The Pop Culture and Publicly Traded Episode

‍SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:21

Oh, maybe I'm excited about this one. It's pop culture Thursday, we're going to do a total pop culture flyover, we're going to talk about a little auto, but a lot of pop culture, and we're gonna have a whole lot of fun. The people really want to know, who wouldn't they see me?

Kyle Mountsier  00:40

Would you say a whole new thing for us?

Paul Daly  00:42

It is, I don't know why. But this morning, it was like, if you don't know, like, this show is developed every morning. I mean, you probably if you listened long enough, no, because the the stuff is real time. But this morning was just like, we're gonna, we're gonna like we feel like we need to catch up on pop culture and catch everybody in this industry on pop culture, because we know that this is what's in the consumers mind when they're shopping for a car when they're walking in your showroom. So it is relevant. So if you think it's not relevant, we humbly suggest that you're incorrect. Yes, just humbly suggest. A couple of announcements today. We've been talking about it all week. But first, I want to say congratulations to the asoto community because we together have reached over 1 million impressions on social media so far this year, so far, 1 million impressions. And, and might I add, we are ramping up if you look at the curve, like we might actually hit like 2 million by the end of the year. We might but that's our first million so the first million is the hardest That's what they always say. We have a lot of great content coming out for you right now. We haven't talked about this but uh, so to con sessions asoto con sessions searching on your favorite podcast platform. We're also streaming them online video versions are available. These are the 10 to 15 minutes conversations we had live at a soda con in the little podcast booth aside effective our friends there helped us put this whole thing together. So actually, it's a sort of concessions by effective because they help make the whole thing happen.

Kyle Mountsier  02:09

We have a few release. We're going to be releasing I think this three week. Yeah, three through like early November. Got a lot. Yeah, we

Paul Daly  02:17

got some stuff. Jim McKelvey one just dropped where you and I sat down with Jim a little candid conversation. There's so much fun. I can't wait to listen to him because I only hosted a few of them. Kyle, you hosted a few Michael Cirilo hosted some Glen Lundy hosted some, a lot of Shabti hosted some so you're gonna get a real variety show. We also have auto collabs episodes dropping as well, on the podcast front. Kyle and I are going to name that next week. So if you're going to name that we can't wait to give you some daps in person. And also we're going to be at the creative track at modern retail conference and you can join us for the creative track because we're two of the five instructors. You can go to a so two.com forward slash m. AR see. That does it for the housekeeping what are we talking about today's pop culture Thursday making

Kyle Mountsier  02:59

big announcements Let's go the music Paul,

Paul Daly  03:08

I'm excited. I'm excited about pop culture Thursday just hitting all the buttons on the road caster today go well,

Kyle Mountsier  03:13

I'm much talked about event in the world of automotive happened a little bit earlier today before the most of us woke up. Some of us were awake when it happened. But over in Europe, the Porsche IPO has happened and topped initial expectations. The initially proposed range was like somewhere in the 75 to $80 per share. And it settled in right at about 79.9 $3 per share. The list was rolled back the list price brought in over $9.1 billion will Europe's largest IPO in a decade for a spin off automaker, it's wild because it is the in the top one come on yet, just the initial valuation puts the valuation close to the total market cap of VW Group which it was spun off of which owns VW Audi and a few other smaller brands. So the goal is to take these funds, the 9.1 billion and move them into an electrification plan for Porsche and move all of the loyalty that they have over into into that new market, which I think a lot of manufacturers are starting to struggle with. And I think this type of move for that group is a really smart move because it like segments and says we're going after it. Come on with us. You know, well, here's

Paul Daly  04:35

why this applies to pop culture Thursday. The reason is, the valuation was so high because the retail appetite was so high because of the community that has been built around the Porsche brand and vehicles for so long. This isn't just because it's an amazing car or everybody wants to get into the automotive industry. This is because retail appetite retail invest Shares, they want to own a piece of the brand. They want to own a piece of the legacy. Sure, there's a great business model behind it, too. But this is an app. I think this is one of the few instances where we see the weighing machine as far as like the business practices, the actual product, the manufacturing that's in place, and the voting machine, which is just consumer appetite to like, be a part of something has come together. And I think it's a really solid IPO. I personally not investment advice, but I think it's going to stand strong.

Kyle Mountsier  05:30

Yeah. And also, this is the other pop culture thing when you lean into pop culture, you can lean into the voting machine a lot more. Take a look at Tesla. Oh, two

Paul Daly  05:39

truth Truth VW

Kyle Mountsier  05:41

poacher oh

Paul Daly  05:42

my gosh, he's just going.

