Temu's $2B Marketing Blitz & Campaigns Take to TikTok

0:00Tonight on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozma St John host the highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands. This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best idea win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere tonight on NBC. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, why Beyonce and every other musician is putting out country albums.

0:39Then you might be seeing a familiar face on TikTok soon, the President of the United States. It's Tuesday, February 13th. Let's ride.

0:53So we got the Nielsen numbers in and unsurprisingly, Super Bowl 58 was the most watched Super Bowl ever. were 123 million U.S. viewers tuned in to see the script writers hand the Chiefs victory across TV and streaming platforms, shattering last year's mark of 115 million. That means the game will also go down as the most watched broadcast in U.S. TV history, which means that now Super Bowls account for all 10 and 29 of the 30 most watched U.S. broadcasts ever. The finale of Mass is the lone non-Super Bowl holdout. Neil, what is going to be the next event to break this Super Bowl dominance? Well, I don't it's going to be tough, but I think the only thing that could break the NFL stranglehold is if Messi rounds up all of the best athletes in the world.

1:39Ronaldo, Neymar, Serena Williams, Travis Kelsey, LeBron, Tom Brady, Djokovic, Simone Biles and organizes a 100 meter dash for one billion dollars sponsored by Emirates. I think that could get at least 200 million viewers. That is the only thing that could break the Super Bowl stranglehold. I literally had. Would you watch that? absolutely not. There's it's the most uneven event ever. Like you would have to have divisions or something like that. I think Mr. Beast already did something like that too. I'm a lot more practical. I think it's going to be the next moon landing because we haven't had a moon landing in decades now.

2:15And I think one's on the horizon. So I think if we all have a collective stream of that, that could do it. Also, if the world cup's coming up, it's going to be in America. If the U S plays England on July 4th, that will easily do it. So you can imagine you can take your weird, weird bizarro event, but yeah, I'm keeping it more on earth. Before we jump into the show today, we have a quick word from our good friends over at Veeam. Valentine's Day is tomorrow, and do we have the gift for you? Give the gift of Veeam this Valentine's Day. It's got everything you want in a partner. Reliable, resilient, lots of vowels in its name.

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4:04Joe Biden is on TikTok now. Yep, that feels weird to say, but the very app that is banned on government phones now counts the president of the United States as one of its members. Biden posted his first TikTok with the caption, LOL, hey guys, during the Super Bowl on Sunday night. In it, he answered questions relating to the game and even gotten to which Kelsey brother he liked more, racking up over 6 million views in the process. Now, yes, this is weird when you consider the years-long friction between the Chinese-owned company and the U.S. government, but it appears POTUS decided to bite the bullet in order to reach who else?

4:38The youths. Recent poll numbers from NBC News found that of the 18 to 34-year-olds they surveyed who used TikTok, Biden holds only a 23 % approval rating And 44 % say they'd vote for Trump versus 42 % for Biden. So it's clear his campaign thinks that by jumping onto the platform, security risk be damned, they can sway some voters in this upcoming election. This is the sign of our media times. Previously, you could buy TV ads. Everyone was watching TV. Now only people watch the Super Bowl on TV. But to reach the use which Biden needs, you have to be on TikTok. It does seem very incongruous because they banned the ban the app on government phones.

5:21They might even ban the app. Overall, a government agency is looking into that. They've warned of privacy risks. But Biden really needs the youth vote to come out. And where they are is on TikTok. And so he has to be on TikTok. Yeah, I will say, too, he is leaning into some of the Internet culture and the memes around him. His profile picture is the dark Brandon meme of him with kind of like laser eyes, which is something that the right has used to kind of attack him. So he's kind of trying to co-op these narratives. And it's a fine line because if you do it right, then, yes, you seem very Internet native.

5:52But if it's clear that it's kind of his team doing it, then you can come off as a little inauthentic. So it's definitely a fine line he's walking. But so far, a few posts in, he's doing all right. Yeah. And we should say this is certainly not a U.S. phenomenon. non-politicians all over the world are leaning into TikTok, maybe even more so than they are in the U.S., because TikTok is more embraced there. There's less government scrutiny. Let's talk about the Indonesian election, which is happening tomorrow. There's three presidential candidates. All of them are going all in on TikTok. In Indonesia, which is TikTok's second largest market, 57 % of the electorate are Gen Z and millennials.

6:31So you have these presidential candidates doing these funny dances on TikTok, leaning into penguin memes and embracing K-pop in an effort to connect with the youth. So this is a global phenomenon that TikTok has asserted its power as a major political platform where elections are going to be won and lost. And I think it's so interesting how the candidates are using TikTok because the leading candidate right now, he's won a previous election by being very macho, like showing him as kind of this person riding on horseback, but now he's a little older. And on TikTok, he's appealing to almost a more emotional side of him where he's posting videos of him getting attacked at a debate and almost tearing up and people are posting videos in solidarity with that.

