Super Bowl ads and Stanley cups
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I'm Yasmin Gagne. I'm Josh Christensen. And this is Most Innovative Companies. ♪

On today's episode, Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Jeff Beer. Best line from an ad I've heard in a long time. Patrick Stewart with his gravitas and his accent just says, throw the child. Senior writer Liz Segrin. There are also lots of people who are so committed to Stanley that they're sort of like fighting back and saying like, I don't care if there's lead in this. And as always, keeping tabs. But then you have a brand like Joe Rogan, who most regular advertisers don't want to touch with a 10-foot pole. But first, here's the download.

The news you need to know this week in the world of business and innovation. The Apple Pro finally hit the market this past Friday. Yes, did you get your Apple Vision Pro yet? Yeah, and it's sick. I'm sure it is. I'm sure you coughed up that $3,500 for the Apple Vision Pro. I mean, obviously, we've talked about the Apple Vision Pro a lot.

on this show, so listeners know quite a bit about it at this point, that it took a long time to develop, that it weighs a pound and a half, that it's $3,500, but now you can buy it for yourself, listeners, if you want to cough up that money, or you can just watch people on TikTok use it. Losers. I mean, it's not the coolest looking thing in the world. I just think of the guy coming out of the Cybertruck looking like he's...

I don't even know what he's doing. What is he possibly doing? That has to be a bit out of this point. But that is just like, that's the worst person on your X feed come to life. That guy right there. 100%. Now, it's about to get a lot harder for us normal folk. We won't be able to share our streaming service logins anymore.

I know, man. Starting March 14th, Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+, will start adding limitations to sharing your account outside your household. This is the same change that Netflix made last year, and while it pissed off some customers, like me, and me, it did net the millions of additional customers globally. Disney is likely hoping for the same outcome, and I hate it.

Oh, God. Yeah. Well, just bleed me dry. Bleed me dry. Disney take open my vein and let this out so I can watch the next season of High School, the musical, the musical, the series, the musical. Next story.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont announced plans to cancel medical debt for roughly 250,000 residents starting this June. This plan is the first of its kind on the state level and would cancel roughly $1 billion in debt for households up to 400% of the poverty line with debt that is 5% or more of their income.

income, which is pretty incredible. That is incredible. If anybody wants to privately pay for my medical debt, that would also be cool. Slide into those DMs at Yazzy G on Instagram. The Dow and S&P closed at record highs last week due to a strong jobs report and blockbuster quarterly earnings from Amazon and Meta. This could signal a turning point for big techs after huge layoffs in the sector this past year.

but we'll have to wait and see. I'm not holding my breath, and maybe that's just the nihilist in me. Our final story, Republican Senator Tom Cotton is receiving backlash for repeatedly asking TikTok CEO Shou Chu about his relationship to China. Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party? Senator, I'm Singaporean, no. That is one of multiple times that he asked Cotton about his affiliation with China, despite him repeatedly telling the senator he was from Singapore.

This was part of a Senate Judiciary hearing to discuss the risks children face online, which clearly Tom Cotton did not get to the bottom of. And that's the news you need to know today.

Josh, what is your favorite Super Bowl snack? Oh, man. I love dips just in general. If I can dip something into something else. Big dips guy. I'm a big dips guy. I love sauce. So I love like a seven-layer taco dip or just a standard guacamole. But then just like...

something's really satisfying about just a French onion dip, like the Lipton's like French onion dip sort of thing with the wavy lays. Man, I love a French onion dip. You're so white. It's very basic, I'm sure. Oh, well, what about you? What's your favorite? Favorite death? Foie gras. Yeah, I'm a foie gras, bitch. No, caviar, caviar.

So I don't really have a big Super Bowl snag of choice. That said, I just acquired a Vitamix on sale and I can't shut up about it, which is so embarrassing and means I'm definitely 30 years old. Yeah. I'm planning on using my Vitamix, which you can make hot soup in a Vitamix, which is crazy. You can also just make hot soup in a pot. There's...

So many other ways to make hot soup. Josh, it won't be as creamy anyway.

We'll go into this in the episode. My husband conned me into hosting a Super Bowl party at our apartment this coming weekend. And I have this plan to make these like popsicles that are actually healthy, like make like smoothies, protein powder or whatever and freeze them into fun popsicle shapes and like con a bunch of guys into eating them. So I suppose that's my Super Bowl snack of choice. Smoothie popsicles. That's so lame. Shut up. Anyway, I

As we alluded to, the Super Bowl is set to kick off this Sunday, and we want to talk about some of the ads we're already seeing. So we've invited one of our favorite MIC guests back onto the show to chat about what he thinks. Here's Fast Company Senior Staff Editor and Apple of Josh's Eye, Jeff Beer. Hey, Jeff. Hi.

Hey, yes. So I want to hear all about which ones you think are the best and worst so far. But first, what are some of the major trends you're seeing in Super Bowl advertisements this year? I mean, trends and advertising for the Super Bowl. I mean, the most obvious is like tons of money, lots of production values. And also like talking about them a month before the game, the whole teaser trailers for the teasers, all that kind of thing.

There's animals, of course. So far we have Hellmans with Mayo Cat and Kate McKinnon, but Mayo Cat's great. Bud has some horses and a dog again. Doesn't Duolingo have an ad? Yes.

I don't, I haven't watched that one yet. And, but that's an owl. Yeah. You know, animals, cute animals, they're everywhere. Uh, but celebrities is a huge one. Celebrities is obviously, I mean, that's every year, but like so far, I know, uh, Uber Eats and they're in Uber Eats ad alone has the Beckhams, uh, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Usher, Jelly Roll, and lots more. Yeah. Pringles has Chris Pratt. Coors Light has LL Cool J. Doritos has Jenna Ortega. Uh,

T-Mobile has a weird combo of Jason Momoa, Zach Braff, and Donald Faison. What? Jason Momoa with the Scrubs guys? I'll get into that after. People really just do anything for money, huh? Oh, yeah, there's a lot. TurboTax, Quinta Brunson, State Farm, Arnold, Schwarzenegger. Quinta Schilling for TurboTax? Oh, Quinta, Quinta. Oh, no.

