The Week of March 22, 2024 | Stanley Looks to Replicate the Water-Bottle Hype Among Guys

This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and caching checks? It starts right about now. It's March Madness Week, March 22nd, our weekly business and marketing news. What's up, Chris Hanson? What's up, Mr. Alfred, how are you today? I am. I'm pretty jazzed. It's March Madness Week. The boys and I, we have our bonding moments around different things and basketball watching is one of them. So there's going to be quite a bit of madness at the offered residents huddled around the television watching those last minute buckets drop. So pretty pumped about that. Is everyone in the household in Auburn fan? Absolutely not. Clemson fans. Yes. Oh, yes. They both have links and they both are in the southeast, but no, and they're both tigers. But Clemson, yes, absolutely. They play New Mexico today. March 22nd later on today. So we'll be watching that one closely. Eating the popcorn, yelling at the screen, doing what we do. So it's a big deal. Like I'll say this, like we watch Clemson basketball no matter when or what happens. But I don't know. I guess this is what March Madness has done to the game, like the other games. We'll see what happens in March, because then this is just the tournament. And it's just the finality of it all, like coming down to the buzzer, do or die. Who's going to be left? And it's exciting. So we will be watching March Madness, and I did want to bring up just the business impact. Found a good article from wallet hub.com. These are the top 10 March Madness stats and facts as are related to the business of basketball in March Madness. $1.3 billion is the annual revenue for the NCAA in 2023, which was a 14 percent increase from 22, 1.3 big ones, billion. $0.6 million is the salary for college basketball's highest paid coach, which is Kansas bill self, which versus 1.1 million combined for the University of Kansas says Chancellor and the state's governor. That's wild. Think about that for a second. $9.6 million for the basketball coach. The Chancellor and the governor make 1.1 combined. Who's bringing in the benchmarks? That's all you need. Who's bringing the views? Yes. 52X, the difference between the average NBA rookie salary and a D1 men's athletic basketball scholarship for a year. So if you make the rookie salary is $3.7 million and the scholarship for a year is $71,000. But now with name image likeness, I don't know, like motivation, motivation to get there. But now with name image likeness, they can make a lot more than that. So I don't know if that's quite as relevant as it was before. $2.3 billion is the corporate losses due to unproductive workers during March madness. That's the combined inefficiency generated because of the times of the games being all day of you watching them. So they're not working. $17.3 billion is the corporate losses. That's a big number. You might as well have vacation days, maybe. If your company culture is like big into the tournament and some are more than others, maybe industry specific, just go ahead and take just make those like PTO days or something take the days off. $10 million is the projected economic impacts impact on Phoenix from this year's March madness, $413 million just for that week of March madness. The final four and everything else that's going to be in Phoenix. Wow. $334 million estimated value of the University of Kentucky's basketball program highest among all schools generates revenue of $22 million. So the basketball program is worth $334 million in one. $71 million in CA basketball funds, 2024 distribution to the D1 schools distributed $171 million to the basketball funds for these schools zero. The amount of money the NCAA pays, the players participating in the tournament. Big fat zero. So nothing's heard about that, right? Yeah. I think that's going to be changing. $63,400 state farm stadiums capacity for the final four. So they can seat 63,000 people to watch the final four. A lot of people watch the basketball game, smaller court than like a football stadium. So I think I'll watch it on the old big screen. I'll think about as leaving a parking lot with 60,000 people that doesn't sound very appealing. Yes. So there you have the economic, some business facts for the March madness tournament. We know you're out there watching. You were unproductive yesterday. We know you're more unproductive today, a part of that 17.3 billion lost and just take the day off, kick the feet up, have a beer, have a bloating sandwich, whatever you do. It's March madness time. About now is here to support your unproductive activity given the March madness right about now approved. We have some other news of the week. Also known as the news source, AP, the biggest source for all news, want to fill special stores and restaurants with paid memberships are betting on it. Paid loyalty programs are all the rage in the restaurant and retail worlds, looking for reliable sales and an unpredictable spinning