The Busiest Holiday Travel Weekend in 15 Years & 80 Million Pounds of Cranberries

0:28The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people.

0:36good morning bird daily show i'm neil freiman and i'm toby howell today a thanksgiving feast with a side of business we'll stuff you with fun facts bring up at the meal the rest will be gravy it's thursday november 27th let's eat

0:56happy thanksgiving as you all go about your day we have a feeling that many of your plans will follow a similar itinerary you'll watch a certain parade broadcast from new york city some cooking and some eating obviously a little bit of football and maybe a neighborhood walk and of course listening to your distant relatives share their off-color opinions toby and i are going to do our best tour guide impressions and dive into each of these events alongside you and give a little business insight and context to each one. Think of it as some small talk fodder to bring up if that one cousin starts droning on about their AI startup over dessert.

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2:04So whether you're covering an unexpected vet bill or are splurging on concert tickets, you can pay later on every purchase with the U.S. Bank Split Card. Learn more at usbank.com slash split card. That's usbank.com slash split card. To start off your Thanksgiving holiday, you likely got to travel to your turkey day. If you flew, I would bet your attire was on the comfy cozy side, maybe some sweatpants and an MBD sweatshirt. But Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy isn't a fan of your getup. The DOT recently launched a civility initiative aimed at bringing back the golden age of travel. The purpose is to jumpstart a nationwide conversation about restoring courtesy and class to air travel.

2:45That includes helping others with their overhead luggage, thanking flight attendants and pilots, and dressing with respect. Now, if your immediate reaction to that is, you're not my mom, Sean Duffy, you don't get to tell me how I should act at the airport, that's fair. Faced with reduced legroom, tighter seating density, fewer amenities, and more delays, it's no wonder flyers aren't bringing happy-go-lucky vibes to the airport. But Duffy and the Department of Transportation do have the data that backs up their concerns. Since 2021, nearly 14 ,000 instances of unruly passengers have been reported.

3:17There's been a 400 % increase since 2019, including a record 5 ,900 in 2021. A lot of those were tied to mask mandates during COVID, but incidents remain historically elevated. Neil, should we all be wearing suits to the airport again? Never. And I think that was generally the consensus among people online when they saw this presentation and this call from Sean Duffy to dress up at the airport. Because you got so many things going against you at the airport. Why do you need to put on some uncomfortable clothing? Me, I guess I go full athleisure, sweatpants. I still keep my shoes on, even during long flights, as a sign of respect to the people around me.

3:57But I also don't think it's the worst thing in the world. If you're flying overseas, you know, get a little comfy in that respect also. You said it has the data to back them up. But also, I want to share some contrarian data. In 2023, it's the most recent data we have available, the FAA reported almost 2 ,000 incidents. That is a sharp decline from the peak in 2021. So it seems like now that masks are over and the pandemic is generally behind us, people are starting to behave more respectfully. What you could say is that people are sharing videos online more often. And that increased reporting is why we think that airports and planes are a huge chaos at the moment.

4:37Yeah, I mean, we've all seen it. And actually, the Department of Transportation used those videos to advance their agenda here. They had this promotional video that in the first part, it's a idyllic version of air travel set to Frank Sinatra's Come Fly With Me. And it's showing, you know, the Pan Am days, the TWA days where people wore suits and had these very luxurious travel experiences. And then it contrasts that to videos of people, you know, fighting in the airport, yelling at each other, putting their feet all over things. It's a very effective contrast. And the general idea is if everyone is just more polite, maybe it even starts with what you're wearing.

5:11If you dress not in your pajamas, you might feel more of some kinship and you want to be more polite to people around you if you are dressed for that sort of interaction. So obviously it's going to spark some backlash, though, because what have airlines done is they've stripped away all the amenities that used to make air travel a luxury experience. And they're weaponizing nostalgia. Air travel at the time was unaffordable for a lot of people. Now it's a lot more – it's a mass transit system. You wouldn't wear a suit on the subway. You wouldn't dress up to take the bus. Why should you dress up to take an airplane?

5:46A lot of the frustration stems from those things that those carry ons that you have to take with you because they charge airlines charge thirty five, forty, forty five dollars to check baggage. So I've gotten pissed trying to get that thing above above my seat, my suitcase above my seat or my backpack below my seat. So you can see the frustration. It's pretty interesting to look at airline clothing policies. You know, what do they require on board? Do they have any policies? It does vary by airlines, Spirit Airlines, where a lot of these videos are taken, we should admit, on the way back and forth to Miami.