Former sponsor of Fast Company Intuit, I just have to say. Oh, really? That's okay. It's okay, guys. Taxes. I think you can do them for free anyway. Gen Z, I mean, Addison Rae was in a teaser for Nerds Candy, which has an ad for the first time ever. Ice Spice is shilling for PepsiCo's Starry Soda. Pepsi is like an iconic Super Bowl one. Yes. They had this halftime show for...

Many, many years. And I've had some of the best and notably worst ads in the history of the Super Bowl. Agreed. And this year, in terms of like the business of Super Bowl ads, another sort of trend is there's a lot of candy, kind of like there's more candy than usual, I guess. M&M's, Lint Chocolate's there for the first time. Nerds is there for the first time. Drumstick, Reese's, and Oreo.

How does nerds have enough money to compete with these guys? How can it possibly be worth it for nerds to spend that money? Clearly you guys didn't grow up pouring those down your throat. Oh yeah, oh I know, I love a nerd. I love nerds. I don't need to be sold nerds. Nerds is for the former RAs. Nerds is for the former RAs.

I live, I wake up, rise and grind in nerds. That's my day. Rise, grind in nerds. That sounds like a t-shirt, Josh. That does. I'm going to make that new merch, new merch for the show. Absolutely. And then there's also less car ads, specifically North American car ads. There's no Ford or General Motors this year.

Really? So yeah. I thought Ford had something to do with Detroit. They had like a. That was for the playoffs. That was when Detroit, the Lions, the Lions went out and they had a kind of an amazing tribute ad to Detroit and the Lions. Everyone should check that out. It's actually really good. But I, as far as I know, in terms of ad bookings, they're not in the Super Bowl. Yeah. No Lions, no Ford. Here's the thing. I,

played myself in the biggest way yesterday, which was I thought my husband was a little bit upset at me and he took advantage of that moment to convince me to host a Super Bowl party at our apartment. He's quick on his feet. I know. I know. There's a reason I married him. Yeah. But he's always outwitting me. Anyway.

The thing I'm asking you is during the ad break and during the game, you need to give me one sentence I can say to sound like I really know my shit. You know, I'll just like say it on cue. Like about the ads, like, hey, a little known fact here, like that kind of thing. Oh, that's a good one, man. Let me think here. Yeah.

Oh, I know. Okay. So Mayo cat Hellman's Mayo cat. I would point anyone to go check out, be like, you know what? This is kind of a rip off of, uh, super troopers, uh, the meow scene in, uh, super troopers, which is an amazingly funny movie. Uh, but you have to go watch the scene before you say this at a party. Uh,

Watch the whole movie, by the way. It's great. The, the play between Mayo and meow reminded me immediately of this amazing scene where the two cops challenge each other to say meow 10 times, uh, while pulling over a driver. And the driver is actually Jim Gaffigan. Uh,

played by Jim Gaffigan in the movie. But I would point people to that. Wow, this is a straight ripoff of Super Trooper. Yes, that's a deep cut, I realize. And please make sure you say Super Trooper and not Super Troopers. No. The pluralized version. Because saying Super Trooper would just make it so delicious. This is just a ripoff of Super Trooper.

Someone's like, not the movie. That's not it. No, that's not the one. Still not it. Mayo cat is like barely on screen and I'm like, oh, this is a real movie. Meow, everybody. Right meow. I'll be ready. I'll be ready. Are you saying meow?

Jim Gaffigan plays a wonderful straight man in that sort of thing. It's just like, yeah, it's a good scene. If you want something to say during the game itself. Yeah, I'll be like, wow, I don't care about Travis Kelsey. I care about Pat Mahomes, who's the other player I know on that team. Also sponsored by State Farm and Coach Andy Reid, also sponsored by State Farm. Oh, yeah.

Actually, forget about the ads. We need to just talk exclusively about the Deep Space PsyOps campaign. Litsky brought up last episode. That's really caught fire since we talked to him. That blew up after we talked to him. I notice it everywhere now. I know. It's everywhere. Is that meeting in the Pentagon, you mean? The meeting in the Pentagon? Is that what we're talking about? And what has five sides? The Pentagon. For our listeners...

Who didn't make it to the end of the last episode? We're obviously talking about the fact that the NFL is all staged by the U.S. government. I do have to say, just as executive producer of this program, that this does not represent the views of Fast Company or any of its subsidiaries. Nor is it technically a fact. Nor is it a fact in any way. Well.

Well, my name is Yaz and I endorse my own message. I actually wanted to talk to you about the FanDuel ad, FanDuel Kick of Destiny. Tell me what the deal is with that because it seems like it's kind of a sequel to an ad last year. Yes, it is not kind of a sequel. It is exactly a sequel. I mean, I wrote about this as an idea. That's what I'm going to bring up at my Super Bowl party. I wrote about this as an idea. I think as an idea, this is perfect.

And I'll tell you why. What it is, is last year, FanDuel and Wyden & Kennedy, their agency, decided to do, because FanDuel is obviously sports betting and that kind of thing, they wanted to show the kind of fun you can have within a game, the game within the game, which is betting on little things here and there, little outcomes. So their ad itself says,

took that to heart. And they got Rob Gronkowski, who was not a kicker, retired NFL legend, to challenge himself to kick a field goal live. They did a live broadcast ad during the Super Bowl, and he would kick a field goal. And if he got it, the people who signed up for FanDuel had a chance to share $10 million in prizes and money and betting, like FanDuel money.