environment. More companies have extended their points based loyalty tiers to making their most dependable customers feel valued for an upfront fee. Customers bombarded with membership offers or promised perks, PP, such as free deliveries and first dibs on new launches, but also in some cases right to jump ahead of nonmembers on reservation lists and customer service cues. So you're seeing a lot of upticks in this, people want that reoccurring revenue, these memberships, you think of prime, you think of, we talked about last week, target, circle 360 that really rolls off the tongue and others, but they also, the article went on to talk about it. It isn't on my show notes, but I did read it and the increase in private clubs and memberships and those types of things, that's on the rise. So you're seeing that and not necessarily like just luxury type things, but just private experiences, memberships, all that stuff. And I do counsel like work with businesses, it is a great way, if it makes sense for the business that you offer, that reoccurring revenue is just crucial with knowing and understanding cash flow and like having sources of repeatable and scalable business. So those membership fees are helpful. And I do think people want those first class experiences and depending on the product or service want to jump ahead or get first access, so it really just depends on what the offering might be. Are you a big membership club type guy 50, 50, I've joined some clubs, I was part of a tennis club in Houston for a while. Yeah, you are members of the Shriners aren't you guys see you riding around those little motorcycle? Yeah. I need pointing out just Costco count as a membership. It does. It totally does. That's like first on the list of these kinds of things, talk about that. Yeah. It's I love Costco and it's a great experience, but talk about the greatest like ploy of all time. We're going to have you pay membership coming here and buy a ton of shit that we make a ton of profit on. And we're going to call it a club. Sam's club was like the first Costco was after Sam's club. And now when I go to Sam's club, it feels like the Bobo experience a little bit like it's not quite Costco. I'm just going to call a spade a little not so great. It's like Walmart and Target. Yeah, that's a good comparison. But Costco's prices are generally about the same or better or it is like the Sam's club and the food at the counter, man. Sign me up for that hot dog or that pizza at Costco. I'm not going near that Sam's club food counter. Old Ted who's running that counter looks like he's been really hard to put up wet. I'm staying away from that guy. Ted, whatever he's serving at that Sam's club counter, it's not good. It's not what Pam at the Costco has going on with that little frosty little extra chocolate sauce hot dog. Give me one of those sausage rolls or whatever those things are. I'm in. And all that for $7. I'm like, man, I might start taking the old Alfred clan three, three square meals over at the Costco deli. I mean, every time I'm there, I get a hot dog. It's like a ritual. That's a good Frank. Like that's. And it's a great deal. It is a great deal. It's like the world's largest hot dog is it's like $1.85 or something. You can get out of there. I can get out there feeding the whole family for less than 20 bucks. And I feel like it's such a good deal. That's why it's always packed because people like it's a $1.85. They use that to bring in people now purely to get them in and buy 17 rolls of toilet paper, 57 bags of trash bags that you didn't really need. Like, I will convince myself to get that hot dog in a slice of that pizza that I need 452 good bars. How do we like these? The next six years we eat them eventually. Yeah. It goes always like, where are we going to put all this toilet paper? I'm like, we're going to make we're going to find room. I believe me. I'm stuck for a family of five and I'm so low in here. Yeah. I literally have a paper towel box I'm looking at with 24 rolls where it's like, bro, I think they have to lose money on the food because even the pizza's got six inches of cheese on it. This is the cheesiest slice of pizza I've ever seen and it's a $1.47 or whatever it is. My son will usually eat five or six, my oldest son will eat five or six pieces of pizza. Here's a Costco one and maybe two bites of the next one and dad gets the rest of his second slice. So it works out good because then I get the hot dog in the pizza and I don't have to order it. We got this. And every time they ring it up, that's four of these, six of those, two of those. All right. It's $17.85. Perfect. Oh, man. All right. I'm going to go buy some paper towels now. They got me. That's what we come for the membership for. So they're growing. If you want to feel special, get up those paid memberships, baby. All right. This comes with us from Metro.co.uk. Our good friends over there. We love those guys across the pond. Yep. Inside. This is, it says eight million pounds or