Kyle Mountsier  05:49

One of the most iconic cultures and communities in in like the world is the Harley Davidson community. And they have recently also spun off an electric division, their electric motorcycle division has been spun off in a spec deal, creating the first publicly traded electric motorcycle company in the US, not quite as much cash,

Paul Daly  06:11

a little bit less, but a little bit less than

Kyle Mountsier  06:15

$7 billion in cash. And Harley Davidson still retain 74% ownership in the brand so they only sold off about 26% of it. And and so the the if you've been following the story, live wire is the brand that they've that they've put the electric motorcycle division under and they're starting prices of their their motorcycles are still under 20 grand. So that kind of which an interesting community move.

Paul Daly  06:41

Well, if you're a motorcyclist, you understand that $17,000 is still an expensive motorcycle. Sure. It's still an expensive bike. We when we were talking with Rick Reichert, so Riker, they have a Harley dealership. And Rick has been, you know, one of the first to like ride the bikes. And you know, he's telling us about like the experience of you know, the throttle sound that makes and the seat vibration, like it sounds like a pretty visceral experience. You know, so we'll see what happens with Livewire but I even was checking out the site this morning. We linked it up in the show notes. Kind of like the energy around it is really reaching after this new demographic. You see those e bikes that are kind of like getting closer to motorcycles like those super 73 e bikes. And now you see Livewire kind of courting that demographic as far as like transportation, culture and because the motorcycling you know, industry is getting a little older, like the data will show you that. So I think the Evie bikes is going to bring more motorcycling into pop culture and a hat. I, you know, I've been a Honda guy. And I have two Honda motorcycles model a really old one like me, 1979 and a newer one that runs all the time. And I did I did actually go through the little trade tool on the side, like how much is that worth? Because, like, looks pretty cool. You can get like 100 And I don't know, it's like 175 miles range, which is really good on a motorcycle, and it takes about 75 minutes to charge it. So

Kyle Mountsier  08:05

it's not too bad. I have a really, I'm guessing that Harley Davidson is going to do a really good job at curating like a whole new community. They do such you look at like a Harley Davidson shop. I mean, the Harley Davidson shop that the dealership that I used to work for near us every Saturday during the spring, summer and early fall. Had a concert outside, right. Yeah, we are. There's a stage it's yeah. So they just know how to build brand and build community. It's it's not just

Paul Daly  08:36

there's that word again,

Kyle Mountsier  08:37

Kyle on their account.

Paul Daly  08:38

There's that word again. Speaking of community stuff, I'm sorry, we made a disclosure. We made a decision today with this many stories. We have to keep it. Speaking of community Tesla's annual AI Day is tomorrow where the likely star will be the company's optimist Q optimists, humanoid robot. Tesla revealed the project last year that thing that's why that is slick. And last year, they had the one it was just somebody in a suit, but it danced. It was really funny. Tesla revealed the project last year is promising to show off an actual working prototype this year. That's intended to replace humans in dangerous or repetitive or boring tasks. And they can lift it's 125 pound robot battery powered, and it's got 40 actuators 12 of which are just in the hands. They have a picture of the robot like doing the little heart. And you know, so it can lift up to 150 pounds the robot and you know, people were like, Oh, are humanoids scary are they? And you know, in kind of typical fashion Tesla's like, well, if you can run more than five miles an hour, you'll be safe. And basically, they said like, like, like a five year old could push it over. Right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about all that. It's 100

Kyle Mountsier  09:57

Sure, because it doesn't have the ability to like trance For weighed, you know, think about that, like, put 125 pounds stick straight up in the air and tell it over No it won't. No way. How do you How can you create the intelligence to balance itself?

Paul Daly  10:16

Oh, man, it's easy. You got to see you got to go search Boston Dynamics and look at their robotics and you literally will see them. So you see people like full head linebacker charging into these things and they like stabilize and they look at you in the eyes turn red. All that doesn't happen.

Kyle Mountsier  10:34

Doesn't look like that football player.

Paul Daly  10:36

It doesn't even have a face. The test is also going to be talking about their updates to its full self driving capabilities. The beta has been out a lot of people have testing it. You've been seeing things on social media, some people saying good things, some people saying hey, it's not quite working, right. So it'll be interesting to see how all these things kind of come together in this in this like kind of Tesla ecosystem. But if you're interested, you can watch the whole thing live streamed from their YouTube page, as usual. Paul, speaking

Kyle Mountsier  11:05

of new ecosystems,

Paul Daly  11:08

okay, segue. I was waiting to see you had there. I had it.