And so that was the big thing. Was he going to make it? Is he going to make it? Well, just like live sports, anything can happen. He missed. So that sets up, obviously, a sequel. Yeah. He's got to do it again. He wants to do it again. Rob's showing up again after losing? Yeah, yeah. Side note, last year, his trainer was legendary NFL kicker Adam Vinatieri. This year, in that teaser ad campaign, his team...

trainer was the now late Carl Weathers, who famously trained Rocky in all the movies. But he's in the teasers. Carl Weathers is in the teasers. Carl Weathers is amazing. Um, actually, he didn't train Rocky in all the movies. He trained Rocky in the third movie. Look, Josh, what I'm talking about is the beach running scene, okay? That's what I'm talking about.

Okay, fair. One of the best cameos of all time on Arrested Development. Oh, it's so good. He just played a very cheap man. He got some carrots. He got some potatoes. He got stew. He played himself and he was Tobias's acting teacher and was just a cheapskate. It's one of the greatest cameo appearances of all time. It's terrific. Rob Gorkowski is back. Mm-hmm.

and he's gonna try it again. And they're gonna do it again. And this time the FanDuel people, you can bet, make or miss. And John Cena's in there as like a foil, like he was gonna get the ad and then Rob, then Gronk busts in and says, "I wanna do it again." And John Cena's fired basically.

My point is, I think it's a great idea because no matter what happens, they can just keep rolling with this. They can like bring in new celebrities. It's live. It's like, you don't know what's going to happen and it's totally different. So that's what's happening with this. And I think if they play it right, you could basically have kick of destiny 12, like, you

Ron's going to be like 90. Well, then you could just replace them out. You could just get a new Gronk after time. You can hand off the mantle and stuff like that. You can keep this going forever for as long as the Earth exists, which may only be a few more years. Yeah. How long can it be? There's another...

sweepstakes going on, right? DoorDash is doing something. Yes, DoorDash. This is another one where I think is quite interesting where like speaking of trends. So for many years, we've had both teasers and ads and still do. And some of them are great. Some of them are terrible, but it's

they referenced the Super Bowl, like the commercial takes place with people watching a game with like sort of whatever jerseys on or the teasers are like, you're going to see this in the big game, blah, blah, blah. FanDuel took it a little step further using the Super Bowl as a vehicle for something fun. DoorDash is doing a

similar thing in terms of using the game. They don't even have they have the teasers and trailers out but their whole idea is as a viewer you have a chance and a DoorDash user you have a chance to what they call win the Super Bowl which is they had to team with every single advertiser in the Super Bowl to be able to DoorDash someone's

some crazy bits from every single advertiser. So you'll get... That's actually really cool. That's a great idea. Because their slogan is you can DoorDash pretty much anything. That's basically their slogan. So they've tied that in. And coincidentally... Is that countrywide? Or is it just like based on your zip code, you might get like mayonnaise? No, you get everything. Like if you win, you get everything. Like a

They're trying to figure out how to do it with the cars and all that. And coincidentally enough, same agency as FanDuel. Wieden & Kennedy has done this one as well. So they're really looking into how to use not just the game in terms of a reference within the ad, which is fun. That can be, you know, that's fun.

But using our attention and the actual experience of watching the game, being involved and actively participating in that brand activation, which I think is really interesting and potentially, I mean, disastrous if it becomes a trend and like so many brands try to do it.

same time. But like, and if it doesn't quite fit or whatever, but as of right now, I think it's really, it's a really exciting kind of space because this is one of the last, you know, truly collective experiences where brands are present and people are paying attention and they're ready to kind of have some fun. And it seems like there's sort of this trend of people being self-referential, right? Like everybody sort of understands that they are in a Super Bowl ad.

Yeah, for sure. The best one, actually, there's a lot of these. I mean, the Coors Light one just came out the other day. And, you know, a boyfriend shows up at a house wearing the wrong jersey. And the Coors Light train, driven, of course, by El Cool J, crashes through the wall. It's a whole thing. But one of the best ones is BMW had a teaser, which was like maybe 10 seconds long last week, where Christopher Walken is like kind of walking in a hallway and saying,

Obviously gets a call from, I don't know, his agent or somebody, but he's kind of like old guying it like, huh? What? You mean an ad for an ad? What is this? And then that's the end. And it's just the BMW logo. I don't know what the ad is yet. Maybe it'll be out by the time people listen to this. But that kind of just, oh, we're doing a Super Bowl ad.

Just get ready for it. Like they're kind of tying into the cultural moment, really hyping it up as a cultural moment within the advertising itself, which I get it. It's cool. I think it's interesting if it's done right. Yeah, BMW is definitely one example that did it right. Tell me about the sort of the Miller Lite ad, because from what I understand, it kind of turns people into ads for the company. Yeah, I mean, that's a funny one, too, because this is like...

one part about using the game in the cultural moment, I don't think you can say Super Bowl technically if you're not an actual advertiser. I don't know who the lawyers on that are. But anyway, they got to say big game. But there's a lot of brands that are using just the media moment around the Super Bowl. And Miller Lite is one of them in this case because they don't have an official ad during the Super Bowl. But they rolled out this

I mean, it's not really a teaser because they don't have an official ad, but they rolled out an ad when all the teasers are coming out and people are kind of paying attention to this stuff. They rolled out an ad with Rob Riggle running with a whole bunch of people wearing Biller Lite t-shirts. And essentially the brand, from what I understand, the brand is Gatorade.

giving out t-shirts to people who want to wear them to Super Bowl parties or out on the street or to bars or wherever. And there's QR codes on the t-shirts. So they're technically making people their Super Bowl ad. So if you're at a bar or at a Super Bowl party or whatever, and someone's wearing one of these shirts, you scan it and you get free beer money. I mean, free beer money is... Oh, that's not a bad deal. I was going to say, what do they get from scanning it? Like, why would you wear that shirt? Okay, that makes sense. Not just high fives, free beer. I mean, that's all they really need to say.

Let's talk about the bad ones. Take us through the ones that you think have been total bust so far. Okay, well, my worst ads, my only caveat is I don't really go and actually say what the worst ads are. Those are kind of obvious ones.

