How O.J. Simpson Changed Media & The $25B Lunchables Market

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0:27Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howe. Today, how OJ Simpson changed the American media landscape forever. Then students, you may have stacked your last wet disc of ham on artificial cheese because Lunchables are facing some heat for being super unhealthy. It's Friday, April 12th. Let's ride.

0:52This is a special day for Morning Brew Daily because it's episode number 300. So let me just get this out of my system. this is morning brew daily that was my smart impression i'm scared already what an epic uh what an epic movie and thanks so much to everyone listening for for joining us for 300 episodes or however many of those uh those you listen to we really really really appreciate it this is so fun to do every morning and we hope for the next uh 300 episodes you'll stick with us stick with us for sure there's no more movies named after future episode numbers so that was the last movie impression you're going to get out of me.

1:30So I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted. Now let's hear from our friends over at Robinhood Crypto. Crypto is back in the spotlight again, Neil, and I have a feeling you all listening at home may have some mixed feelings. If you're a long time enthusiast, you're probably telling all your friends, I told you so. But even if you're newer to the game, Robinhood Crypto can help you get your feet wet. Robinhood Crypto lets you trade crypto commission free, which is nice. But what stands out to me is that they also don't lend or leverage against your crypto so you can feel secure that your crypto is your crypto.

2:02If you're looking for an intuitive crypto platform with no commission fees, give Robinhood crypto a try. Check it all out and learn more about the free Robinhood app in the App Store or Google Play Store. Big disclosure incoming, so rate my performance on a scale of 1 to 10, Neil. Cryptocurrency services are offered through an account with Robinhood Crypto LLC, NMLS ID 1702840. Robinhood Crypto is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Cryptocurrency held through Robinhood Crypto is not FDIC insured or SIPC protected. Toby, that was Simone Biles level.

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3:16That is what you kept hearing yesterday from people who lived through the all-encompassing O.J. Simpson saga in the 90s, the 16th month stretch from when he was accused of murdering his ex-wife and her friend to his acquittal for those crimes in the so-called trial of the century. O.J. died yesterday at age 76 from cancer, sparking conversation about his role in revolutionizing American media. One thing that's true is nobody had a tighter grip on America as O.J., and in our current fragmented culture, nothing will ever again. 57 % of the country, more than 150 million viewers, watched the verdict being read after his trial in October 1995.

3:54That's far more people than have watched any Super Bowl. And the year before that, 95 million people stopped what they were doing to watch his low-speed car chase when he fled police in a white Ford Bronco. In the American media landscape, everything changed after OJ. The attention he commanded empowered 24-7 news coverage by CNN and other cable networks. His case also showed the narrative power of true crime stories that oftentimes real life mysteries were more compelling than the ones you script. And also he laid the foundation for the celebrity fueled reality TV age we live in. Now you can draw a direct line between OJ and the Kardashians.

4:31Toby thoughts on OJ, a guy so famous. You don't even need to say his last name. OJ was a guy who lived a lot of lives. He first wrote to stardom in college at USC where he won the Heisman. He was the first running back to break the 2 ,000-yard rushing mark in the NFL. He was also this intensely marketable character and kind of remade the marketing industry when it comes to spokespeople. Hertz made him the first black man hired for a corporate national ad campaign back in 1975. And that Hertz deal was an absolute game changer, not only for OJ, but for Hertz itself. They said that their brand recall jumps more than 40 % after this famous ad of him running through the airport with people cheering him on started to go live.

5:12And in the first calendar year after he began appearing in Hertz ad, the company's net profits jumped 50 percent. So this was one of the first really industry leading marketing campaigns that really moved the needle for a company. It does feel like, I mean, I guess in this day and age, the State Farm commercials with all of the NFL QBs. But using an athlete as an endorser was was definitely a pioneering move at the time. I want to talk about what this meant for cable TV and television more broadly. CNN at the time of this happening was 14 years old. It wasn't appointment viewing. It was kind of niche in the overall landscape.

