BALL IS LIFE

27:44Yeah, I like it. I love it. I wish I had some free nuggets. I'm hungry. I'm very hungry. Yeah, I've been on the fitness kick, so I would kill for fried chicken of any sort, really. But it was really awesome to see Boban. Yeah, he missed one. Yeah, he intentionally missed. He missed a free throw, and then the crowd was getting really hype about it. He's on the Houston Rockets, and they weren't playing for shit at the end of the year. Wow. When they were in L.A., the crowd was going nuts after he missed the first one. And he just like, he like, he hyped him up a little bit. And then like, I'm going to miss this for, I'm going to miss this.

28:22He said, I'm going to miss this one. He's like, I got you guys. Okay. And then he'd like just bricks it. And okay. Let me watch the whole arena. Whole arena goes crazy. He did it purposely. Yeah. He's the man of the people. Yeah. That's a cool move to do. Yeah. Oh, he does. He acknowledges. He's like, I got this guys. I know that if I missed a shot, I'm going to, I'm going to get everyone free chicken. Yeah. Okay. Well, listen, I don't think anyone's going to do that in the playoffs or in a meaningful game. Oh, definitely not. But he purposely missed, and he got everybody free chicken. So that rules.

28:54We didn't talk about this, but Subway, our favorite brand, they have a new promotion. Famously, they have the$5 footlong. Oh, we did miss this. What the hell? And now they have the$6 six-inch sub. Trash. Which does not have the same ring to it. Trash. And Kevin, this is talk about Joe Biden's America. We're not talking about - Snackflation. Yeah, snackflation. So$5 used to get you a foot long. So$5 get you 12 inches. And now$6, which is more than$5, gets you six inches. Sad. A dollar per inch for a subway sub? Oof. I don't like that math. That's trash. That math ain't mathin'. Paying New York City prices for fucking trash subs?

29:40Come on. Yeah, that's not great. I thought it was at first I was like, oh,$6 footlongs. I was like, okay, inflation, economy, things change. It doesn't have the same ring to it, but$6 for a footlong, sure, that's still a good deal. $6 for a six-inch sub. Anyone who's ever eaten a six-inch Subway sub is like, that's just not enough. Have you ever gone to Subway and gotten a six-inch Subway? Never in my life have I ever. Maybe I've split a footlong with somebody or had a footlong. and then saved a little bit later. No, I mean, you don't get like six inches at Subway. Well, surely the price markup has everything to do with them using better quality ingredients and slicing the meat while slicing the meat fresh to order.

30:28Yeah, no, this is... It's got to be way better. This is bad. This is not good. Subway, like, you know, the$6, six inch... And the thing about it is they have a billboard or some sort of poster that went viral that just said six inches, six bucks. You can't do that. Even if that's the price of it, you can't make it into a promo. You're famous for having the$5 footlong. I don't know. You should have known better. Well, they're also famous for having Jared. Yeah. They'll do anything to try to change that narrative, which, sure. But like, ah, man. Just sweep it under the rug. $5 footlong never happened.

31:07Jared never happened. No, I mean, they should try to do a better deal. They should have some sort of$4 foot long is how you change it. Moving on from Jared. Jared is of the past$4 for a foot long. But that would be a tough deal. That would be tough on their economics. Yeah, they got to make a profit. They got to maximize shareholder value. Yeah, speaking of, that's why the Dye Line is going to a subscription model. Did you see that? Yeah. Time to pay up. Pay up. Yeah, the Dye Line, it's over for you broke boys. and I love to do package design. I know. We got to get a team account. Oh, you think you like package design?

31:43Do you like it enough to pay$3 a month? Let's see. You know, it's good. You should be paying for good journalism. Absolutely. You know you got that. Listen, our listeners, they got that kind of money. They'll support the arts and they'll support. And our listeners, they want the leading global package design community and showcase of package design inspiration. They need that. They need that. And they need the industry news, the sustainable packaging news, and design trends. They need that. And to be honest, I think they've been doing you a favor for decades, for giving it to you for free. So what's the least you could do to give the amazing team over at the Dile Line a couple dollars for their service?