When you see them, I'll just shout one out, which is Skechers. Just awful. But anyway, the ones I focus on is like the most disappointing. Like when I think of worst, I think of like what is like a huge brand with a lot of brand equity of like where we expect, God, like a nice big ad. And I was really disappointed with Budweiser's, frankly. I was thinking about this –

Because I was writing about it, but I was forced to think about it. I was thinking about it like why it has the horses. It's got a great soundtrack, you know, the weight by the band. It's got a dog. I mean, it's got all these elements. It's got a dog. It's got the band. But like a lot of similar elements of their past, like very successful ads, right?

But all those successful ads in the past where it had to do with the horses, this one with a donkey, which is great from years ago, and a lost puppy, all of those ones that focused on the animals, but also had the Clydesdales and all that, they also had humans in them. But the focus of the story was the animals, whoever the star animal was, their journey. And in this spot, I

think for me what doesn't work is it's from the humans perspective and the animals are just kind of like it feels a very paint by numbers like oh we got this check we got this check everyone's gonna get super emotional watching this and I know it's gonna work on me but I still don't like it I don't think

I don't think so. You're not going to sympathize with the delivery driver. I just don't think you are. I don't know, man. I'll cry at pretty much anything. Don't tell me what I can sympathize with. They also, so there was one with Ted Lasso. I hate Ted Lasso. Sorry. And I love Brett Goldstein. Such a hard take. I would date him, but I don't, I find Ted Lasso just like so dire. Okay. But Ted Lasso's in it with Lionel Messi and you're telling me it's bad.

No. Yes and no. Jason Sudeikis, star of Ted Lasso, is in this ad. You've got a giant beer brand, Michelob Ultra. You got the greatest soccer player on earth, Lionel Messi. You got Jason Sudeikis, who played arguably Yaz's opinion notwithstanding. One of the most popular shows of the last few years. One of the most popular shows, objectively. You're also just wrong. You're just wrong. You're wrong at this point.

this. He's in the ad. The show has ended. We're not getting any more Ted Lasso. Celebrate, guys. Has it officially ended? Yes. So why don't you tap into that? It's important to point out that Messi is like famously just...

an amazing soccer player the most boring advertising presence in the entire universe he looks like a guy you just like meet at a bar yeah which has always which is fine which is great totally fine totally fine i don't expect amazing athletes to be great at everything and be amazing actors or so this is why my my disappointment comes it's like you've got he says yes he's in your ad oh my god amazing

You've got a comedic genius in Jason Sudeikis right there. The characters in Ted Lasso, even if they weren't playing their characters, like Josh, since you do like the show, like Coach Beard standing at the bar with Jason Sudeikis, and they could be having a conversation around Messi, and it could be hilarious.

nothing it's just this very like mentos ad style oh messy all the beer tap broke oh what are they going to do while they change the keg messy uh dribbles through a whole beach full of soccer players and and then scores as soon as they're like hey your beer's ready like that's lame it's the mentos commercial of beer ads that's what i'll say that's so lame and is jason sudeikis playing his ted lasso persona or is he just there he's just standing there what are we doing

What are we doing? What are we doing here? I was just thinking of, not trends. This isn't really a trend because you need more than two, maybe. But the trailer for the Nerds ad with Addison Rae, it's like a flash dance. There's a...

No, not Flash Mob. But the movie Flash Dance. Do nerds come down in the dance moment? Honestly, Josh, I never thought of it. That's exactly what's going to happen, I bet. So the song, what a feeling, right? Yeah. It's in that trailer. Now go to T-Mobile, which honestly, I love scrubs. But Zach Braff and Donald Faison, last year with John Travolta, like weird musical T-Mobile ad. I thought that was one of the worst. Not good. They're back.

They're back with another... They just look so old compared to scrubs. Whenever you see them, it's like, oh, why are you two up to hijinks? They're not nice. They're suburban. Here's the question that I have, though. Does Scrubs still have the cultural cachet of...

to really pull this off. Like Ted Lasso. Yes. Cultural cache. Still does it. Missed opportunity. Does reunite like I, maybe they're older millennials. I guess so. I guess they're really hitting that sort of thing. Like I was selling TV cable basically. So yeah, that's true. I guess it does do a specific amount of thing of like, it really hits a certain type of elder millennial gen Xer who knows all the words to guy love. Uh,

from the musical episode. It's a very specific reference. Here's, I have no idea what you're talking about, but here's the thing. Sure, Jeff. Sure. So they, so they, they sing what if, well, an adapt, a T-Mobile product description to the tune of Irish.

Irene Cara. Yeah. What a feeling. That same song. They do a what a feeling. And Jason Momoa is like there. He basically replaces Travolta as the straight man, I guess, in there. Like they're singing to him about new cable service. It's to me, just get out of here.

Okay, let's talk about the good ones. Okay, yeah, let's switch gears. There are two things that I know about Super Bowl ads that I enjoyed. One is Ben Affleck's spot last year was funny. Made me like him so much more than I already did. He's back. I feel like it really changed perception of him overall, along with the J-Lo wedding. And I forgot what my second one was, so let's talk about the good ones. Great, cool. Great audio. Well, just a long pause. Okay.

and swore out. Just to touch on your point about Ben Affleck and Duncan. So that was Duncan's first ever Super Bowl ad last year. This week during the Grammys, a hilarious new ad, like really good. Like the persona he's taken on with these Duncan ads is like half Casey Affleck's character in that SNL Duncan commercial from a number of years ago, which is amazing if no one's seen it. And then Ben Affleck himself is

in the job interview scene in Good Will Hunting. Those are like his, that's like his character in this. And after seeing that Grammys ad, I would be absolutely shocked and disappointed if Duncan doesn't have an ad in the Super Bowl because it even ended with a to be continued. I don't know. But anyway, he's back with that. Worth checking out. I thought it couldn't get better than Armageddon, but he's back. The best...