whatever. It's like really like a hundred million dollar futuristic city that's being built by Toyota. So we talked about this last week. They should have built these places where you could drive these autonomous cars, but they didn't have people walking around. Sure enough, the next week, this all works together. Chris, the master plan. These are rules. That's why you have to listen every week to start building these storylines. First announced in 2021, Toyota has been hard at work constructing their woven city. It's miles away from Mount Fuji on the island of Hanzhu with the first of 2,000 anticipated residents now expected to move in before the end of the year, marketed as a mass human experiment. Sounds a little weird. Woven City will provide a living laboratory for Toyota to test prototypes of their renewable and energy efficient self-driving vehicles dubbed E pallets. I think that's what that says. Pallets, E pallets. Yeah, there you go. If you want to be a crash test dummy, sign up to go to Mount Fuji and get in there. I'd like to know what the benefits are besides this. There's going to be all these sensors. They're tracking everything. This is like a total futuristic like area data, everything's being collected like everything on steroids with sensors and automation, all this stuff. Same thing like walking to the stores, like you order something just by looking at it or something. I didn't look at those chips. I swear I didn't. You're thinking about it. They knew it. They got that brain link chip in there and they're like, shit, I was day dreaming about those chips. They just charged me. I guess I got to take them home now, you know, that's what we're coming to, your neural link. I know. Just thinking about drinking that soda. Damn. I really wanted that cheer wine. They got me. It's so good. Yeah. I had to eat my car to go over here. You just think it the car shows up. Hope that it doesn't hit you on the testing those sensors. Yeah. You're on the sidewalk. What could go wrong? You're on the sidewalk. Crash. Like. Oh, we've got to send it back to the sensors. Oh, it's broke. That guy's leg. That's part of the test, buddy. You're in the 2000. You're in the, you're in the, you're in the trust tree here. Yeah. It's part of the experience. All expenses paid. All injuries. Not cried about. That's how it goes here. That's how it goes here in woven city. Toyota leading it. Hey, I can live it about Fuji for a little bit. Hang out there. We're gonna see. I'm gonna check it out. Exactly. We're probably gonna be there, definitely Elon hanging out, putting chips at people's head. Yeah. So this is interesting. I think apples had, between the car failing and this article, innovation is slowing at the big apple. It's, I'd be a little concerned if I was old Tim Cook. I need to get in the kitchen because it ain't good. This comes to us from retail dive.com. They're kissing cousins with our friends at marketing dive. Apple is discussing a potential deal to integrate Google's artificial intelligence platform. Jim and I'm glad. Jim and I. American gladiators. All I think about when I hear that. Yeah. Artificial and platform. Jim and I. Into the iPhone. Bloomberg reported Monday and what could be a major deal between the rival tech giants and impact the wider AI industry. People will release iOS 18, the latest version of a mobile operating system later this year. And it's expected to integrate several AI features, including a more powerful version of the digital assistant, Siri. So again, expanding upon this essentially, everything apples been doing behind the scenes in AI is inferior and behind like Google and like other players. So they're splitting it to the side and they're going to integrate Jim and into their platform. And it's interesting. A couple of levels Apple and Google didn't always get along. Apple fought forever. Used to couldn't get to Google browser on the Apple you had to deal with Safari, dealing with you couldn't even get the basics, but then they finally worked that out and Apple was that was not going to fly with users. So they brewed that hurdle, but there's always a little bit of this give and take between the companies and now that they're going to integrate this in, which is good. If it's a better experience, it's good for consumers. That's all that matters in the day. This is more like Apple gave up on the car. Now you're putting in Google's AI, said your own, and what the hell's going on over there? I'm all about. What are you guys doing? Yeah. The Vision Pro. Before cash to any company in the world, can they not hire better developers or something? I don't know. Your Apple, I imagine you could get pick of the litter of the best people on the planet if you really wanted to. Yeah. That's like the phone man. Come on. When are we going to innovate? What's different here? You know what? And it's interesting. You've been saying this, but even last night at the gym, I'm sitting this on right here three guys. They were talking the same thing. One