32:23A couple bucks. We've been talking about this since we started the pod. The Dile Line is not just a place for just getting design news anymore. They have think pieces. Yeah, you can get real news. You get real news over there and you can get real good takes as well. It's not just like, here's the news. Do with it what you want. They have opinions. And that's the kind of stuff we salute over here. So shout out to Dyneline, good people over there. Oh, yeah. And sign up for their subscription model. And it's worth it. Yeah. It's worth it, honestly. And I think, listen, if there are things that you want to support, I always say this.

32:59Podcasts I listen to, I don't have a problem giving them five bucks a month. you know they they've given me so much free content yeah and it's like i enjoy that so i may as well give you a couple bucks that's just a good way of saying thank you slice of pie yeah just give a little bit uh kevin the uh the better bagel catching a lot of heat yeah so a long time listeners of the pod will know that we covered the better bagel three years ago 2021 2021 early days of pod one of the first video things we ever did that never came out. Yeah, well, who could forget? The Better Bagel, for those that aren't familiar, is a concept and a D2C brand that is making better bagels.

33:44They're packaged in sort of an quote-unquote apple, very techie, very minimalist package design that we loved and won a bunch of awards, if I can remember correctly. And we were excited about it, Obviously, as a bagelsman, someone who grew up on bagels, I was a bit dubious and a little concerned maybe about the taste. Rightfully so. But I was curious because a better bagel with less carbs and less calories, that would be the Holy Grail if they could figure that out. And we ordered it. And if I recall correctly, first order was Maldi. So not a great start. and then the second order, because we told them and they immediately sent us the second.

34:32The second was not moldy and we tried it. I think we tried it on the pot. We toasted it and we put cream cheese on it. We added some schmear. Yeah, we gave it the real test. And I personally did not enjoy it. I felt like it was doing a bagel a disservice. If I recall, I believe my take was just eat a bagel. If you want a bagel, have a bagel. Have half a bagel. Or like, yeah, don't eat three bagels like I do. Like have one bagel. But it isn't a bagel substitute, in my opinion. It's a sort of different type of thing. Since then, the brand has expanded to buns, pretzel buns, and other pieces of product.

35:14Lots of other better breads. Other better breads. And I think they've done well. We've always liked their taglines, consider the grain changed. Yeah, they have a good brand. They have a good brand. They got some good creative work going. Yep, and I will say this also. At that time, I probably wasn't the fitness guru that I am right now. So the amount of protein in these products really didn't mean much to me. But today, I'm all about my proteins. I'm trying to get those proteins up. Well, they got mad fiber too. Yeah. They made me fart like crazy. Yeah, they had a ton of fiber. That was a big thing.

35:52Another thing, though, that I think I'm trying to get my fiber up. Yeah, that's good. Trying to get the fiber up, trying to get those proteins up. Sounds like you need to try this. So it sounds like, in theory, I need this. But they went viral this week, and not for the good reasons. Someone took a photo of the Better Bun, and it was what I would describe as it looked like it had transformed into fried chicken because it was so brown and squished and sort of crackly. It kind of looked like it had been vacuum-sealed, flash-frozen, so every little wrinkle was frozen in, and yeah, it did look like fried chicken.

36:37Yeah, and it had a little bit of mold, a little bit of white kind of dusting over the top. That's what it looks like. Maybe that's just flour, but I don't know. And yeah, it doesn't make me scream. I want to go and try the better bun. Yeah. And I do love a pretzel bun. This isn't a pretzel bun. This, the, the, the, the biggest problem that they have is that the photo, which is on the front of the packaging, the creative's too good. Yeah. I mean, this is what you get though. Misleading sort of customers in a way, like you have a photo of your product on the front and then you have the reality on the inside.