6:21Does have a policy, updated its rules earlier this year, saying that passengers could be banned from boarding if they are, quote, inadequately clothed, including if they are barefoot. Final note on this, I just want to mention, this is not just a U.S. issue. The Netherlands had 1 ,440 unruly passenger reports last year compared to 730 in 2019. And the U.K. had double the rate of incidents in 2024 over 2019. So people across the world are just fed up with flying. That said, they're going to be flying a lot this Thanksgiving. The FAA expects this Thanksgiving holiday from Tuesday to Sunday to be the busiest period for air travel in 15 years, with Tuesday specifically, two days ago, seeing the most air travelers.

7:05Take a train. Take a train if you can. I am taking a train. I have taken a train. Okay, so you finally arrived at your house, put the suit you were wearing on the plane at the dry cleaners, and wake up in your childhood bed on Thanksgiving morning. What's the game plan? Make a big pot of coffee and turn on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, of course. The tradition, now in its 101st year, has become more popular than ever. At a time when other live entertainment broadcasts are hemorrhaging viewers, the three-and-a-half-hour Thanksgiving parade has surged to all-time highs. 31.3 million people watched the parade on NBC and Peacock last year, up 10 % from the previous record set in 2024.

7:41For the past four years, it's been the number one entertainment show on television, crushing everything not named the NFL or presidential debates. Clearly, people love watching their favorite characters float down New York City's cavernous avenues to Macy's flagship store in Herald Square, where it all began in 1924. During Thanksgiving of that year, Macy's staged what was then a Christmas-themed parade to celebrate the expansion of its store, which at 1.5 million square feet was the world's largest. Toby, when it comes to the viewership of live events, Oscars, way down. Grammys, way down. Emmys, down.

8:14Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, way up. Why is it bucking the trend? There's a couple of psychological reasons that play into it. One is the fact that, one, it's just a captive audience. There's a lot of people at home. There's a lot of people who just toss the TV on. It's habit at this point. So obviously television ratings are going to be up when a lot of people are in their homes, you know, cooking their Thanksgiving Day meals. It's also very structured and almost social media friendly in a way in the fact that the segments are five to 10 minute max. It's constantly coming up. It's always moving.

8:48There's different characters coming on screen. So if you want to talk about our social media trained brains, it scratches that itch. And then it is a live event. So there is an air of unpredictability to it. Is it going to be bad weather? Are the balloons going to fly away? So it adds some of that live event flair that, you know, live sporting events are so good at creating. So it is almost like a sporting event in the sense that you don't know what's going to happen. And then finally, it's just nostalgic as well. Everyone grew up with the Basies Day Parade. They want to show their kids. It passes down through generations.

9:21It always starts the same way. It always ends the same way. So there's just that familiar heartbeat to Thanksgiving Day, and the Macy's is right at the center of it. And another thing is it really captures the audience in middle America, too, in a way. A lot of those award shows that we're talking about, viewership going down, does not. There's very little politics going on. No one's getting up. No celebrities are getting up, giving you a speech and grandstanding up there. They have these high school and college marching bands from all over the country. So if you're from West Virginia, South Dakota, Arkansas, you are tuning in to see your particular marching band.

9:53And then also if you are a Broadway fan, but you live in Kansas or somewhere that's kind of far from New York City, they have these Broadway performances coming on a couple times every hour. So you can see those shows that you've been wanting to see but haven't been able to get to New York City. So they've really just perfected this formula, and they don't really change it that much each year. They just add in new characters that jive with whatever's going on in pop culture to keep your interest peaked year after year. And it's just a great broadcast. They know exactly what they're doing. And it's just surged in the last few years.

10:22It also makes a lot of money for NBC. They're charging$865 ,000 for a 30-second ad spot. That was last year's total. It's not the Super Bowl. But, again, when you compare it to every other award shows, only the Oscars fetches a higher premium than the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade does. So it is one of the more valuable ad properties on TV today outside of, you know, anything that involves football. Let's talk about this. You're going to watch it in a few hours. So the first time first time inflatables this year are going to include Buzz Lightyear, Derpy Tiger, Mario Pac-Man, Shrek's Onion Carriage.

10:58And of course, La Boo Boo, which is the best selling toy, the huge craze that we've seen this year. And then in terms of other breakout hits that we're going to see for the first time is the cast of K-pop Demon Hunters. They're going to be on a float, and you have to hope that they sing. This is Huntrix. This is the biggest band. They are fictional, but they are the biggest band this year. You know, being more popular than Taylor Swift in some respects, it is Netflix's biggest movie of all time, so very pumped for that performance. The parade is over. Your cousins are showing up in the driveway.