of them said he returned his Vision Pro. And they said the exact same thing. They're not innovating. The tech in the Vision Pro has a lot of promise, right, but the actual, which we've talked about, the actual usability of it and integration. Yep. It just isn't there yet. So people are noticing Apple and it's going to be, and it starts to road like it brand trust and stuff like this. So that's the slippery slope here. Like they've been the gold standard in technology or charging all the prices you're charging. And maybe it's all going to be software innovation. That's just what this is like with AI and stuff like that's great. And maybe it'll just be millions times better series, not that smart anyway. So you came in. Okay. Great. Set the alarm. That's wonderful. Right. But if I try to tell her like contextually anything, send a text message to Nicole tomorrow at 9 a.m. And remind her something that doesn't fucking work. You can't schedule text messages is fucking 2024. Give me a damn break. Are you serious? Like if it's, you could do one thing, set an alarm for this, send a text to why, but you add any more layers to it. It's like, I didn't, the internet serves for Nicole text message. What? What the fuck? Like this is a helpful. I didn't want to start that. It's frustrating. Yeah. And so innovate, do something. But they're going with Jim and I, it's all the matters can beat them, join them exactly. And if you want to learn from me directly, join my newsletter, Ryan offer dot com backslash newsletter. Sign up. I give daily advice on marketing, personal branding, podcasting life. Give that a shout. Join that. It's free. Staley, just like this show, give away our best advice, Stanley looks to rip, replicate the water bottle, hype among guys. This is all the rage at the middle school. My wife's a middle school principal and all the middle schoolers have these Stanley Bob. I don't even know. Where's your Stanley? I didn't know what they were talking about. I know the trauma now. Stanley has spent the past few years turning a vacuum insulated 40 ounce water bottle into one of the most desired women's wear accessories on the planet. That was really difficult to get out. Now it is widening its focus to include the customer. It was first design form more than 110 years ago. Men, the company with his own by Chicago based HIV, I have a next year plans to release new products geared towards guys beyond its current male audience of outdoor enthusiasts. The old Stanley bottle, are you familiar with this old fad this trend? Oh yeah. I've seen it in the gym until these videos, all these college girls doing like choreographed dances with them and stuff. What I don't understand is what the hell happened? Why didn't Yeti just put a damn handle on theirs? How did they let this market get out? They owned it. Everybody had to have a Yeti and then, but just put a handle on it. Yes, the farm, but that's not the same. To be honest. No. Even letting anyone else in this game was a mistake by them. All you need to do is a Stanley comes in, old Stanley can't trust him. He gets in the old hand out. He just snuck in. He's taking up all the space with those handles. And I will to hear my wife talk about it with like our kids, the middle schoolers, it's a thing. It's huge. Huge. Where's my Stanley? I've seen it everywhere. Where's this guy Stanley? I'm going to kick his ass. Oh, it's a fucking bottle. What? It's just another Yeti with a handle. In pastel colors. Yeah. Exactly. Pastel color bottle. And it's the Yeti. You know what I'm saying? Basically, the opposite of this, hey, maybe we should look at a product to target when you. Yeah. In these days, look, they're bulky as hell. It's 40 ounces. It's a giant. It's giant. Like it's, it's four beers in it. I almost, I could speak from experience. That's the only time I use a Stanley, I'm like, I need a roadie. That's a good. Road for roadies. Yeah. To go. Yeah. Go on a little golf cart ride. Hey. Yeah. Okay. We can only have to just go around the block now. We can go as far as you want. Got that Stanley roadie. That's a good time right there. But hey, let's see what they come out with men. We're going to rock it. We need to get them. Number one right there. Number two. Right about now. Stanley. Call us. We'll get the men excited about your hand. Why don't you get a handle on it? Oh, there's a free one. The next one calls money. All right. Next. CNBC.com brings us why EVs are causing a tire boom. The total market value has remained around 50 billion in the past few years and the overmarket grows at a rate about 2% per year. They're talking about the tire market. But electric vehicles are presenting a whole new set of opportunities, opportunity news for the business and cost for us with their heavy weight and quick acceleration EVs tend to burn through tires about 20% faster than internal combustion vehicles. This is according to Alex partners or alex, alex, alex partners and the tires cost about 50% more. All these savings that have