5:50Fox News and MSNBC had not even debuted on cable yet. That was two years before that happened. But what happened on CNN in those days in 1994 and 1995, when Americans literally stopped what they were doing, I heard stories of people at the New York Stock Exchange stopping looking at their trading, whatever they were trading, to watch the verdict happen. Kids in school would not learn and the teachers would wheel in TV so everyone could watch the verdict. Nothing like that may have happened again, may ever happen again. But it did show the power of reality, true crime, celebrity-fueled chaos to that this is an extreme media and TV power.

6:31Yeah, I mean, it is insane that we were freaking out about Caitlin Clark drawing 18 million viewers, which was very impressive. But 150 million people tuned in to watch this verdict. And according to this survey from Nielsen and Sony, that trial was viewed as the third most, quote, universally impactful televised event of the last 50 years behind only September 11th and Hurricane Katrina. So it really just puts it into perspective. It's hard for me, a youthful Gen Zer, to really wrap my mind about how big OJ was. But all you have to do is look at the docuseries that have come and still resonated with people.

7:04That fascination with OJ never went away. In 2016, there was the FX miniseries. There's this five-part ESPN documentary. So the world has not moved on for OJ, even though OJ has moved on from the world. And in terms of celebrity culture, the Kardashians, you can draw a direct through line from what happened with OJ to the keeping up with the Kardashians and the Kardashian business empire. It all started when Robert Kardashian, who was friends with OJ Simpson, was on his defense team. And also Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian empire, was friends with his ex-wife. There's a company called Humane you may have heard us talk about before that makes a piece of AI-powered hardware called the AI Pin.

7:45Humane was founded by two former Apple engineers. It secured$240 million from the likes of Sam Altman, Microsoft, and Salesforce. And its flagship product, the AI Pin, made its debut this week. and early reviews for the device that retails for$700 plus a$24 a month subscription fee were less than stellar. This device was created for a post-smartphone world. It's about the size of two AA batteries and you clip it onto your shirt like a lapel pin. Instead of a screen, it projects information onto your hand via green lasers, comes with a camera, speaker, and cellular connection, and it runs on the latest version of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

8:22But out in the wild, reviewers are dragging the first generation tech. And your Times reviewer asked it what the square root of 49 is. And it answered back 49. The Verge called it thoroughly unfinished and so totally broken in so many unacceptable ways. And Engadget said it was worse than a Nokia E7 from 2012. But Humane has fired back saying that this is very much a version one and that lots of improvements are soon to come. Neil, I want to keep an open mind here, but early reviews were just really not great. Right. I mean, it doesn't seem like this thing really works or does all the things it says it does.

8:57But I'm holding out hope. I want to, you know, I am optimistic about this. And not necessarily this gadget, but the concept of a device that uses AI to free us from the shackles of our screen time. That's really the goal of this. And it does some things pretty admirably. And reviewers did like the fact that you could do stuff and jot down information and learn information without looking at a screen. And you had your hands open as well to, you know, carry groceries or whatever, whether it's write something on a grocery list or add something to your to-do list while packing. So I love the concept of this.

9:32This one may not be ready for primetime. And it's part of this growing wave of companies that are releasing tech before they're ready to be released with. And they just say, oh, don't worry about it. we'll uh we'll upgrade it it'll be in the next it'll be in v2 we saw this with fisker and the terrible uh review it got and it just said hey we'll we'll update it don't worry this is not ready but it is curious that they're releasing it especially with a 700 price tag and a 24 a month subscription i'm not sure how many people are going to buy this version of it right part of the issue is when you release a piece of tech that costs that much money and then a lot of people it enters review culture these days because we have spoken about Fisker and how much impact these reviewers.

10:15We've talked about Marquez Brownlee. He's this very influential YouTuber. His review is dropping tomorrow. A lot of people kind of looked at him. So there is definitely a risk with putting out an unfinished product into the wild because it just got universally dragged yesterday. The issue I think that a lot of reviewers found was that it just doesn't work about half the time. Half the time you want it to do something, it will just pause for 10 seconds and then say error message or something like that. So when you want something to replace your phone, on the surface sounds great to just ask it like, hey, how many calories are in this bagel?