The best Super Bowl ad so far for me is Paramount Plus, actually, which is funny because it's for sale. But it's directed by a guy named David Shane, who is a master of commercial comedy and short form comedy. I encourage anyone listening to just...

Google Swear Jar, which is an old Bud Light ad, or HBO Go back in the day. There was a campaign where it was like, because you don't want to watch these shows with your parents, basically. It was kind of like teenage and college-aged kids watching Game of Thrones with their parents. It's one of the funniest campaigns I've ever seen.

He did this spot with Patrick Stewart, Jeff Probst, Drew Barrymore, Pepper the Pig, and more, more people stuck on Paramount Mountain. And the way they need to get, they need to get a rope up on a cliff and...

They have Miami Dolphins quarterback, and I am absolutely going to just... Tua Tungabalowa. There you go. Thank you so much. He's there. And they have Arnold, the animated character who has a football-shaped head. Hey, Arnold. Yeah. So they're all looking around. They're like, how are we going to do this? And Patrick Stewart just absolutely nails this. And best line from an ad I've heard in a long time, Patrick Stewart with his gravitas and his accent just says, throw the child. We throw the child.

Awesome. It's really funny. It's like a classic. It doesn't it's not referencing the Super Bowl outside of having the QB there, but Tungvaluwa. Tungvaluwa. Having Tungvaluwa there is the only football reference in Arnold's head. But there's there's no meta stuff going on here. It is just a really funny, weird collection of celebrities and an odd sense of humor that I just it's it's one of my favorites.

So Paramount Plus, what are the other couple that we're missing? Well, I talked about earlier the Hellman's Mayo Cats. Great. Not only for being funny and in itself, but kind of unexpected from a mayo brand. And they weren't actually that funny last year, even though they had Jon Hamm and Brie Larson. But that's a funny one.

The award so far for most unexpectedly great Super Bowl ad is another first time brand to the Super Bowl, Kawasaki. They're trying to sell their side by side, which is like the off road kind of golf cart looking vehicles.

I don't know. Those are pretty awesome. I would drive a side by side in a moment. They're amazing. The dudes, these two normal kind of whatever dudes get in. And as soon as they turn the key, they grow like the most majestic mullets. And then everything they drive by, every animal they drive by in the ad, I forget what the song is, but every animal, everything they drive by, all of a sudden, just like the wind goes by when they drive by and the

they grow a mullet. So like, it's just like a mullet machine. And I think leaning into that just sort of fun redneck aspect of that culture is fun and kind of unexpected. What do you want from Kawasaki and the Super Bowl? I don't know. But this is a very self-aware branding. That's who I want. Fair enough. That sounds great.

Can I ask one question? Because I'm always fascinated by this and it always goes up every single year. How much does an ad cost this year? $7 million, about. About. $7 million for a 30-second ad, according to Adage. Yeah. That's almost as much money as Argyle made this past weekend when it came out. Boom! Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn!

We're going to take a quick break, followed by my interview with Fast Company senior staff writer Liz Segrant about those Stanley Cups that are everywhere.

So, Liz, you wrote about the kind of Stanley Cup craze. I have obviously, you know, as a person who's on social media, seen images of lines at Target. How did we get here? You know, Americans have loved water bottles for over a century. We have this very strange attachment to water bottles. If you think about it, you know, Stanley, the brand that's currently in the news, was founded in 1913. And

And then in the 1950s, brands like Nalgene came to the market. These brands marketed themselves as sustainable, everyday accessories. And that marketing did really, really well. I am curious, like in the 50s and 60s, were they already talking about sustainability? Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, Stanley and Nalgene both targeted campers and entrepreneurs.

Boy Scouts, and they were talking about how, you know, when people went out into the wilderness and went camping, there was this movement called Leave No Trace, which meant basically don't leave any remains, you know, when you go camping. And so these bottles really positioned themselves as a way to be part of the environmental movement that was already bubbling up at the time.

But the thing that really got the water bottle craze to the place that it is today is that 10 years ago, Swell hit the market, as you probably remember. Yeah, I had a Swell bottle. And the founder of Swell...

Sarah Kaus realized that until that point, bottles had really been sort of targeted at male consumers. They were very functional pieces of equipment that were for camping, for going to the gym. Nalgene has always come in pink, though. Totally.

The thing that drives me nuts about S'well is that they're impossible to fucking clean. You can't put them in your dishwasher. Totally. They have a small opening at the top. They also don't keep your drink cold, which is really annoying when you're camping in the summer. You can't put ice in it. Yeah. Yeah, it's really... But that said, when I was in college 20 years ago...

My college bookstore had an overpriced pink Nalgene with our college name on it. And I really, really wanted that bottle. Looking back, it was like purely like psychological, I think. It's like it was an accessory. It was an accessory that I could carry that suggested that I was eco-friendly and that

branded me as part of my college, right? So actually, the psychology of the bottle has never really been about, you know, a vessel that contains water. It's always been about other things.

Sarah Kaus realized that she could turn it through Swell into a fashion accessory. And so she came up with this idea of a beautiful bottle that came in all these feminine colors and designs. And she pitched it to women's magazines like Vogue and like, oh, Oprah's Magazine. And that's when...

it became very clear that women should be the target market for water bottles. Her brand exploded. In six years, she was making $100 million in revenue, and it kept growing after that. And so since Swell, I think every single water bottle brand has realized that the way to win is to target women, to create feminine colors, and to really be partnering with female influencers.

And actually, Stanley was very late to do this. Yeah, Hydro Flask was the VSCO girl beverage vessel of choice. Totally.

Totally. And other brands that have hit the market since, like Awala, which is my new bottle of choice, I have one right here, came up with these feminine colors from the get-go. But Stanley was not doing that. It basically took three women who were in Utah and California and launched a blog called The Buy Guide to basically compel them to start taking female consumers seriously.

And finally, when the brand realized that they were right, the brand exploded. I mean, it went from 73 million in revenue in 2019 to 750 million last year, which is just bananas. How did these like women bloggers in Utah persuade the brand?