37:11Yeah. And if those two things don't align, you're asking for trouble. Yes, you really are. And that's what happened here. Because it's very easy to see a photo of what they're saying marketing-wise and what is reality. And that's always a recipe for a resistor. Would it go over better if they didn't have the photo on the front? Probably. I mean, I think this would have been disgusting and terrible. But I don't know. Like, someone would have had to Photoshop, like, a picture of what it was supposed to be from the website and then the picture of what it was. Yeah. And it still could have gotten, you know, some attention.

37:42I'm curious, though. Like, I would like to see it defrosted. Oh, you're saying if someone took this... Well, like I said, I think it appears like it was kind of flash-frozen and vacuum-sealed at the same time, maybe. So does it spring back up when it's defrosted? Does it appear to be bread and not fried chicken when it thaws out? I don't know. Yeah, maybe. I need to see all the facts here. I think the idea of a delivery direct-to-consumer bread company is tricky. I don't even think it has anything to do with the carbs or the betterness of the bagel. It's just sending bread in the mail is just not an easy thing to do.

38:25I just think bread in any scenario lasts for like 10 minutes. So I don't know. I think that concept of this brand is a tough one. And I will say there's another brand that I saw in a grocery store called Royo and similar concept. Is it yogurt bread? No, it's the same thing, like high protein, low calorie sort of bread. Okay. And it's got some similar macros. I don't know what a macro is, but the packaging is a little less apple and a little bit more like fun and playful and doesn't have a picture of what the product is on the front. Well, that's probably for the best. And it might do a little better.

39:08But again, I don't know. We'll see. I think the Better Bagel has a lot of funding behind it. I think also with some of the beef that people are having with how much funding companies get. And if you raise$100 million, people should be getting products that work. But I mean, that's, I don't know. I don't want to take their side. But just because they raised money doesn't mean they're not going to have quality issues on their products. Yeah, for sure. There's another big story. I don't know if you saw this. There's a – you know that AI pin that sort of looks like a box? It's like a square thing that you can wear on your body?

39:49No. So long story short, there's a brand that's been working on this pin, and it's sort of a tech device. And it sort of sits on your shoulder, and you can ask it questions, and you can kind of get directions. and it can be like a Siri, but on your body. Because everyone loves Siri. It's like Neuralink, but not in your brain. Yeah. What's that movie? Her. Her, yeah. So it's kind of like that, but it's not in your ear. It's on your body. And so it raised an ungodly amount of money from tech Silicon Valley people. And Marquise Brown, do you know who that guy is? So he's a YouTuber who does product reviews.

40:28Very, very popular. and he did the sort of Apple Vision Pro one. Okay, yeah, I know this guy. And he got like 20 million views or whatever on that video. So he's become kind of like the main video tech guy. And so he trashed the AI pin and he said the worst product I've ever reviewed and like kind of a little bit of clickbait. And so there was a lot of conversation online as it got some of the Silicon Valley tech guys mad that he kind of was killing the product and had such a big sort of viewership that is that necessarily fair for a product that hasn't even really come out yet and it's sort of still in beta and you know kind of like for them to you know for marquise to kind of put it in the ground and bury it and sort of you know sort of make it go viral for how terrible it is it's kind of yeah it's a little it's tricky but also the guy reviews products what's he supposed to do lie and say it's the best thing on the planet earth yeah there's a catch-22 yeah but it is a little interesting because i could you know i understand if you invest you know millions of dollars into a product and then some guy goes online and says it's the worst product he's ever reviewed it's it's not a great it's not great for your business yeah well it's i think with the better bagel they've had an ample time uh i don't want to like trash them completely um because i'm sure you know like it's for a certain type of person yeah you know rich health nut who's watching carbs and they want that so that's good that's cool for them but um yeah i don't i feel pretty neutral just seeing them get the uh smoke that they're getting because yeah they've been kind of doing this for a minute so yeah no they should have gotten this right and they're sort of expanding to other products but i mean uh they're gonna have quality issues like all companies do there are there are going to be products that get sent back yeah but you know on the internet it's you know you have one mess up and it's bad fanatics what are they that mess up three jerseys you know i don't like one mess up yeah one mess up you know sweep it under the rug but you know no i know i think this is consistent i think this is a bigger problem yeah consistent mess ups and do better i guess that's better uh uh note for me to do better uh his name is marquise brown lee not marquise brown so yeah check him out on on youtube 18.7 million subscribers and uh yeah he he put out a video do bad reviews kill companies so yeah this is a bit of an interesting situation is the is the thumbnail fire i kind of want to watch it not clickbait yeah the worst product i've ever reviewed he changed it i think maybe dot dot dot for now so he updated it it's 25 minutes and has 6.7 million interviews.