7:14So it is so interesting to see how this medium can have this, create this much more authentic and emotional connection with candidates and how people are leaning into that versus the more bravado we've seen in other political elections. Yeah. In Indonesia, they're saying 2019 was the Instagram election, which is this more polished view of yourself. And 2023 is, or 2024 is the TikTok election. Moving on in the music business these days, all roads are leading to Nashville. Country music, which dominated the airwaves in 2023, is set to only tighten its grip on the charts this year. And if you don't believe me?

7:53Well, I'll just say one word. Beyonce. During the Super Bowl, Beyonce announced a country album called Act Two of her Renaissance Project and dropped two twangy singles I have been playing on repeat. This wasn't a big surprise. For years, she signaled her interest in revisiting her southern roots from going up in Houston and exploring its black cowboy and cowgirl culture. But Beyonce is not the only major non-country artist dialing up the steel guitar this year. Post Malone said he'll release a country album, and Lana Del Rey is planning to drop a country record in September. At an event recently, Lana said, if you can't already tell by our award winners and our performers, the music business is going country.

8:33We're going country. It's happening. And Toby, I have to agree with her. At least for now, the music business is going country, so you better learn how to two-step. I cannot two-step. I can kind of line dance, though, so I give myself some credit there. I mean, if we go back to last year in June, the number one and number two songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart were country songs. Not just the country chart, just the overall chart. That was Last Night by Morgan Wallen and Fast Car, cover by Luke Combs. And it's Gen Z driving the listening to. 36 % of streams on Spotify's top 50 songs were country songs.

9:06And Spotify is by far the most kind of Gen Z-centered platform. So I say just skate where the puck is going. Like, it's clearly that the writing is on the wall, and it's clear that the country twang is kind of taking over music. So go where people are listening. Yeah, it's very curious to see why, to understand why country music is booming. But it is interesting to see Beyonce and other black artists kind of dabble into country music. She did perform with the Dixie Chicks in 2016 at the CMA Awards. That was a very buzzy performance, after which she was criticized by some people who said, you know, she's been more politically active and got some criticism for it.

9:45Her fans pushed back. Meanwhile, T-Pain has also expressed that he has experienced racism while writing country songs. So, you know, this genre has a history of being hostile towards black musicians. There's only three black artists in the Country Music Hall of Fame, including Ray Charles. But Beyonce wants to sort of reclaim that and say, black people, like, were an integral part of creating country music. Slaved Africans were playing the banjo. They combined with European immigrants who were playing the fiddle. And then it merged to create country music, not as we know of today, but the origins of country music.

10:21And so she's going back to her roots there. And I think, you know, just from the two songs that we heard, it's going to be super successful. Yeah, we were both listening to them this morning. You said give people a little sample and try to sing. I'm absolutely not going to do that. But they were very good. And, yeah, this is what you've always seen in music. People have always kind of pushed back against boundaries and tried to explore. This is why music is an awesome medium. So I, for one, am fully aboard the Beyonce train and also all these other artists jumping in as well. Let's move on. So I know the Super Bowl was two days ago at this point, which is about 100 days in news years.

10:54But forgive me because we have to circle back and talk about Taimou and its ads once again. The dust has settled after it's sold out the big bucks to pay for its commercials to air six times on Sunday to go along with$10 million in giveaways. And it turns out that it's all out marketing blitz was hiding some shaky U.S. sales growth. Sales fell 12.5 % month over month in December and 4.8 % in January, which is a major turnaround from the more than 50 % growth it was seeing in mid 2023. That's against the backdrop of growing overall U.S. retail sales, too. So I can't even blame the macro environment.

11:32Even though web searches for the app jumped when its ads aired, Google Trends data shows that searches have been steadily declining overall since early July. Neil, some analysts estimate that Temu has spent over$1 billion on advertising last year alone outside the Asia-Pacific region. Can it possibly keep this up? This is the craziest thing I've seen in business in a while. It is a totally absurd strategy. The concept of word of mouth for this company does not exist. They are going to bombard you with ads forever and spend billions on it until you say, OK, I can't take it anymore. I can't see any more of these ads.

12:11I have to go shop on Taimou where they sell everything from, you know,$2,$5 apparel items. So this is truly one of the craziest things in advertising that we've seen in recent history. Experts are saying they've never seen a strategy like this. It is, quote, breathtaking and totally surreal. How about this insane stat? that Temu and Xi 'an represented 10 % of Meta's revenue last year. That's how much money they spent on the platform. Meta brought in$134 billion last year and just two fast fashion kind of e-commerce outlets accounted for 10 % of that. I literally cannot wrap my head around the fact that they're kind of propping up Meta's bottom line.