It was fascinating. They really liked the product and they communicated that to their readers who loved it. And so they, over time, asked to reach out to executives at Stanley, mainly so that they could, you know, do a deal where they could get, you know, a certain amount of inventory that then they could sell.

But they were really trying to convince them that they needed to market to women. And it really sort of fell on deaf ears until Terrence Riley became the CEO three years ago. And he, if you recall, was the marketing genius behind Crocs. And so when Terrence Riley came on board, he was like, wait a second, why are we not doing exactly what you're saying? Why are we not reaching out to female influencers?

And so basically, as soon as he came on board and realized that these women had been trying to make this argument, he immediately said, yes, you're right. And that's when things really started taking off. Are you familiar with water talk on TikTok? Yeah, which is like basically like, how creatively can you drink, you know, 15 gallons of water every day? Yeah, I know. It's like water's fine, guys. I don't think this needed more innovation. It didn't need to be disrupted. Yeah.

Or sometimes you watch it and you're like, that's a lot of sugar. It's like soda at that point. Yeah, just drink a soda. But the thing that I have discovered through Water Talk is that Stanley has a lot of, let's say, gibbet-like accessories to go with it.

Right? Oh, I didn't know that. So yeah. So like Stanley now has like these trays that you can add on to your cup to put snacks inside of it. So you can kind of turn it into like, you know, your beverage and snack moment all in one. Actually, you know, that's kind of brilliant. Like I would maybe buy that. Yeah.

Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, to me, it felt like not enough room for snacks. I was like, the beverage to snack proportion is off. Well, but that's partly because the tumbler is so enormous, right? Yeah, that's what I mean. It takes over the whole thing.

But I do think the company has pursued an interesting strategy of not only acquiring new customers, but like building a lifestyle around it, if that makes sense. Yeah. And also doing what Crocs did, which is to drop new colors and new designs on the regular. And, you know, consumers have been like way into this. You know, there are all these women, water talk ladies, let's call them, who have every single color. And there's like, you know, dozens of them. Yeah.

It's like Beanie Babies, but it's a beverage thing. Well, and...

And my argument in my story is that over the last decade, we've learned about how terrible the fashion industry is and how polluting it is. And there's so much stuff on social media about how fast fashion is so bad. These bottles, on the other hand, have been marketed as eco-friendly. And since, you know, the Swell phenomenon, they've also been marketed as a fashion accessory. So I think that in some way, it's been a way for people to get that dopamine hit of, you know, a new product

without getting the overwhelming guilt of being responsible for killing the planet. So I think that that's been part of it when it's obvious that- You're buying something. Three bottles that's preventing you from consuming a lot of single-use plastic, that's a great thing. If you have 30 bottles,

I mean, you're like actively contributing to the problem, right? Because it takes so many more resources to make a really fancy stainless steel bottle than it does to make a single-use plastic bottle. So it's just, it's not an eco-friendly thing to be doing. Right. I suppose, although you could say like, I guess, if you bought 30 bottles, got bored of collecting Stanleys and used them for 30 years, you'd probably be okay. You know what I mean?

It's like a sort of like value over time situation. But yes, I see what you mean. I mean, it's not like a novel point to say like consumption is bad. It's like shopping at the Reformation when they're like, these jeans actually saved three liters of water. And you're like, literally how I'm still buying a pair of jeans.

But the other thing is that you are probably going to get bored of your Stanley Cup. But the thing is that there are all these other brands that are waiting in the wings, waiting to become the next Stanley. And so what you're going to do is you're going to get bored of your Stanley and then you're going to go buy an Ouala or...

one of 50 new brands that are on the market. This week, there was some news regarding Stanley and the fact that those bottles may or do contain lead. Yeah. Tell me about that. I mean, it's like social media giveth and social media taketh away, right? I mean, there's a mom on social media who is constantly looking at lead in all her different products.

Her son got lead poisoning as a baby, and it had very serious brain damage from that. And it's true, you know, lead in large quantities can cause a lot of serious damage in children and in adults. So this was, you know, her quest. And so when she looked at Stanley, the home test that she was doing revealed that there was lead in these cups. And so she, you know, started this movement on social media. And eventually Stanley had to respond.

Unfortunately, it is true that Stanley uses lead in its manufacturing process. It says that the lead is inside the bottle and the interior of the bottle and that there's a little pellet that basically sits at the bottom of the bottle. There's very little chance that a consumer would remove this pellet because it's covered in stainless steel and therefore have any exposure to the lead. But

the mom bloggers are saying, well, but you know, kids really do whack these things around. Like kids are very likely to do something that could potentially cause that to come out and the impact could be very serious. And so it's been enough of a PR crisis that some people are just throwing out their Stanleys. There are lots of moms who are very concerned about this now.

So it's possible that Stanley's moment is over. And what's interesting is that immediately after this happened, all the other brands came out. Like I got an email from Ouala saying, by the way, we've never had lead in our manufacturing process ever. The war is like heating up right now. Have we seen, I mean, it's probably too soon to say, but any estimates on how this could impact their sales? I'm not sure.

I think it's too soon to say. And there are also lots of people who are so committed to Stanley that they're sort of like fighting back and saying like, I don't care if there's lead in this. In fact, if you guys watched the SNL over the weekend, there were these three women, including Dakota Johnson, who are holding their enormous Stanley cups and talking about all the lead that they're drinking. And it's like not a big deal. So who knows what's going to happen?

But I think it just shows that the water bottle wars are here to stay. If it's not Stanley, it's going to be something else. And yeah, we're just wedded to our water bottles. Yeah, I mean, you wonder with a brand like Stanley if it's going to end up in a Peloton situation where, you know, there's overwhelming demand. They make enough supply to compete in that and continually assume like an upward trajectory for their sales. Yeah.

when that may not be the case. And then what happens to all the consumers that they had been targeting for a century before, right? The construction workers, the outdoorsmen, are they no longer attracted to Stanley because now all their bottles come in pink and are associated with an SNL skit?