43:16So yeah, I mean, it does bring up a good question. YouTube video reviewers, I don't think, I think free speech, Kevin, is really important. And you should be able to give a review if you think something's trash. That's a hot take. I do think there's a little bit of sensationalism because if he says it's not good, it's not ready for market, that's probably not going to get as many clicks as the worst product I've ever reviewed ever it's terrible kill the company so yeah that's uh you know that's i i see i see uh we live in a society we do live in a society speaking of uh kevin one of my favorite videos i saw on tic tac this weekend was a talking head guy by the name of nick jackson and he was doing one of this the uh green screen videos about a story that had the food and drug administration was alerting customers to an unfortunate mix-up for zero sugar ginger ale Schweppes.

44:16And so they had done a sort of internal investigation, and they had found that the cans of ginger ale that were labeled zero sugar, in fact, contained full sugar product. Can you believe this? That's tough. I mean, that's just a whoopsies. Yeah. Let's just sweep that mistake under the rug. Whoopsies. Sorry, diabetics and people that are trying to avoid sugar. I mean, the diabetics aspect of this is pretty tough. Yeah. That's not good. I remember there was a big issue at Coke when they put out sort of the Christmas Coca-Cola Polar Bear limited edition cans. They were all white, and they looked awesome, but they were full-flavored Coca-Cola.

44:59They looked like Diet Coke. And they looked like Diet Coke. Do you see? and people could not read and did not read and there was a big issue and they had to recall them and they had to sort of immediately change it so yeah no i mean when you're talking about sugar specifically you have to get it right and so this guy on tiktok uh did one of the videos and he said he called the brand shiway pp's shiway pp's um the best part is that i don't know how to pronounce his brand, SheWeiPeePee's. So he was aware that he didn't know how to pronounce it. I mean, listen, we've been there before, but SheWeiPeePee's is so far from Schweppes that...

45:43I mean, this is an inside job. You think this is... Oh my God, you think this is viral marketing? It's such a... Donald Glover's behind this? It's for him. It's for him. It's like clickbait. It's a different type of... You think he purposely called it SheWeiPeePee's? Yeah, 100%. wow i don't think anyone's that uh incompetent watch this clip it is laugh out loud funny uh she way peepees hold on i think i i lol and i still think it's funny sorry sorry okay ready for the clip here we go yeah sugar free she we peepees yeah i mean people get a kick out of hearing other people mispronounce words. It's comedy.

46:33It's a good trope. If they were smart, they should put out an ad that said She Way Pee Pee Pee's. Get some good PR after. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They should turn this into something positive for them. Because when was the last time anyone talked about She Way Pee Pee's before? Yeah. Not a ton. Not me. I've never talked about She Way Pee Pee's at all. Not me. But it does make me question whether this is real or not. Yeah, I think that goes across everything. It's like what's real, what's not. The rap beef. Everything's real. What's AI, what's not. The biggest disappointment, Kevin, is that those Deadpool Wolverine popcorn sort of cups, those are fake.