been promised from these EVs are starting to get eaten up one way or another elsewhere. Oh, I've got to play the batteries. Oh, the batteries might go bad. Oh, they're better for the environment. Are they? And now we're burning more rubber, you know, there's a lot coming out. It's right. No one told a system beginning. Yeah. I think we're letting the air out of this story. Yeah. I like it. But I was loving hanging. Yeah, the dad jokes, but in all seriousness, I'm really not, but I like the EV thing. I like the premise of it. Sounds great. I like my RS7 motor purring or scaring people when I go by, but that's just me, but I understand why. It saves the planet, like cause less energy. Okay. Behind some support doing things. But the reality though is it doesn't really have that much of an impact. And the sales have been slowing overall, like I've made all these head, all these investments. And so it's coming to start to backfire a little bit. Maybe I put intended, I told my backfire, that Dodge start, my mom had, and I was like five years old. That thing would backfire. Dude, it takes two minutes. That thing to turn off. You bet your EV won't do that. That's an experience and itself. You show it with the grocery store. You know, one's been embarrassed the way I was embarrassed as a kid growing up with that car taking two minutes to shut off that Walker shame from parking the car to walk. Man, you're car still out of the auto turn off on its own. Those are 80s problems. Oh yeah. 80s problems. I need to get it. I wasn't going to be able to home maybe that thing. The Dodge start. I didn't think it was so bad. Anyway, there's a tire boom from all these EVs. I don't know. I'm not buying it yet. This EV revolution. Yeah. The more, I'm just feeling like with time, there's more and more coming out about there's not only not cost savings, but there's more negative impacts. It seems up. Yeah, definitely. Environmentally. Yep. Speaking of tires, one of our official sponsors got big tires. You don't need an EV that you need is a performance e-bike. The X2, it's a mountain bike, it's a street bike, it's a city cruiser. If you go to maxfoxbikes.com, check that thing out, the X2. I'm installing that double battery today, 90 mile range, Chris. I can go 90 mile. I can drive to my mom's house. I can go like here to Charlotte. That's a ride worth bringing a Stanley on. Yeah. I can put a touch of Stanley to that thing. I've been looking at the accessories. They kind of like this thing you put on the back, it's like, I can go pick up groceries in this thing. I think I'm going to attach a wagon behind it or something. I don't know. But... Enemy pick. When you do. Yes. The X2, get 150 off, $150 off. And let me tell you, it makes it cheaper than most mountain bikes. Ryan Alford 150, our way in ALFORD, $150 gets you $150 off the X2 and Ryan Alford 100, which is the X1, it's a little smaller bike, a little less girth and a little baby for smaller kids and or maybe is a more of a street bike. The X2 is just a beast. It goes about 28 miles per hour. I have to go in 28 and a 15 and didn't even think about it Chris. Just feeling free. Wind flowing through the hair, just living the dream, bro. Yeah. Get the double battery, I'm telling you, that's the way to go. It's got a long, comfortable seat. This thing is a true hybrid bike. It's like, it kind of looks like a mountain bike, it kind of looks like a cruiser and it rides like a scooter and you feel like the wind. Go to MacFoxbikes.com, use that code. I'm telling you, I am not the bike guy, but I find myself being like, there's a magnet in the garage, it's like pulling me. I want to just take the bike out because I am like one of those guys that I don't like, I like working out and getting sweaty. If I'm working in the yard, I want to the gym, I like sweat. But if I'm not doing one of those like tasks, I don't like to be like sweating and stinky. But to be able to hop on the bike and the convenience of that and the quickness of that, to be able to do that really quickly, to hop over to the gas station, kid needed some chips for her sandwich, just to get to work like scoot all over there and not deal with traffic as much and using the electric and not smelling, like stinking it up, if you're sweating your balls off. You know, it's, in look, we're in South Carolina, it's about to get hot. I'm going to be fake pedaling that thing all over town. I'll do a couple of pedaling one gear, like it looks, I'm really working this thing and really there's no exertion whatsoever. And so again, I exercise, I want to get my exercise. But if commuting, when you're commuting, you don't necessarily want to get stinky. This is the no stink machine right here, baby. The X2 for Mac Fox, take it off road on road, great sponsor of right about now and Ryan offered, Ryan offered 150, telling you, I only talk about shit that I like, it's like a magnet, pulling me in, I just want to ride it, I put a gnash on that thing this weekend, we rode around the driveway