look really bad. So then they relaunched as a randomly named 0.72 capital. Everybody kind of forgot about it. Also, valiant pharmaceuticals. They amassed a horrible reputation for price gouging with their drugs. So they changed their name to Bausch Health, which sounds vaguely reliably German. Finally, Weight Watchers more recently, they realized that dieting is kind of out. So it's WW now, as in wellness that works, or at least that's what they say. This 737 Max is basically a different plane now with entirely new software and safety features. So we're thinking Boeing should change the name or even consider rebranding Boeing.

For our third and final story, Microsoft was really hoping to buy TikTok a couple months ago. Didn't work out. So they just bought an e-sports tournament bracket online instead. And you got billions, you've got to treat yourself. Now, classic, classic video game company name here. You ready? Jack, you want to serve it up? Yeah, smash.g, which makes us wonder, what's the dot g-g stand for? It's not a video game company unless you've got an aggressive, misspelled verb in there. Smash.orgia is basically the highly involved parent of the esports world. You know, a little helicopter mom situation.

Basically, they're organizing video game tournaments, driving you to said tournaments, and then highlighting the gaming competition. They're actually not driving it. With smash.g., fans and players can enter an online gaming tournament and then Wash Smash's real-time bracket action. And they've got like 6,000 of these going on. So you can pop in, see your buddy Timmy competing. And it's actually watching him compete live.

So Microsoft is basically getting the infrastructure to host online video game competitions and live events with this acquisition. So let's say you got the new Halo coming out this holiday season. You're going to go maybe to Microsoft to watch a virtual shootout. Remember, the 12 seed always beats the 5 seed. So Snackers, when we say Microsoft, you're thinking office, you're thinking Windows. But Microsoft has quietly been building a video game. universe. The first thing they did was the hardware. 19 years ago. Step one was the hardware.

19 years ago, Microsoft built out Xbox, and that's really like their main consumer-y thing. It really is. And they also built out a whole bunch of games because content is king. That's right. Step two, content king. They splurged get this $2.5 billion to buy up Minecraft. Another $7.5 billion to acquire the video game series, Fallout and Doom. They now got 15 different game studios today. They've spent more on video games than Lyft is worth. Soaking wet on a good day. And then finally, step three, the third critical step, distribution. Microsoft acquired Beam, which is a streaming service much like Twitch to watch games online. Yeah, but then it got awkward because they've renamed it Mixer and just shut it down because

it got no love from gamers. Yeah, the third part of that plan didn't work out as Microsoft expected. They're really good at steps one and two. They need to hire consultant for step three. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Microsoft? Content is king. Nobody's arguing that. But curation is queen. Don't forget it. Jack, I love the way you put that. Snackers, it's great to have 10 million shows to stream, but you'll watch the five curated shows that they show you at the top of Netflix. Fantastic. Your music catalog has 100 million albums.

Great. I'm going to listen to the curated playlist that Spotify made for me. The real value of Smash to Microsoft is that it brings curation to Microsoft's video game ecosystem. You're going to see the Super Smash Brothers Bowl of 2021 tournament at the top of the website. That's the thing that you'll join. And that's what's being highlighted. But then you're going to stay for some real-time brackets to see your buddy Timmy 6563 moving up to the semifinals. At the end of the day, video games are just like every other type of media.

At first, content is king, but eventually, curation is queen. Jack, and you'll whip up the takeaways for us before the weekend. Duncan just concocted a magical new beverage, the sugar plum macchiato. Snackers, when experiences aren't possible, make the product the experience. Boeing and the airlines now face the real challenge, convincing flyers that that plane is safe. It's basically a new plane, so rebrand ASAP. For our third and final story, Microsoft already owns the console and the content for video gaming.

The content was the king. Curation, though, that's the queen, and that's what Microsoft gets with smash.g. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in by legendary snacker Kelsey Black in lovely Austin, Texas. Walt Disney, of the Walt Disney Company, opened his first animation studio called Lafagram Studios in Kansas. City, Missouri in June of 1921. But here's what a lot of people don't know.

Mickey Mouse was actually inspired by a real-life mouse that was like running all around in front of Mr. Walt. And according to PFWTM, Mini was inspired by a mouse in Kansas City, Kansas. Yes, unverified, potentially true. Snackers, we want you to have a fantastic weekend. You look great this week. Get some R&R, and R. You deserve it. We all deserve it. We all need it.

And then ask your friends, H-Y-H-Y-S-D. Or just relax and do it. for us on Monday. Or ask your friends, have you had your snacks daily check? If you know, you know. If you know, you know. We'll see you on Monday. And before we go, Snackers, big happy birthday to Serena over in Wuhan, China. And Tyler Marquez in Yorkville, Upper East Side, New York City. Love the specifics. And Danny Fung over in San Francisco. And Bob And Drenne in Lakeway, Texas. And Aaron G in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Love those Coney Island hot dogs. And Kevin Y in Santa Clara, California. And Alec Fem in St. Paul, Minnesota. And

Kent Meredith in San Francisco, and Francisco Cruz in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. And Bradley Tedesca in Lisbon, Connecticut. And Evan Frederick in Columbus, Ohio. And Eric Luck in Los Angeles, California. And Dr. Kyla Cleveland and Asbury Park, New Jersey. And all the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha across the country, I guess. Also, Jack, congrats to Amy and Andy Pugier anniversary down in Florida.

Congratulations to Joel Castro for graduating in Texas. And big congrats to Crystal, formerly of Tennessee, who just got a promotion and bought her First House in Louisville, Kentucky. This is Jack. I own stock of Spotify. 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.