And SNL skit or like trad wives. But I will say this. Last night, I stopped by my local Target in Brooklyn. And in advance of this conversation, I walked by the sort of cup section. There was like none of the feminine colors, but like

I literally saw a man pick up like a mud green Stanley and just put it in his bag. You know, like I think all this to say, I think if a dude took a black Stanley out of his bag on like some kind of bachelor party, no one would be like, yeah, it's, it's interesting. I mean, maybe they have enough brand equity and loyalty to outlast this, but,

Yeah, we'll have to wait and see what happens. I mean, growing tenfold in four years is a lot for a company. And so it'll be really interesting to see what happens. Because at some point, like regardless of the lead scandal, you know, brands viral moments will eventually come to an end. Fall in and out of favor, yeah. Right. And so I think the other lesson here for companies is like, what do you do when you have a moment of such incredible growth, right? How do you...

maintain it? How do you keep things going? And I think that's like an unsolved question. I don't know how Stanley maintains its dominance after this. 100%. I mean, it's something we try and solve in our newsroom, which was the pandemic was a terrible time personally for all of us. Amazing for our traffic. And it's obviously right-sized at this point. Right.

And I think, you know, we made the mistake of assuming we were always on an upward trajectory. It would be normal for Stanley to assume the same thing. They need to come up with a strategy, right, for thinking about the next chapter of what their growth is going to look like. And I'm looking forward to seeing what that is. I feel like with the Crocs guy in charge, they're actually in pretty good hands. Yeah, I think, you know, I like the idea of these accessories. I like the snack accessory. I wonder if you could have like little like gemstones that you can attach to them or

Or like even like little charms. You know how like kids now have charms all over their Crocs? Like I want a charm for my bottle. No, they have that. There are, this is not a joke. There are backpacks for the water bottles. Oh, so you buy a backpack that can fit your enormous Stanley water bottle. That's smart. It's like the bottle wears a backpack and maybe it has like your credit card in it or something. Oh, the bottle is so big that it itself wears the backpack. That's correct.

Okay. I was not expecting that, but yeah, I see the utility. I think this is a good place to end it. I'll be sending you a good housekeeping article about Stanley Cup accessories shortly. I don't actually own a Stanley Cup, so I might need to get one so that I can get the accessories. Thanks so much, Liz. Thanks. Bye.

We are back with Jeff and it's time to wrap up the show with Keeping Tabs. This is where each of us shares a story, trend or company we are following right now. And Jeff, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on? Thank you. Yes, I am keeping tabs on the Pop-Tarts movie. Have you heard of this? Have you seen this? It's like Jerry Seinfeld is involved.

Yes, Jerry Seinfeld. He's been talking about Pop-Tarts for years on late night show appearances and I think also in his stand-up. So he has written and directed a movie called Unfrosted, the Pop-Tarts story. I don't like that title. Hold on. Josh, just hold on. It takes place in 1963 and it chronicles the race between Kellogg's and Post's

to come up with a breakfast pastry. If that doesn't grab you, so far the cast is Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan of Super Trooper fame, Hugh Grant...

Christian Slater, Bill Burr, Daniel Levy, Sarah Cooper, Fred Armisen, and others. Look, I just think that I love Pop-Tarts, but I also know this, a movie about this sounds absolutely idiotic and absurd. But is it just idiotic and absurd enough to be amazing? Listen, we thought Bee Movie was going to be bad, but that was actually not a bad animated movie. Well, we're living in a time. Not a great one, but it wasn't.

I would say we're probably starting the golden age of corporate biopics. I mean, we've got, recently the last, let's say, handful of years, you got Air, speaking of Ben Affleck. You got Air about Nike. You got Flamin' Hot about Cheetos. You got Ferrari about Ferrari. Tetris, Blackberry, House of Gucci. There's a Beanie Babies show or something. The weird one, Uber. Yes, Starlink.

See? Theranos. The blood one. Theranos. And you know what, guys? I'm going to tie this into our previous conversation. Pringle's Super Bowl ad starring Chris Pratt actually makes a joke that, I mean, I assume fictional, but about a new biopic around how the chips happened called Mr. Pringle starring Chris Pratt. Damn, that would be cool if it wasn't starring Chris Pratt.

I hate this trend. I don't like this trend of big companies making movies about their brands. I actually really enjoyed Air and Tetris. I didn't see Tetris. I didn't see Tetris. Air was fine. The best thing about Air, frankly, about speaking of Ben Affleck's advertising persona, was him as Phil Knight. That was one of the best...

sort of parts of that movie. It's tough to bring up, well actually Ben Affleck's fine, but it's tough to bring up Matt Damon in a Super Bowl conversation because we all remember him from the crypto ads. Yeah.

Super Bowl crypto ads. RIP, guys. Yeah, no more crypto ads. I hope you got sued so bad. What was the tagline of that one? Be brave? Was it be brave? Yeah, it was like, be brave, lose your money. Come on, do it. Josh, what are you keeping tabs on? Oh, I'm keeping tabs on my main man, Joe Rogan, over here. Okay, so just everyone don't cut this. Your number two main man. My number two main man, behind Jeff, of course. No, behind George Stanton.