in the yard, he's riding with me, I don't know what it is, it's fun. Give them a shout out, you'll thank me for it. Finally today, this one's fun. This relates to you, Chris, this is just for you, this comes for our good friends at CNN and your buddies at CNN, I'll don't live in, he's still over there, they've been clomoned. Yeah, I'm either one of them's there, but I know, they went more ponchable than those guys. Anyway, tender downloads are falling, but the dating app era isn't over yet. As many as 46% of online data say they're, they've used tender according to a 2023 Pew Research Center report, but annual downloads are down more than a third from the apps 2014 peak, Matt's group, the company that owns tender reported its most recent earnings report of paying users fell by 8% last year to just below 10 million. So what they're saying is the apps, the peak is gone down, but the reality is it dating apps as a whole, I think you've seen this break because there's just more varieties, more options with the apps themselves, not so tender anymore. So hot. Do you use tender? I've used it before, I'm definitely not, I think there's better, you're more of a grinder guy now. That's another grinder guy, that is one that has never been on my phone, but 2014, the hot new thing, the world is different, if anything, I think people are trying to move back towards just meeting people. Are you on a e-harmony? No. Is that for old people? Is that still going on? I don't know. E-harmony, match.com. It really is. E-harmony. Yeah. And that every niche possible. Yeah, but you're right. I think you're headed towards the in real life thing, so hopefully that's picking back up. Even myself, I would prefer that, and I from what I hear that seems to be more people who are over it. And even these companies, they've got bots and shit on there, you know what I mean? It's like, you got creeps. That's the other thing is, it's like when you have these mass market things, you're always going to have the creepy ends of the spectrum, right? Someone's going to abuse this and be really weird. So you get a lot of creeps, and then you've got only fans' gross just promoting their pages via the dating app. I think it's a great way to augment, like, I'm happily married, so, but just thinking about it like functionally, it's a great way to, I don't know, if you can use it to filter and use it to hopefully get down to a worthwhile relationship, or at least the dates that are seemingly building towards something, seems like I don't have plenty of people married. Yeah. My wife, Nicole and I met on match. I was shopping from New York back here in G Vegas. Well, and found a winner. Yeah. I believe in it. Yeah. I want to play around the game. Yeah. If you're not in the game, maybe you should jump in it. Yeah. Maybe they're on one swipe away. They love your life. Oh, how life changes. My username then was golf too often. I have a golf to two years. I've never seen you hold a golf club, bro. Dude, I was a 680 cab, man. No, I was shit. I'm going to play. Be lucky to break me. I believe that. I believe it. No, I can play. I go bang the ball around. What happened is I driving would pretty be fine. It'd be the chipping and putting and short game. It'd be like, oh, it drives me crazy when you don't play. But, yeah. Golf less. First to go. That's what mine is. And I don't miss it. I'd rather be my kids games. Six hours. It's just too long. It's a good day. It's a good day. It's a good day. We get your dating on. We appreciate everyone that's out there. Got new show changes coming. Big thing coming. Keep listening. Do this favor. Give us a review on Apple. Spotify. Maybe the place is to take reviews and ratings. Five stars. Excuse me. No, give us feedback. You can find Chris and I on Instagram. And hey, if you're starting to podcast, go check out the radcastnetwork.com. Got all the network shows. We got some amazing shows on there already. Chris and I has other show vibe science. Got all kinds of variety coming. And if you are interested or already have a show, then you want to start turning it into a business. That's where you do it. The radcastnetwork.com. And all the show content for ours is Ryan is right. R-A-E-N. Ryan is right.com. Chris, any final words here on March of Madness weekend? Everyone stay safe. Have a good weekend. You're the madness. Hopefully your bracket isn't busted already. Hopefully that national title pick didn't get beaten the first round by Loyola Marymount or the sisters of the Rosemary or whatever. Those are the radio team that got in for whatever reason. They knocked off the North Carolina. I've already got beat by whoever they're playing. We don't have any other results yet. But hopefully your bracket is intact. Keep it together. We appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time. All right about now. This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a radcastnetwork production. Visit Ryan is right.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.