10:47Or hey, show me the reviews of this restaurant by taking a picture of it. All these sound great, but if it doesn't work, then of course you're not gonna pay$700 for it. No. There's a food fight going down in the school cafeteria. Consumer reports urge the government to remove Lunchables from its school lunch program after analysis found high amounts of sodium and elevated levels of heavy metals in the product. Those should stay in the band room. The advocacy group said these meals aren't healthy for children and should be swapped out for healthier options. A question probably popped into your head.

11:19Schools are offering Lunchables? Yes, as of last year, Lunchables owner Kraft Heinz secured a deal to sell two different varieties in school cafeterias, turkey and cheddar cracker stackers and extra cheesy pizza. Lunchables was overjoyed to take your lunch money. Kraft Heinz said getting into schools was a$25 billion opportunity for the company. But the agreement also met a lot of resistance from health policymakers who said ultra processed food shouldn't be served to kids. And this Consumer Reports study only adds to the pressure. For its part, Kraft Heinz says it stands by the quality and health standards of Lunchables.

11:55So it's not backing down. Toby, I know you're a big Lunchables guy. Do you think there's merit to these criticisms? Absolutely. I can hold two thoughts in my head at the same time. I do love Lunchables, but you just know that they cannot be the most healthy things for you because they are very processed foods. And through that process of processing foods, it does add a lot of these harmful chemicals and elements into food. Sodium content is just wild. The lead content is higher than you ever want it to be. And it is just crazy that we do have this system that allows companies to soften nutritional standards in order to get their food in front of this very young audience that doesn't really have any other options other than to eat the food that their schools provide to them.

12:38So it is opening up the Pandora's box of why does our nutritional system work the way it does in schools? Right. So this let's talk about how this program works. Basically, it was started in 1946. Schools receive cash subsidies from the government for every eligible meal they serve. This is governed by the USDA and the USDA doesn't set standards for what particular products or items you can serve. They just do a holistic nutritional value for the entire meal. So say you want to serve Lunchables, you can do that, but it has to be accompanied maybe by an apple or a banana because Lunchables, as far as I know, don't have veggies or fruits.

13:15you're shaking. No, they do not. So it's not just like you can serve Lunchables, you can serve this particular product. It is you have to hit these particular benchmarks and you can do whatever you want with it. Schools to be eligible for these subsidies and many schools in low income areas that are underfunded are looking at Lunchables and they're like, oh, this is great. Like I know exactly what I'm serving to kids every single time. I can read the nutritional facts. There's a level of standard and there's a level of consistency that I'm not getting with other meals. So that's why Lunchables seems attractive for a lot of school districts.

13:45And one of the main selling points of Lunchables is that they're refrigerated, not frozen, which makes them a lot easier to ship, a lot easier to store as well. So yes, Lunchables had a lot of things going for them. And I will say, on the craft times of things, it was a big marketing win. Imagine being able to get in front of your ideal customer profile, which is young children, every single day for lunch. The company even noted in an investor update last year that the rollout of Lunchables in schools resulted in media exposure that was 99 % positive or neutral while costing the marketing virtually nothing to do so.

14:18So from their perspective, from a business perspective, it was a big win. But from a nutritional perspective, we might need to take a step back and reevaluate our priorities. Up next, you have a hearty dose of Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week coming your way. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from Evglyss. After an initial dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking EBCLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EBCLIS, LibriKizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema.

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15:34I'm Christian McCaffrey, pro running back, and Abercrombie is an official fashion partner of the NFL. I'm not kidding when I say NFL by Abercrombie broke the internet last year, and I think this season's lineup is even cooler. And so does my wife, who keeps stealing all my hoodies. Stay fit for the season and Abercrombie's newest arrivals. Shop NFL by Abercrombie in the app, online, and in store.