47:13Yeah. Ah, man. I really want them to be real. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't put – I'm not going to put it past Ryan Reynolds to, you know. Yeah, to make them. To either be behind like a fake release of a fuckable popcorn bucket. If you didn't see – Yeah, who knew? Who knew that 2024 would be the year of fuckable popcorns? Yeah. I agree. This is what marketing is. So if you haven't seen it, obviously Dune 2 had a fuckable popcorn bucket that was so viral that it was on Jamie Kimmel and it became this huge thing. So I actually – I believe I predicted this, that people were going to make other popcorn buckets that were sort of bizarre or maybe had innuendo.

47:50So when I saw the Marvel ones where the hole was just a giant mouth, I was like, this is exactly what I predicted. So I'm very sad to see that this is AI. Well, there's still time. I think the movie comes out in July. I can't wait. They should be doing production on these things right now. Yeah. Fuck Ryan Reynolds. He's behind this? I can't support them. Maybe. It's unconfirmed. Yeah. So last story of the day, Kevin, a new day, a new water brand that looks like beer. This time it's called Not Beer. And it is a zero carb, zero alcohol, zero taste beer. And it looks like beer. And it's getting a lot of love on the internet.

48:40And it is craft liquid death. That's what it is. It is exactly the same idea, just taking one style of beer for liquid death and then doing a different style of beer for not beer. Yeah. And I do not like this, and I'll tell you why. I think the idea of a craft liquid death is lazy, but to call it not beer is even lazier. I think if you had done this craft aesthetic for a water brand that was meant to sort of take the aesthetics of another category like beer, first and foremost, it was already done and everyone knows it. But there's room for number two. Just don't call it not beer. It's like it's obvious it looks like beer.

49:34You don't need to make it so obvious that it says not beer on it. It's not beer, dude. But I know that. I know that it looks like beer, but it's not beer. I know, but Liquid Death already did that, so you don't need to tell people it again. Well, they're just doing it. They're just overdoing it. They're doing it ironic style. But it doesn't feel ironic. It feels earnest. The website and the branding and everything, it just feels, I don't know. It just feels like a copycat is what it feels like. It feels way close. And you can tell that they got some creative behind it. You know, they got some copy that sounds like I might have written.

50:17Yeah. Yeah. They've got a rotating can on the website. You know, that's a nice trick. We love that. Is it from Anheuser-Busch? I believe it is. Is it really? I think so. So I don't know. It just feels like it just feels lazy to me. It just feels like it's been done. And I feel like you're just kind of trying to just kind of make the same thing, but just slightly different. I will say there was someone on Twitter, I don't know whose name it is, but talked about the trend of what he labeled chaos packaging. I saw that. And I love that idea. And basically the idea is simply like putting products in different types of package structures or using identity systems from other categories.

51:04You know, putting water in a cardboard box or putting olive oil in a paint can. I think this has become a trend because, yeah, we're talking about trying to stand out from categories and differentiate. And I think that is a really cool idea. It's something that I've been talking about actually here in the studio for a while. It's like using codes from different sort of, yeah, different industries, different categories to, yeah, stand out from a category when everyone does the same thing. Sounds, you know, like. Got to stand out. Simulate liquid death. Like a lot of the brands that we work with do that.

51:38So much noise. So. I just feel like this was too, I don't know, it just feels too obvious. It just feels like a little, it feels like a Me Too and it feels like a Glick With Death copycat. I will say it's well executed in its design. I think it will probably work. It looks solid. The initial reaction I saw from the internet looked positive. Really? Yeah, it looked like people were into it. Was it older millennials? Probably. I feel like older millennials are going to love this shit. Yeah. I don't know. Not to no shade at them. Every article that I'm reading here is like new sparkling water brand.