11:28One has a weird new piercing, and it's time to eat. The centerpiece of all Thanksgivings is the meal traditionally anchored by a massive turkey with a host of mix-and-match sides. There's one side we want to focus on this year, the humble cranberry. Cranberries have been a key part of the Thanksgiving meal for centuries, and it's estimated that Americans will eat 80 million pounds of the tart fruit over Thanksgiving week. It's also a fascinating product from a business perspective, particularly when you look at the company that dominates cranberry sales, Ocean Spray. Ocean Spray farmers are responsible for 65 % of the world's cranberries, but even more importantly, they take in 100 % of the profits.

12:05That's because Ocean Spray is a cooperative owned by 700 farmers across several U.S. states and Canada. It was started in 1930 by a group of, quote, three maverick farmers who wanted to figure out ways to stabilize plummeting prices and sell cranberries all year round, not just during Thanksgiving time. Since then, Ocean Spray has diversified into a bunch of different products from sauce to juice to craisins, helping create a$2 billion a year business in which only 5 % of cranberries harvested are sold as whole berries. Toby, thanks to skateboarding, Fleetwood Mac dude, Ocean Spray got us through COVID, but it's always been there for us for Thanksgiving.

12:38That is such a good fun fact to drop at the table that did you know that only 5 % of cranberries are sold as whole berries? A lot of them end up in juice blends. They get diluted with other juices, but some of the red juices out there that you think is grapes or apple are actually diluted with cranberry juice. So that's a - Don't say diluted. Well, it is diluted. Health infused. Infused, yes, made better by cranberries. Cranberries are just a weird fruit, though. You've seen the pictures of farmers waiting in these bogs because they flood the fields during winter to protect the plants, but then they flood them again during harvest.

13:11They drive a floating harvester through it. Cranberries have these four little air pockets in them, so they float. And that is why you see these farmers and waiters pushing them towards, you know, an elevator to get them out of the bogs themselves. Interestingly enough, though, as the cranberry industry, it's not the biggest industry in the world, So they are gaining a lot of money from tourism because it's fun to wait in the bogs with the cranberries. And oftentimes they end up throwing away the cranberries that the tourists waited around in because they're making more money off of charging 80 bucks for a bog tour than actually selling the berries themselves.

13:45So just an interesting wrinkle in the business model that now people just want to get in there and mix it up with the berries themselves. Yeah, one family farmer in Massachusetts said that they make five times from visitors what they would make from actually selling their crop. And that's a good segue to what I want to talk about next, Massachusetts, because I'm from Massachusetts. If you go to Cape Cod or any part on the southeastern region of the state, you're going to see cranberry bogs. And it is Massachusetts' number one agricultural export. The cranberry is, you know, the Massachusetts is the spiritual home of the cranberry.

14:18But this industry has been shrinking in Massachusetts. It's falling behind other states. Wisconsin is now the largest cranberry producer in the United States. It's Lepp Frog, Massachusetts. There are only 300 cranberry farmers left in Massachusetts. So they are relying on tourism. It reminds me a lot of what's going on with various vineyards and wineries. They are catering towards wine tastings and having people come through because what they're actually selling in wine is not nearly as much as what they can get from people coming by. The real question that I have to ask you, though, is are you a fan of cranberry?

14:49Are you putting it on the turkey or not? I love the cranberry. Love the acidity. Love the tartness. Love the temperature difference that it beholds with the turkey, and there's just a really nice relationship between those two. But do you like the cran one with the ridges on it or the canned one, or do you like fresh? I think my mom's been making a homemade one for a bit with, like, just, you know, whole cranberries still in there. So that's just my family tradition. Give me canned all the way. It's a little sweeter than, you know, natural one, but I'm sure your mom's is wonderful. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back after this with what you do after the meal.

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17:15And it's maybe the one TikTok trend that's backed up by science. Gastroenterologists say crop dusting is a great way to improve long-term health. Or as they would probably put it, walking after meals does promote intestinal motility by helping stimulate the bowels. There's also a secondary positive effect. A walk can help blunt the spike in blood sugar you will inevitably get after consuming your body weight in turkey and stuffing. And the best part of a fart walk, it's way better than doing the dishes. I'm all in. I'm all in it, too. And also, just anecdotally, I've experienced this. No one wants to hear this.

17:50No one wants to smell that, rather. But there is science that backs this up because what do you want to do after you have a big meal? Probably lie down on the couch. But an upright posture helps expel gas 33 % more efficiently than lying down. So upright posture, walk around a little bit, have a little hitch in your giddy-up, get some of that gas out. It also is just you're doing a service to everyone in the house as well. No one wants you laying on the couch passing gas. We'd rather get you out of the house, getting things moving, and following the science here. The bottom line here from the science, when you get moving, so does the stuff in your belly.