16:04It's time for your Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week, where Neil and I dig into the markets in a merge with one stock that is looking like a million bucks and one that's wearing a brown belt with black dress shoes. But today we're switching it up for you. Instead of looking at stocks, we're looking at universities. Bloomberg did this big breakdown where they looked at the ROI of 1 ,500 nonprofit four-year colleges to see which one led to greater earnings after graduation. The results were surprising. The Ivies, known for their prestige and lofty price tags, actually lived up to expectations with a median ROI 10 years after graduation of$266 ,000, by far the highest of any group.

16:45The surprising part of this study was that public flagship colleges, places like University of Georgia, Purdue, or Florida, proved to be far better investments than the so-called hidden Ivies, those costly private schools like Vassar or Tulane. So with all that preamble, Neil, which college from this study really stood out to you as our so-called stock of the week? Well, I think I looked at what we went to. So what the matchup between University of Maryland and Brown. Got to say, Toby, I come out on top. I'm a big public flagship university guy. The ROI of University of Maryland is$200 ,000 after 10 years.

17:23And ROI of Brown University is$172 ,000 after 10 years. I'm not knocking Brown. I think this is more good for University of Maryland and other of these public state universities that really punch above their weight. They absolutely punch above their weight. But I will say we're in the same job right now. So I feel like our paths have converged in a meaningful way. Yes, you're absolutely right that these big public flagship universities do very, very well. One of the things that this study did want to point out, too, is that majors play a outsized role in it, not just the college you attend, because a lot of colleges that focus more in STEM, have more STEM majors, lead to higher earning potential than, say, those smaller liberal arts colleges.

18:06Oberlin was one of the colleges in this study that turned out to be one of the worst investments for your money, costs$77 ,000 to attend, only has an ROI of$18 ,000 10 years later. Definitely the worst performer of this grouping of elite private schools that I referenced earlier. and in total i think what this study really did show is that there is a much bigger difference between the best colleges the ivies and the next best colleges so if you are having the opportunity to go for a named school like the wake forest of the world instead of going to a public school like university of georgia it probably pays off to opt to that that big public school if your if your goal is to uh for roi sometimes you don't go so you know a lot of times people go to college for the financial investment that's obviously a huge factor Oberlin though let's you know we've been bashing Oberlin this particular segment the number one major there is music performance so you're not going there because you know you're gonna make a lot of money you want there because you want to learn a lot about music and there have been many fantastic musicians that have come there moving on it didn't achieve the scale of the OJ trial but in Vietnam a very high profile case wrapped up when real estate tycoon Trong Mai Lan was sentenced to death for perpetrating the biggest fraud in the country's history.

19:22One of Vietnam's wealthiest women, Lan was convicted of embezzling$12 billion from Vietnam's Saigon Commercial Bank and paying millions in bribes to officials to keep it quiet. To give you a sense of the size of this scam, that$12 billion is nearly 3 % of Vietnam's entire GDP. Lan's death sentence may seem particularly harsh for a white-collar crime. After all, in the U.S., Sam Bankman-Fried received 25 years for stealing$10 billion of customer funds. But Vietnam's communist leadership is in the midst of a major graph crackdown called Blazing Furnaces, a campaign that's already led two presidents to resign.

19:58Vietnam is one of the world's fastest growing economies right now, as multinationals look for cheaper manufacturing alternatives to China. But this intense anti-corruption purge might have a chilling effect on foreign investment, the opposite of what was intended. Yeah, the scale of this fraud is truly remarkable, and it's not how Vietnam wants to be making headlines right now. But when you're measuring the scale of an embezzlement case as a percentage of a nation's GDP, that's how you know you embezzled a lot of money. The way that Lan pulled this off, she created a lot of shell companies. Through those shell companies, she wrote more than 2 ,500 loans to herself and her constituents, even though she didn't even hold executive power at the bank.