52:15It is sparkling, so maybe that's something to know, but Liquid Death is sparkling. New sparkling water brand, not beer, wants to capitalize on Liquid Death's popularity. That's the story. That's literally the headline. That's how I feel. It feels like they're trying to just steal some of the sauce. Yeah, freaking capitalism, bro. Yeah, and they changed it. But they did it well that I think it will work, but it just makes me a little sad that they stooped to that low and that they're doing that. So before we end the show, we should give a shout out to our favorite chef, David Chang. Good guy. Good guy.

52:57Wasn't a good guy two weeks ago, but he backed down and now he's a good guy. He was at the center of a very viral, very heated PR dispute over the word chili crunch. And we talked about it on the show, so we just want to follow up here and say, way to go, David. Yeah. You did it. He did the right thing. He withdrew his cease and desist and will no longer be a trademark bully. That's, you know. Oh, not for this. No, not now. Maybe for other ventures. So he also, I'm reading, had a 20-minute special episode of his podcast where he was joined by the company CEO to discuss the whole Chili Crunch debacle.

53:42So good on you, David. Yeah, transparency. Way to go. Transparency. Vindicated. Shout out to the internet for bullying him into doing the right thing. Sometimes the internet works in positive ways. That's true. Shout out to the internet. And, yeah, that's the show. we have guests next week. Yeah. We'll talk about Zuck next week too. Yeah. We didn't forget about Zuck. We didn't forget about how hot Zuck's looking online and, you know, just, just how damn sexy he is now. So we will, we'll, we'll tackle that next week with our guests who are in the tech biz. So we will look forward to that. Tech boys.

54:18Tech boys. Next week. Peace.

54:24Yeah.

54:39Opportunity be knocking Let a motherfucker in Opportunity be knocking Ain't gotta let a motherfucker in I kiss my mother on the cheek Tell her that I love her You ain't gotta worry about her ting I got it covered Why you think I'm out here acting crazy Why you think I'm out here, I get crazy Why you think I'm out here, I get crazy Ma, you know I'm still your little baby All my life I was a fuck up, now I pull the truck up Same bitch stuck up, now she wanna suck us See me hanging out the window screaming what, what No more tough luck, a different club is what I'm cut from Baby, oh my lord, the cops chasing Bryson in the all white Ford Shit, I'm on that all night tour Bitch, I'm alright, but I'm off that roar I'm in the road, dancing sauce on the top floor You would swear I'm Puerto Rican, but I'm not, Lord Hot hoes, every city that we go sinkin' Headside, killin' what they know All I do is eat oysters And speak six languages in three voices It's Adriatic Summers on the sailboat Don't even try to call, I'm not available for nothin' Unless it's stupid paper, how about the Studebaker?

55:57With Anita Baker

56:02Opportunity be knocking Ain't gotta let a motherfucker in I kiss my mother on the cheek Tell her that I love her You ain't gotta worry about her, I think I got it covered Why you think I'm out here, I get crazy? Why you think I'm out here, I get crazy? Why you think I'm out here, I get crazy? Ma, you know I'm still your little baby I feel so alive, I think I shit myself I should kiss myself I'm staring at the man inside the mirror The reflection shows a wolf though Goddamn, I'm still cute, ho All my women play the flute Sir me play some melanin pursuit Left-handed, make the fender cry Count money with a rarest smile in devil's eye Half Cherokee and Gemini Motherfuckers are dumb Pete from Jump Street And turn your chest plate to lunch meat I'm in a Humvee, looking like a young me Now these motherfuckers all wanna be chubby I switched the season, now their hands curl Tanned skin, I need a bad girl Cause James Brown said it's a man's world In a trans-amp twirl The burner handle made a pearl That's just daddy's little girl

57:20Opportunity be knocking You gotta let a motherfucker in I kiss my mother on the cheek Tell her that I love her You ain't gotta worry about her ting I got it covered Why you think I'm out here acting crazy Why you think I'm out here acting crazy Why you think I'm out here acting crazy Ma, you know I'm still your little baby Let that opportunity be knocking Let that motherfucker in Let that bitch in Let that opportunity be knocking Let's click.