12:51Yeah, so how are they being able to spend so much money? Well, Temu is owned by a Chinese e-commerce giant, PDD Holdings, which is going toe-to-toe with Alibaba in the mainland over there. So those are the two giants over in China. And PDD has this, Temu, which only launched in the U.S. in 2022. And it's trying to go after Amazon. The ambition is truly wild. And they're spending up to$3 billion this year alone on marketing to make it happen. We'll see if the U.S. consumers resonate or it's sticky at all. It does seem like they went for cheapness over speed. Amazon did everything to build up its logistics.

13:31So you might pay a little bit more on Amazon, but you'll get it quicker. On Taimu, you will pay less, but it takes longer. And it looks like right now, consumers have eventually kind of sided with Amazon. They just want their stuff as quickly as possible. Okay, let's hear a quick word from our sponsors. And we promise it's not Taimu.

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14:16Race the rudders! Raise the sails! Raise the sails! Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait, is that an enterprise sails solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. It is Valentine's Day tomorrow, and I have a great discussion about dating norms I want to tell you all about for this week's edition of Toby's Trends, where I, a young online Gen Zer, educate my millennial co-host, Neil, about a recent trend I've had my eye on.

15:02And today's trend is all about how Gen Z is navigating this tricky situation about who should pay for the first date. A New York Times article broke down the age-old issue, and what they found is that Gen Z pretty much behaves like past generations when it comes to dating. Men tend to foot the bill at a much higher rate than their female counterparts do. A 2023 paper published in a peer-reviewed psychological journal that surveyed 552 heterosexual couples found that young men paid for all or most of the dates around 90 % of the time, while women paid about 2 % of the time, splitting the bill accounted for the other 8%.

15:39And a surprising follow-up to that study was that a couple's views on gender norms didn't really make much of a difference. On average, both those with traditional views of gender norms and those with more progressive views expected the man to pay. Neil, the traditional pattern is still there despite young people being more progressive in general. Traditions die hard. I've been thinking about and reflecting why this has persisted. maybe one reason is why, you know, a first date is already so awkward that you just get into this choreography of what you know at the end. And, you know, you just go back to what what has been instilled in you and you saw your parents do and your grandparents do.

16:20Even if you have very progressive views on equality and gender equality and think men and women should split responsibilities. It just has stuck for whatever reason. I know it definitely is like first dates are awkward enough, as is. So it is much easier. You don't want to ruin the date either by like haggling at the end. So yeah, typically you just default to what has been the default. There's also a few other reasons you can point to. Whoever did the asking should probably pay for the date. It also generally costs more money and takes more time for the girl to get ready than the guy. And it also costs more for women to pay for reproductive care than men.

16:55So all those factors have also combined, even if you do have a more progressive look at gender norms, those are some reasons why this has stuck around. Yeah. In LGBTQ relationships, we should say these gender norms don't necessarily exist, and there are other dynamics at play about who should pay, but I'll just speak candidly. I mean, on first dates in the city, I pay 100 % of the time. There is this dance where you put your car down, and then the woman goes and does a little hand gesture towards the purse. And you're just like, I got it. And then they're like, okay. And then you just pay. And it's totally fine.

17:32But in subsequent dates, that's when you start talking a little bit more about sharing. And I think that I generally expect a little more sharing of the bill in after the first date. Yeah, absolutely. And then like the New York Times did kind of illustrate how this norm can be co-opted in something that's not good. And I generally expect a little more sharing of the bill in after the first date. Yeah, absolutely. Moving on, some of y 'all have been skipping leg day, plus every other day at the gym, and we've got the receipts to prove it. Fitness centers in the U.S. are reporting a stagnant January in terms of visitors, putting the brakes on a post-pandemic recovery and raising concerns about a tough year ahead.

18:12January is, unsurprisingly, the busiest month for gyms, with people trying to follow through on their New Year's resolutions to get fit. In each of the past two years, January visits to 10 major gym chains have jumped 40%, But this January, foot traffic was flat. And it's not just one segment of the gym market feeling sore. The pain is across the board. At the high end, Exponential, which owns Pure Bar and Rumble, is on track to report its slowest quarterly sales growth since going public three years ago. And on the budget end, Planet Fitness will post its second worst quarterly sales growth since 2021.

18:46Toby, help us make sense of this. Jim's had staged a remarkable recovery coming out of COVID until last month when, for some reason, people have decided to stop going. Yeah, there's definitely a few factors contributing to this. Weight loss drugs can help people meet their goals a whole lot easier with a whole lot less sweat equity. There's also just a plethora of home devices still. I mean, you got Pelotons that don't require membership. You can do it in your basement. Also, it's just been cold outside. It's been a relatively cold winter, and sometimes that can really squash your desire to end up putting on your clothes and going to gym, as we both know.