Kyle Mountsier  11:13

Okay, okay. Retail wire has recently reported that Walmart, you know, the one that you expected, has moved into the metaverse. The retail giant has launched two immersive experiences on what's called the Robox gaming Roblox gaming platform. If you have kids, you know what we're talking about. Walmart, land and Walmart, universal play, are the retailers first attempts to connect visitors with virtual merch, okay, they're calling it verge, which sounds very Walmart ish to me that have real life matches on walmart.com. And in the chain store. So they're going, Hey, look, the Verge is over here. But also, we've matched that in a physical presence. i Well, one, I mean, we just saw the video of it. Like, it's a really cool experience. It feels it feels very fun, very energetic. It doesn't. And honestly, like, when I think of Walmart, I think kind of like walking into a very stale, very sterile environment of like, shelves, and you get things and they go check out and then you get out. There's no like,

Paul Daly  12:21

like, there is an experience. There's one it's not typically one I want to repeat normally because of the people not the products, right? That is

Kyle Mountsier  12:33

a Walmart thing. Hey, we're gonna Yeah, what? There's a new YouTube channel that pops up people of the Walmart

Paul Daly  12:39

people. Yeah. No, I mean, here's like so the CMO, William White said, we know our customers are spending loads of time there. So we're focusing on creative new and innovative experience to excite them, something we're already trying to do in communities where they live, and now the virtual worlds where they play. So here's the cool thing. No real money will be changing hands. But users can earn coins that get them like kind of representations of actual like toys, and like clothing items they can try stuff on. There's a dance challenge. They can engage in a Stranger Things trivia with with one of the actual ads, it's the kid who plays Dustin I think it's Stranger Things I don't remember his name. And there's, this is my favorite part. It says brilliant. There's an overhead blimp that randomly will show up and drop toys that you can run around to collect like a pie and I couldn't be more impressed with Walmart's swing on this because my kids have played robot Roblox for years like Miles, who now is taller than me. And one of our editors here at asoto he played Roblox in the very very beginning, when it was like had just come out and so my kids are always on it. And they're always doing things and Walmart's found a way to build community and brand affinity through a fun game in an environment where the young folks are are already enjoying themselves. I'm so excited to see Walmart coming out with a swing because I would have thought like this would be something that Amazon would have done first, but well

Kyle Mountsier  14:03

then I grabbed people perfect for it because like maybe think about like early like college age early 20s people that need like bargain items like transferring that that mentality and even so many people that like grew up on Roblox in that Gen Y's Gen Z Gen a arena, right? Like they know what that experience moves people. They know that they can transfer the experience in the metaverse to a physical retail location pretty quickly if there's brand recognition and so until

Paul Daly  14:36

they figure out the next step, wait till they may figure out the next step between earning things in the game and actually transferring that into tangible real items at the store like Walmart. I don't know and they've just been they've been pressing me lately, like when an old dog find some new tricks I get really excited. I get really excited. Speaking of now, there's there's no real easy way to put this I'm just gonna say stop. We're just gonna do the stop. Right? When we say say what time NFT trading. We've talked about NF t's a long time on the show. And we've actually now seen the full rise and maybe collapse. Well, it's definitely a collapse of the market. And if the trading volume is way down year over year, Bloomberg first reported on data hosted by doing analytics that showed trading volume has gone from one 17 billion breezing the billion word a lot, today 17 billion to just 466 million between January and September of this year. That's a 97% drop in just nine months. And the data was all collected from you know, the major trading platforms like open open sea and FTX, larva labs, etc. And so this actually puts trading below of what it was June last year before the spike actually happened.

Kyle Mountsier  15:51

What it was, I just remember like December, January, February, even on this show, talking last year, like this isn't going away. Everyone's moving there. The Metaverse is coming. Like even just to see, you know, Facebook changed their name to meta and, you know, I know that NF T's aren't Metaverse, but it's all web three and buildings, a transactional piece of the metaverse for sure all of that. And so, you know, it's it's just honestly shocking to see the dynamic change in what it has done. Now, here's what's interesting is, is that NFT, such as the board, APE Yacht Club, are still retaining their value, even though like the mega names trading, right, so So any of those like Mega names, the big ones that kind of like had staying power before, during, and after, so far, they still hold their value. So it's like people are holding them, or when they do get traded, they get they still trade at that higher value. So I think there's still a case for like, Hey, if you create a bold enough community, that that is leaned in based on this item and access, then you still have the opportunity to retain value, even though trading value goes down. Now, that doesn't help the originator of the NFT. But I think it still has a proof case for like the staying value, like the staying power. If the same.

