The Best One Yet - 👙 “White Lotus season” — HBO’s Sunday stretch. Wetzel’s Pretzel’s year. Kia’s logo confusion.

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

The final episode of The White Lotus just happened, and it perfectly demonstrates HBO’s drip strategy. The top-selling food category this year? Snacks. But the top-performing food within that food category? Pretzels. And did ya notice a new car company called “KN”? That’s actually “Kia” and it was the biggest and strangest rebrand of 2022.$WBD $NFLX $HSY $M $KRWFollow 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.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy Tuesday, December 13th. And today's pod is the best one yet. It's a T-boy. This actually is our last week of pods before the holidays. Jack, we got to take our annual, biannual, mandatory two-week, T-boy, the best one yet, vacation. Yeah, we're taking some time off because Nick's making me take vacation.

Only because Jack is making me take vacation. So we got to savor these last episode. It's like a Hanukkah menorah. We're going to squeeze out all the takeaways. Jack, what is today's first story? White Lotus just finished freaking with our minds on HBO. Honestly, it's the perfect case study on the drop versus the delay. For our second story, the fastest growing food segment this year.

It's the snack. But the fastest growing food within that fastest growing segment? That would be the pretzel. Or as the Germans call it, the pretzel. I thought it was Daspretsle. Okay, we'll roll with that. For our third and final story, Kia, just, pulled off the biggest rebrand in the car industry history.

Jack, you sounded hesitant there, but I like the way you're rolling. Yeties, this company, Kia, is trying to turn a frog into a prince. They're trying to turn a toad. Yes. Into a Tesla. Do you kiss thyself? Do you kiss yourself a frog? A frog.

I think. But Yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix. I love this mix. A wonderful mix, Jack. Great mix. It is that time. of the year, office party season. Ah, the obvious annual office party obligation.

That awkward annual event has returned. Honestly, you may have preferred the two years during the pandemic when you got a $50 credit on DoorDash instead. Does that include tip? But this year, we are back in person. Jack, what do you wear? Who do you wear? What don't you wear?

What don't you wear is the bigger question. That is the bigger question, man. This year, yet he's, you're probably going to get stuck in a convo with Carol from accounting. And then Frank from finance is going to try to feed you a shrimp. cocktail with his fingers. Frank, I said no. But yet he's, according to the Washington Post, office party splurging just hit an all-time high this year. In this economy? Yes, in this economy, companies are splurging on pent-up party favors for the whole team. For example, Jack, could we talk about the financial firm Citadel, which just hosted the biggest holiday party ever?

Okay, Citadel paid for 10,000 employees and the their families. True story. To go to Disney World this December. Get this. They shut down Disney Orlando for a whole night. They turned Splash Mountain into Cash Mountain. We're talking 2,500 company kids got to conquer the Magic Kingdom for a holiday fiesta. And then when the kids all went to bed. In company paid hotels. The adults got to dance. Not too shabby because Citadel got a live band. And the live band was cold play. Para, para, para, para dice of a holiday party, Jack. So if you're looking to fill an awkward silence at your holiday soiree this year,

just tell your boss, hey next year, let's book Six Flags. Six Flags, Sea Worlds, Come See Come Seekomside. Whatever it takes, I'll take that bonus early. Potato, Potato. See you tomorrow. We forgot to say, let's in our three stars. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm.

It's the best. one yet, but the best is a norm. 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, the numbers are in, and HBO has found itself another top shelf TV series, The White Lotus.

HBO has never been more in love with its Sunday night episode drop strategy. Okay, first off, we're going to talk about this. Let's backup T-Boy style. Jack, have you seen Shits Creek? I love Shitts Creek. Great Netflix series takes place in a rundown motel. Okay, would you say White Lotus is, it's like the opposite of Shitts Creek? No series takes place in a five-star medallion hotel.

Yeties, the White Lotus just had its season two finale. And we found out who died in that finale. Yeah, the White Lotus. It's a whodunit murder-movie that takes place in a wonderful luxury hotel. It's like Love Island, Meas. It's Mad Men with a death. Season one was in Hawaii. Season two was in Sicily.

At the same place you and Molly hit up, right? Actually, we stayed there, like, right before they filmed this, the San Domenico Hotel. Nick, watch the show because someone told him, that's the hotel you stayed at, right? Jack, we're watching the show. I'm like, wait a second. That's Francesco. He made me a groney. That's the bartender.