18:31So the meal ends at your place and you go, hey, does anybody want to go for a fart walk? What is the reaction from the audience, do you think? Well, I think you just frame it as anyone want to go for a walk. You don't necessarily need to brand it like that and then let everyone kind of do their own things. Yeah, I mean, actually bring it up over meal because I will say my fiance has this thing called blood sugar walks, which it does. It helps blunt the effects of blood sugar. and I have been co-opting those into my own private, you know, fart walks that, yes, we're taming the effects of the blood sugar spike, but also, yeah, you're getting the gas moving a little bit.

19:05All right, after your fart walk, it might be time for a cousin walk, oftentimes initiated by an invitation to go walk the dog or just get some air. The end result is often glazed eyes and a case of the giggles. That's because these days a cousin walk is the codename people use to go smoke some weed. And it's become as common a staple on Thanksgiving as eating turkey. With widespread legalization of marijuana across the country, companies have caught on and are actively marketing around it. Green Wednesday is as much of a thing as Black Friday. The day before Thanksgiving has become the second biggest cannabis sales day of the year behind 420.

19:42Everyone from dispensaries to food brands have latched onto the idea of cousin walks to make some green by selling some green. Neil, do you have any cousins coming over for Thanksgiving? I don't have any cousins. I probably have a sibling or one sibling that I could ask to go on a, uh, a brother walk though. I will not, I'll just end that conversation there, but it's true that brands have tried to capitalize on this and make cousin walks a thing like capital C capital W the peanut bitter maker, Jeff ran an Instagram ad riffing on the cousin walk said the caption, how about a little squeeze squeeze pass action?

20:17I think the top comment was like, why are you so bad at social media? Which, okay. And then hidden Valley ranch also mentioned the cousin walk in a collab with taco bell last christmas this year in new york dispensary released an ad for pre-rolled joints for a quote secret society that meets once a year i'm thinking that what happens when brands jump on a trend it immediately becomes uncool so right now we're calling it cousin walks but in five years you know the young people are not going to be calling cousin walks anymore so it's going to evolve into something maybe let's just rebrand fart walks as the new cousin walks there's a lot of walks going on right now and a lot of differing smells that are going to surround the people on those walks.

20:54All right, so you're gas-free and a little high, heading back to the couch, and now a nap beckons, but not before you catch some Thanksgiving Day football. Now, if your real team or your fantasy team stinks, here's another storyline to look out for. Kickers have turned into Terminators this year. So far this NFL season, we've seen Cam Little from the Jaguars kick a 68-yard field goal, breaking the record that has stood for the past four years. And Brandon Aubrey, who pays for Dallas, set the record for most career field goals of 60 yards or more, hitting his fifth back in October, despite being in the league in just his third, despite being in the league for just three years.

21:30Overall, the NFL has seen a total of 46 field goals of 60 yards or more, but over half have happened since 2020. What accounts for this explosion in the long range kicks a variety of factors including better training and more attempts in general but i also want to call it a minor rules tweak that seemed to have helped kickers now get to practice with their balls all week allowing them to break into new balls and get a feel for how they perform rather than receiving them just prior to game time as had been the norm in the past a combination of water towels brushes and sponge lets kickers mold their balls into specialized missiles that are clearing crossbars from unthinkable distances with room to spare neil as a former soccer player I'm happy the foot aspect of football is finally getting the attention it deserves.

22:16Yeah, they say compare this to when you get a new baseball mitt. It's very stiff. You have to spend weeks breaking it in, putting oil on it, sleeping on it. That is a way to make your baseball mitt work better for you. Previously, kickers were given these very stiff, shiny balls straight out of the package that they only had 60 minutes to doctor. That wasn't enough. And they said, yes, that takes a few yards off the kick. Otherwise, if we had these before the season, we can wash them. We can scrub them. We can doctor them in certain ways. There are certain things that you can't do according to NFL regulations.

22:50That does add a few yards to all of our kicks, and you're seeing an absolute explosion in really long field goals. The rate of field goal attempts of 55 yards or more has jumped 135 % compared to just four seasons ago in 2021. So they're attempting more, and they're making more. NFL coaches aren't stupid. Kickers are making 72 % of their field goals from at least 50 yards, which is nearly double the rate from about 30 years ago. So they're taking more long kicks and they're making more long kicks and it's changing the NFL forever. And if it sounds like cheating, you're talking about doctoring footballs here that conjures up images of deflate gate and making the balls perform in a way that are outside regulations.