20:39Through her shell company, she owned 91.5 % of the bank's shares through all these third parties and shell companies. So it was this very complex, very wide-ranging, and very, very expensive embezzlement case. Yeah, and this comes at a very interesting inflection point for Vietnam. All these multinationals with production in China are looking at what's going on there and saying maybe it's time to move offshore. Apple is spending loads in India and Vietnam has pretty cheap labor and is seen as a very attractive place to set up your factory if you want to move out of China. The FDI, foreign direct investment, hit an all time high of thirty six point six billion dollars last year in Vietnam.

21:20The goal of the Communist Party leadership here is a little unclear because they want to show that there's no corruption in their country. But at the same time, this crackdown has led to a lot of bureaucracy and delays and a lot of just business businesses not really getting going and a lot of investments stalling. So it's maybe has the opposite effect of what they originally intended. Right. And it does seem a little bit crazy, at least in our culture in America, to issue a death penalty. But it just does go to show you how serious they are taking this high profile campaign against corruption.

21:54Finally, let's talk about Wrexham, the fourth division Welsh football club that you probably know as a team owned by celebs Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhinney. Ryan and Rob took over the club almost three seasons ago with the goal of turning it around and taking it from the bottom of the English football pyramid all the way to the top. In its first season, it failed to get promoted from the fifth division, but then came back and won the league, jumping up a tier. And now Wrexham is a few games away from moving up the footballing ladder once again. They have three games remaining in the league two season, and two wins will be enough to guarantee they'll see higher division football next season.

22:32Should that be the case, they would be only, and I say only with air quotes here, two divisions away from entering the Premier League, even in their wildest dreams, Neil. I don't think either of them thought that this Wrexham experience would be going as well as it is. It's going so well. I mean, this does not really happen a lot in English football where you get promoted to a league and then you get promoted to the next league right after that. It's never happened in Wrexham's 159 year history. And Wrexham is one of the oldest football clubs in the world. So this is going super well. Attendance is up 3x from before they began their ownership of the company.

23:08They're finishing up their third season of Welcome to Wrexham, which is a series that's been super popular, has followed their journey and drummed up a lot of PR and a lot of marketing excitement around Wrexham. Wrexham has TikTok as a sponsor. Expedia has come on board. So I don't know if you wrote this out as, you know, it's always sunny in Philadelphia episode of one of Ryan Reynolds' movie. you could script it any better than what's going on right now right there has been some pushback for sure from various parts of kind of the english footballing world for sure because what rexham did was pay outside salaries to players actually some players moved down leagues which is something you never see as a player you never want to essentially reduce the level of competition you're playing against if you can can help it but they have been overpaying for these these premier players and it has led them kind of speed run this promotional process there's also been some pushback about the promotional nature of its welcome to wrexham series even though there is a lot of heart and a lot of soul and they definitely do uphold and showcase the the community that they operate in the fact that tiktok is plastered everywhere you got expedia as a main sponsor it does feel there's some some critique that maybe it's just a capitalistic soulless uh kind of adoption of sport in order to advance their their commercial aspects but still It is a compelling story and they are doing something meaningful for this community.

24:27Yeah. And one thing that English football has to get ready for is that corporate America vibe because U.S. investors are scooping up English soccer teams like it's the hottest investment right now. If seven seven seven partners, which is an investment firm, buys Everton, which it wants to, then half of all the Premier League team will be owned by Americans. And then if you just look at the top four leagues of English football, more than a third of the 92 teams are owned by Americans right now. So there's been a huge takeover. And Rob and Ryan are just one of a wave of Americans that are planting their stake in England.

25:05I would love to own a lower tier English. I don't know. There's plenty of ones that you've never even heard of. But I would love to come in as a player, owner, coach as well. See if I still got any run left in these old leagues of mine. And maybe in 600 episodes, we'll have enough cash in the bank to buy our own team, Neil. All right, let's finish up there. Hope you have a chill Friday and an excellent weekend. Toby, what's the Corey Connors update at the Masters? How is our boy doing? He's two under. He's right in the sixth of the thick of things. He's five shots back. And if he pulls this off, this will be the greatest storyline in Morning Brew Daily history.