Are you kidding me? No, yet he's. Spoiler. In the first episode, somebody dies. But you figured out in, like, the first three minutes. After that, I've never seen more sexual tension over Aparol sprits in my age. entire life, Jack. And in the last episode, it's revealed who dies and why and how. And all of that mystery is told through the lens of social power dynamics and very expensive linens. Yeah, a million

thread count. By the way, Portia, her outfits? I know. I'm intimidated by them. Although, Jack, would you say the highlight is actually the theme song that sounds like a bunch of parakeets trying to out-sing each other? And then it's like, ready, ready? One more octave. It's like, we can't go one more octave. One more. Yeties, the season two finale with Sunday night, and there's 9 million viewers per episode since they launched season two. The numbers are in. We're talking to hit the number one show on HBO Max for five weeks straight. Oh, and another spoiler. They already greenlit season three. Word is, it's going to happen in Asia. But yeties, here's what Jack and I find fascinating about this story. It really highlights HBO's playbook when it comes to streaming.

Quality, not quantity. Fewer shows. more Emmys. B-list actors, A-list scripts. That final part is key. HBO is the New York Yankees of television. They got at least 27 world champions. We're talking Sopranos, the Wire, true detective. It's not TV, it's HBO. I, Jack, they got Veep, sex in the city. How about Silicon Valley? Boomers always knew it was a good hotel if they offered HBO. Can I interest you in Game of Thrones, insecure succession, award, award, award, who wants to step up? Yeties, HBO has about a third the content of Netflix, but more awards. That's an ROI investors like to get behind. And the White Lotus may

prove the one big question in the HBO playbook today. This feels like a takeaway moment. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy Daphne living the Bliss life over at HBO? We just got evidence on the existential question of streaming. To drip or to drop? Yet he's at the core of the HBO playbook is this conundrum. To drip or to drop? The deluge versus the delay. HBO doesn't drop entire seasons all at once like Netflix does. No, it doesn't. It drips just one episode per week every Sunday night. Well, the way Jack and I see it, this White Lotus series is a case study that proves the value of the delay strategy, the value of the drip. We think White Lotus was much more successful because of HBO's drip strategy. Yeah, for example, White Lotus season two, its viewership was 60%

higher than season one because your buddy timmy nagged you for eight weeks just to watch the thing. We saw a picture of some guy in New York City who took a picture outside their building in New York City of all the living rooms in their apartment building. You saw all the living rooms and all the TVs in the living rooms. Everyone was watching White Lotus. At the same time. Unlike dropping the whole episode all at once, the delay builds momentum and create shared experience for everyone watching the show.

And it extends your HBO Max subscription. for at least another two and a half months. It sure does, Nick. So Netflix, they're defending their drop strategy. But HBO just perfectly demonstrated the drip. For our second story, the biggest pure play pretzel chain ever just got... Actually, I don't know if it is ever. But the biggest, a really big, a really big pretzel chain just got acquired for $200 million.

Thank you for the honesty, Nick. And this highlights the best year for pretzels since these pretzels are making me Okay, Jack, first of all, I know you're a popcorn guy. So I know this isn't exactly what you were craving. I'm going to give you some popcorn for Christmas, by the way. You're right. You're right. In the meantime, let's go back to 1996. The year the world changed. Because 1996 is when we got the pretzel dog. The pretzel dog. Can you describe this in Jack? How would you visualize it? A hot dog wrapped in a swirly, twirly pretzel to the top. And then it's like seasoned with Crisco. Picture a pig and blanket, but all grown up. A lot longer. Yeah, each bite we've heard

removes about three months from your life expectancy. We're not surgeon generals, but we're going to double down on that one. We know you thought Anteans invented the pretzel dog. A lot of people picture Anteans. You can smell Anteans right now, and you think about that hot dog pretzel they made famous. But you'd be wrong. And the people over at Wetzel's pretzels would be mad if you thought Anteans invented it. Okay, Wetzel's pretzels. They got 350 locations. It's Highly regional, mostly in California and Arizona. Celebrities apparently love this, at least pictures in the paparazzi. Lindsay's a fan, we're a fan, I guess.

But even more impressive than the celebrity love is that this pretzel chain just got acquired for $207 million. Okay, so Jack and I heard that number, and we got curious because that's a big number for a whole bunch of carbs and salt. The bigger story here, though, is pretzels in general. Yet he's Jack and I looked at the sales numbers and the growth. pretzels are the leading snack of 2022. Snacks are already the top performing food of 2022. And pretzels are a shining star within that bright segment of snacks. Remember we were just talking about Hershey's, whose stock is shockingly at an all-time high?

Because Hershey's chocolate did, they did the pivot, right, Jack? The sweet to salty pivot. Yeah, Yetis, last year, Hershey chocolate splurged a billion dollars on Dots' home-style pretzels. And how are they doing, Jack? It's the top performing product within the Hershey's company with 60% sales growth. Okay, Jack, we also were just talking about Campbell's soup. But what is Campbell Soup's fastest growing food the last three years? It's Snyders of Hanover, the classic pretzel brand.