19:23So I think it's just a lot of factors combining to make this kind of a less gym for January than we expected. Yeah, maybe February will be better, but this is really dire for their financial outlook. Planet Fitness gets over a quarter of its yearly signups in January alone,$400 ,000 out of$1.7 million. Plus, they're not being able to raise prices. So they have a$10 per month membership. They have floated increasing that in the face of inflation because their costs are rising as well for their franchisees. But they've had to dial that back and keep it at$10 a month. So the fact that they're paying more, keeping it at$10 a month and also seeing fewer members does not bode well for their performance this year, which I mentioned their quarterly results are going to be pretty trash.

20:08Yeah, but it's also so gyms operate under the idea that we're going to get people to sign up for a membership that they won't actually use. Gyms get super crowded early January. Then most people kind of filter out later. And that's what gyms are counting on. They want you to sign up, have a sticky membership that's difficult to cancel and just kind of pay them for not doing anything. So I do think that it's throwing off kind of the calculus of how these gyms operate that if people aren't signing up to begin with, then that whole calculus gets out of whack. still it's i just gotta say gyms have been extremely resilient we all thought they were going to be dead in 2020 and 2021 but planet fitness grew its membership from 14.4 million pre-covid to 18.7 million now and revenue in the third quarter of last year was two-thirds higher than the same period of 2019 so they've showed incredible resilience uh maybe they're hitting some headwinds now i think people are going back in february our gym is packed yeah shout out to everyone who's getting it done still.

21:05Let's just say that. Like the people who are going to gym, we see you. Good job. All right. Finally, you got to hear about the wildest mystery in America right now. A 200 foot AM radio tower in Alabama is gone, stolen without a trace. And it's silenced a radio station that helped deliver important news to the small town of Jasper. The theft was discovered a week and a half ago when a landscaping crew was doing routine maintenance in the area. and they discovered the 200-foot tower was not there. They called up the station's general manager, Brett Elmore, and told him the tower was gone, and he goes, what do you mean the tower is gone?

21:41It's not exactly hard to miss, which is why it's hard to understand how it went missing. While authorities pursue leads, the station, WJLX, has been forced to go silent. Plus, it might never financially recover from this. The station's property was not insured, and replacing the tower could cost up to$150 ,000. Elmore said people have reached out and asked how they can help, but he says, I don't know how you can help unless you have a 200-foot tower and an AM transmitter. Does anyone have Benoit Blanc's number? It's actually insane. It is probably easier to steal than you think because once you cut the guy wire, which is the thing kind of holding it up, it just falls to the ground, and then you can chop it up into smaller pieces.

22:23Oh, yeah, Toby. It sounds like you've never done that before. Well, I am just desperate to know how someone pulled this off, though. So Ars Technica kind of wrote this article where they looked around to see how other thefts like this maybe have occurred. And there was one recently in Nigeria where a tower similarly just vanished. And in that case, it was kind of snatched by people pretending to be government officials that turned out to be officials working with a scrap metal dealer where they say, oh, we got to come seize this for maintenance. So potentially there's some sort of like inside job angle here, maybe one of the maintenance crews.

22:52So I started going down the rabbit hole and thinking about maybe there's more to this story than we're letting on. and it's not just a small town theft. But we do think that they're just selling it for scrap metal. Right. I mean, what else would you do with it? Are prices of scrap metal just skyrocketing right now? Well, we'll put a pin on that. But here's what I want to know. How the heck do you not know it goes down by the signal going off? It's an AM radio tower. Wouldn't you figure out that it was missing before a maintenance crew went and visually saw it? So that's why I think, I don't know, maybe there's something going on here.

23:27because what did the signal cut out or is do i just have a misunderstanding of how radio next episode on morning group in daily investigates but it does it does kind of highlight the importance of am radio uh because the people in the town are worried that they're not going to get emergency communications and this debate is actually playing out in cars right now because automakers want to get rid of am radio because it interferes with electric vehicles lawmakers are pushing back and saying am radio is actually very critical to emergency communications we can't really get rid of AM radio. We have to keep it in your car's automaker.

24:00Maybe it's big AM radio who is saying, look at how do you like us now when we're gone? So I don't know. I was putting the tinfoil hat on, but yeah, let's, let's find this tower. All right. Well, listeners, let us know if you have any leads on this and that is our show for the day. If you're in the Northeast, definitely stay safe and dry because we are getting absolutely walloped with snow right now. Hot chocolate is your friend. And as always, you can write in with any feedback to morning Brew Daily at MorningBrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Bryce Belloff is our editor and producer. Raymond Liu is our associate producer.