Besides George Santos. Yeah, that's my number one. No, that's the... George Santos. Yeah, that's definitely my number one. No, I hate Joe Rogan. I just want to put that out there. We're not a thing. I think he's an incredibly mid-comedian who's developed a career for the path of least resistance and has been rewarded by a number...

nine-figure contract with Spotify a number of years ago and just re-upped that contract with Spotify. And I don't want to get too into the whole implications and what it means for Spotify or in terms of just the kind of cultural conversation of it. I don't get why his podcast is the most listened to in the world. I never will, never will understand that, but it is what it is. What I'd

am more interested in is the fact that this deal, unlike the first one, is not exclusive to Spotify, meaning that Joe Rogan's podcast will be available on every podcast platform, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your shows, wherever else you can subscribe to most innovative companies. They did a similar type of deal when they re-upped, and I'm going to forget the host name, but the Call Her Daddy podcast. Alex Cooper. Alex Cooper, yes, that's correct. Um,

She re-upped her deal. No longer are those podcasts going to be exclusively available on Spotify, which is really an interesting trend.

in sort of reverse, I think part of the thing behind podcasts that made them so attractive that it was sort of a democratized form of media where it wasn't beholden, unlike TV, where if a show's on HBO or a show's on Netflix or a show's on pick which channel, and it's not like you can just turn on any channel and any channel can have any show that they want. It's kind of like that in podcasting. You don't have to

have exclusive rights and you can choose wherever you want to watch something in this case listen to something wherever you want to do it if you like an app and a ui better and it really makes more competition between these apps to make a better user experience and i think it's really good for the media overall well spotify didn't like that

And they really pushed hard to make an exclusive platform by buying up content like this, buying up content studios. But in the past year, obviously, we've talked about their layoffs over the past few years, and this is a big shift for them. It's like, where's the value, right? Like, where are they getting... Obviously, they had that previous deal with him that was exclusive. They have a sliding scale of exclusivity with pods like...

Armchair Expert. Last podcast on the left was there. Armchair Expert was in there. Smart List, which is now going to be available everywhere as well. Yeah, like where are they getting their value? Like I know Armchair Expert has certain episodes are just on Spotify, but like the main ones, the main big interviews are everywhere. Like what is...

They must have figured something out in a way that because they don't. I mean, no one hands out $250 million for and then. Sure. I think they're one. I think they're making a bet in the long term growth of the podcast market overall. I think that, well, the short term answer is subscribers driving subscribers to Spotify premium.

you get early access to these podcasts or exclusive access to early. Yeah. To listen to armchair expert. Yeah. That's pretty sad. So dark, but that's what I think they're discovering is not really driving as much because I think ultimately, obviously by making these shows less exclusive or using like a freemium model, maybe you drive some of theirs, but really, uh,

The money in podcasting is still with digital advertising, and it really hasn't come to the fruition in terms of the digital advertising market that it will eventually. Listenership is growing. They're trying to get a piece of that market and lock down what is like one of the highest growth markets in digital advertising right now. But the market cap is still only about $2 billion a year.

in podcasting. That's not a ton. It's going up a lot and a lot and a lot, and it'll continue to do that. So I guess they were buying in on that. But then you have a brand like Joe Rogan, who most regular advertisers don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole. I don't know how this is paying for itself with Joe Rogan, considering that market cap. Obviously he sells his growth supplement sort of things.

I don't know how much he does with live shows and what their piece of that is or merchandising and what their piece of that is. Clearly they've made a bet and they think it's paying off for them. But honestly, all the indicators that I've seen from Spotify in the past year doesn't seem like it is. We have,

said this several times on the podcast, so it may sound a little desperate at this point, but if you did want to acquire us for several millions of dollars, Spotify, we are open to conversations. That being said, we will be exclusive to Spotify for $250 million. For less. If you gave me a million dollars, I'd be exclusive to you.

I do virtually anything for a million dollars. Ten grand. Give me ten grand. Honestly, $4,500. Free subscription. Throw in a free subscription and you got a deal. $4,500 and some nerds. We're good to go.

Anyways, on that callback, Yaz, what's your keeping tabs? So I watched part of the Grammys last night, and I got to say, usually I don't really care about the Grammys. Ha!

They make no sense to me. Miley Cyrus's veneers are like really upsetting. Veneers in general are just, I don't know what's happening. We've talked about this on the podcast. We've talked about this on the podcast. She has horse mouth going on. Those veneers are humongous. What about her whole Tina Turner vibe though last night? That was cool. Yeah. I was into this. I was into the fit. I like the Bob Mackie gowns.

I really enjoyed the hair. The Thunderdome hair. The Thunderdome hair was cool. Honestly, but no one will ever do it better than Bob Mackie. No, no, my wedding, my wedding dress, Bob Mackie. Was it really? That's incredible. Wow. I got it for $300 at an estate sale. That's so it was a dead person. It's a dead person. Okay. We didn't need to go there anyway. It's a cooler. Good.

Back to the Grammys. Super normal. No, it was just nice to see Tracy Chapman on stage. Oh, that was awesome. It's like I just forgot how amazing that song is and how talented she is. And it was just a really cool surprise. Now, it was weird to see Stevie Wonder sing The Best Is Yet To Come during an In Memoriam segment. That was confusing. Oh, no. Yeah.

And it's crazy how Taylor Swift, and I say this as somebody who actually likes Taylor, manages to make even the most haute couture gown look like a prom dress on any red carpet. But excited for her new album. Swifties don't come for me. Yeah, this is kind of, I'm scared for us now, honestly. I'm not going to let my nine-year-old daughter listen to this. She's going to get mad at you. Is she excited for the Super Bowl now? No.

My daughter? Oh, yeah, yeah. She's interested. She was watching the playoff game with me to see if she – well, I mean, I say watch. I mean, sit next to me and look at the iPad. But she's definitely interested. It definitely is an element. But she definitely watched the recorded Grammys this morning and definitely came and made sure to tell me that there was a new album coming. So I imagine that she will be watching the Super Bowl to catch a glimpse of –

of cheerleading Taylor in the suite. We got to do a speed round real quick. Who's going to win the Super Bowl? Josh. I'm going Chiefs. God.

Well, I mean, look, if we go by the secret meetings in the Pentagon, it's got to be cheap, right? Which I am going by. That's what I was going to end on. We all, we know. Oh, we know. We know. Brought to you by State Farm, everybody. Brought to you by State Farm. And that's it for Most Innovative Companies. Jeff, thank you for joining us. Thank you.

Our show is produced by Avery Miles, Blake Odom, and Julia Xu. Mix and sound design by Nicholas Torres. And our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate, and review. And we'll see you next week.