Get this, Snyders of Hanover, the pretzel company, sold $56 million of twisted pretzels last year. The real Hanover in Germany is probably jealous in all this. Germany's getting joey and all this pretzel love in the United States, man. So, big food is putting all this big. money into pretzels because people are buying more pretzels. And Jack, that begs the question, how did the pretzel become the fastest growing snack category in the fastest growing category in all of food? Pretzels innovated. Well, pretzel people innovated. No offense to the pretzels listening for this pod. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our twisted buddies over in the pretzel industry?

The pretzel has transformed from a product to an entire platform. Yeties, for 100 years, Actually, hundreds of years, literally, the pretzel was just two things. It was either the pretzel rod or that pretzel-shaped pretzel. Brown, crunchy dough with salty polka dots, the crunchiest and most dehydrating of all of the snacks. It's the driest dough you'll ever eat. You need to put on some type of conditioner and lotion on your hands after you consume one of these things. But startups have swept into the pretzel category to experiment, finally, with the shape and the flavor of the pretzel. First, the pretzel industry copied the chip industry.

They launched flavors like tasty ranch dill or like tangy mustard and honey. I'm still waiting for cool ranch. But then the pretzel changed the shape. It's like they went to yoga school. Yeah, they started doing more shapes and more poses in the pretzel industry now. So pretzels overall have repositioned from one classic thing that's hundreds of years old to the potential for anything in the snack category. Pretzels basically borrowed a lesson from tech.

They transitioned from being a product into a platform. That's what made pretzel the snack of 20. And those pretzels are making us thirsty. Pretzels. They're making me thirsty. Now a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. A lot of Yetis don't realize how much prep work goes into this pot. We spend hours every morning jumping in T-boy style to earnings reports, CEO tweets, breaking news,

headphones. Yeah, Jack and I are toggling tabs like you toggled IM Convo's in 2004. Having eight tabs open can be stressful. You don't need that, especially when invest. Robin Hood offers it all in one app. Whether you want to trade options, ETFs, or stocks through Robin Hood Financial, or you want to buy some Bitcoin on Robin Hood Crypto.

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For our third and final story, Kia, the car company, just pulled off the car industry's biggest and fastest rebrand of the whole year. Kia's logo is unrecognizable from the old Kia. It is. It's actually causing a lot of confusion from drivers and like me. But that's the point. So Jack and I were confused. But first of all, we were shocked when we learned this. Jack, have you heard of the Pope Mobio?

We've all heard of the Pope's mobile. It looks like a beluga whale. But would you know that the Pope's favorite car isn't actually a Lamborghini and it isn't actually a Mercedes? It used to be a Mercedes. It used to be, but Pope Francis prefers to ride around in a Kia. Pope Francis traded in the Mercedes for a Kia? What do I got to do to get you into this Kia Sorrento, Jack? Kia, the number two car company in Korea, which is majority owned by Hyundai, the number one car company in Korea.

combined this number one and number two company is worth $50 billion, and they just had their best quarter ever thanks to Kia's makeover. But Jack, you and I should beep, beep, beep, back it up because Kia entered the United States back in 1994. Great year. And in 1994, Kia wanted to communicate to the American consumer, what is Kia? What is the value proposition of this car?

It's a new car. It's a new company. And so their value proposition was price. And they showed that with their logo, which screamed a full. It was pretty basic. We're talking simple red oval with the word Kia in all caps, cheap logo, yells cheap car. Pretty simple. But today, Kia wants to be more like a Tesla, not a Toyota. Kia's transformed. They're not just making tiny sedans anymore. They're doing higher-end SUVs. They're doing fancier chassis. They're making electric cars. And that's why Kia is trying the hardest move in branding. This is not easy. They're trying to go from downmarket all the way to upmarket.

They're trying to go from a frog to a handsome prince. And that means Kia had to change its logo because it's making a dramatic change to its value proposition. Now, there is more to a brand than just the logo, but the logo has three key components. And here are the three components to a logo. You got to have shape, color, and content. You got to nail all three. And Kia changed all three. Okay, the shape?

A surprising number of car companies have a circle and container as their logo, like Honda, Mazda, Toyota. Ford. They're all in like a little circle thing. Kia was in a container too, but the new brand cuts the container. The logo unboxed itself. All right. It's not just the shape. They had to change the color too. What was that shocker, Jack? The most popular colored logo for the car industry is red. From Ferrari to Toyota. Red is the most popular car logo.

Kia was red too, so they just changed their logos color to black. Midnight. Black. And how about content? The third crucial element of the logo. Will the logo be a letter? Will it be a word? Will it be an animal? Will it be that noise from white lotus? Like, what's it going to be? Kia went abstract on us. It went full Jackson Pollock on this thing. It's honestly, like, hard to tell what it is. But it does say K-I-A-3 letters.

You need a museum curator when you're looking at this thing to explain it to you. And a magnifying glass. It's inspired by a signature, like as if John Hancock made the Kia logo. So Kia is trying to pull a brand 180. They're trying to go from frog to prints, transforming from cheap car companies. It's a nice car company. That's not easy. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Kia? There is a fine line between confusion and intrigue. Okay, Yeti's hilarious detail here we didn't mention yet.

Nobody actually recognizes the Kia logo. I didn't recognize it. You didn't recognize it. I was like, what is this? Who is this? Where are they from? The new logo says Kia, but if you look at it, it looks like the letter K. and then just the letter N next to it. Honestly, you can't read it.

It looks like K-A. It doesn't look like KIA. It is in fact so illegible that Google data proves how no one can read this logo. Every month, at least 30,000 people are Googling what is the new car company KN? Because they don't realize it says KIA. It can't be read. They don't realize it's Kia. Now, the risk with a new logo is confusion.

And based on that Google data, this looks like the new KIA. Kia logo is creating confusion. People were confused. Or were they intrigued? Right, because Jack, Googling what is KN car, suggests you're kind of intrigued by this KN car thing. The numbers confirm it, actually. Kia has three straight years of record sales in the United States.

That feels like intrigue, not confusion. There is a fine line between confusion and intrigue. And Kia may have found it. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Voy Tuesday? White Lotus just finished season two. It's a case study in HBO's Sunday night drip strategy. For our second story, pretzels are the fastest of the fastest growing foods this year. Pretzels, they transformed from a product into a platform.

Our third and final story is KN. I mean, Kia. Their new logo confused everyone. Nobody knew what car that was. Kia is threading the logo needle on confusing versus intriguing. Now time for the best. fact yet. This one, an update from Yeti Jenna over in Boise, Idaho. Back in September, Jenna told us on this pod that the most popular week of American birthdays is September 9th. Yeah, the week of

September 9th has more birthdays than any other week of the whole year. Do you remember what we said back then was the least popular birthday week of the year? We did a little yin to this yang, a little yank to this yin day? It's later this month. The last weeks of December are the least popular birthdays. of the entire year. Between Christmas and New Year's, there are fewer birthdays than any other seven-day stretch of the year. Doctors are on vacation. You're on vacation. Maybe you plan things differently. Yeah, you do what you can to not have a kid during the holidays. So to anyone whose birthday is later this month, this is actually an extra special birthday. Yeah, and give your parents an extra special. Thank you because they were in the hospital during the holidays because of you.

Honestly, your parents, they deserve a birthday gift too. I'm taking this Instapot. It's my mine. Yetis, you look fantastic for T-Boy Tuesday. And remember, if you're at that company holiday party and you're stuck talking a frank over the shrimp cocktails, what should you say, Jack? Put the shrimp down in H-Y-H-T-B-O-Y. Have you had the best one yet? And when can we go to SeaWorld? If you know, you know. And before we go, congratulations to Yeti Rimmie Gulu-Gosh graduating down in Fairfax, Virginia. And congratulations to Izzy Zubia, who's graduating from business school. Gavar is graduating from business school in Boston just outside Boston.

And happy 26th birthday to Whitley Wright in Bryant, Alabama. And Mark Lenniville is turned in 71 in Lamp, Missouri. Happy birthday to Josh Ebert in Columbus, Ohio. I'm Taylor Swift in West Reading, Pennsylvania. Enjoy the birthday. Happy birthday to Stacy Yervasi is traveling to Los Angeles for a birthday for a nice photo shoot. And Edward Brazowski, enjoy the birthday.

And thanks for listening to every T-Boy episode. ever in Michigan. Good to anyone else. Celebrating something today, make it a T-Bull. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Disney and Netflix, and Nick and I both own stock of Robin Hood.

Now, a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. A lot of you listen to our show while you're driving. Two hands on the wheel. Keep it 10 and 2. You might be cruising, Chris, no rush. Stay in the right lane. Or you might be dolling from Duncan, dotting from lane to lane.

And there are different drivers on the road. They're different investors too. Maybe you're cruising down, a long-term lane with stock investing, or maybe you're a more advanced full-speed trader. Well, the Robin Hood app helps put you in the driver's seat wherever you're at in your investing journey. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robinood.com slash T-Boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Limitations apply. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC, 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.