Paul Daly  17:10

It literally is if there's a common thread of pop culture Thursday, it is the principle and concept of community. Right? The NF T's that built legitimate community, not just like the artists that said, Hey, I'm going to turn my art into an NF T and sell it for a lot of money. Yep, right? Gary Vaynerchuk Gary Vee, he would be like, hey, they're, they're in really dangerous territory, if they're not treating that NFT with some community benefits, or some functional utility over time, because you said, you know, you're gonna sell this thing to a lot for a lot of money, and people are gonna buy it. And then when the market does crash, and it will, he predicted it. He said, Your fans are going to be left holding the bag, what do you think that's going to do for their perception of you? Right? And that's an ouch. And so that's actually happening now, in real time companies, like, you know, like Starbucks and people who are trying to ride the craze and say, hey, get the Starbucks NFT they're actually rebranding those a little bit now as digital collectibles. Yeah, which is, I don't know why someone didn't just call it that from the beginning. That's basically what they are. Now that we're looking to dodge and disassociate. We come up with a really great word. Yes, we were like tripping over ourselves to just explain an NFT earlier, it's a digital collectible. So yeah, it'll, I mean, we'll certainly see, I think a rise and fall and I think you'll see the strong projects that build community staying true through this maintaining their thing and leaning in and investing into the people, the mindsets and the brands that around these big ones, and I think those are going to survive and we'll see another Upswing but I mean, this is this is a great purge. You know, it's a little tricky. Speaking of things that are tricky.

Kyle Mountsier  18:52

I see you, you this is a funny that in there. Yeah, this

Paul Daly  18:56

is a fun one. This is a fun one. Trixie trickshot comedy quintet. Dude Perfect, revealed their plans yesterday for our $100 million headquarters complex entertainment complex. These gents they were college roommates, they released their first trick shot video on a dare now they have over 58 million subscribers and 15 billion views. Their entertainment is very family oriented. It's a lot of fun. I was like, Why do I like this? Do I like it? Because it's it's trick shots? Because they're just good guys. Do I like it because my whole family can watch it together? Yes. I'm an entrepreneur. Right? Yeah. I'm a creator. In a lot of reasons

Kyle Mountsier  19:36

for all of the above, right? Yeah. It really is. You know, look, yeah, I mean,

Paul Daly  19:42

first headquarters video backup.

Kyle Mountsier  19:44

The cow gave the specs on the headquarters. If you haven't watched if you're listening only go search this because it's a three story headquarters building. It has a 330 foot just trickshot tower. That's just that's it. They've got to do perfect Museum, mini golf a merch store. restaurants and to whole acres of outdoor space, which if I had to guess they're gonna utilize quite creatively. And, and, and yeah, it's gonna be a really I mean, people are going to be able to interact with the space too. So you know that they have said like, hey, they're going to try their hand at an impossible shot, they're gonna be able to see the whole city, right? There's this, there's this sweeping structure. There's, it's like they call it a focal beacon of the whole Dude Perfect. So like we talked about putting up a beacon. It's like, Hey, here's the center of this kind of community. And it looks, feels and interacts like all of the rest of our content. It's pure brand play, pure community play.

Paul Daly  20:49

Earlier in the year, we had a an event in Dallas, and I took my family down and we went to the Magnolia silos, right? And if you know about that, that was kind of the kind of culmination of our love of the of the Magnolia network and Chip and Joanna and kind of how our family likes. And when we went there, it was like, You were with all the other people that also thought that these things are awesome that home is given nod to anyone and kind of know, like, yeah, we're in the same zone. Yeah, like we're having the same experience and what it really codified the whole brand experience into you realize, hey, here's the rest of the community that they do exist. They're one place, I think this is going to do the same exact thing for the Dude Perfect ecosystem. It's fun to see him getting into real estate, because it's a great way to build wealth over time, because it just good guys. And, look, I think it just ties back to what we've been talking about in every single story today. It wasn't intentional, but it's just the nature of culture, culture is based on community. So I think as we in the retail automotive industry, whether that is as a dealer or an industry partner, like remembering that people are hardwired to seek community to find the others that think the same way you do the believed the same things that you see you believe, and then move closer together and do something together. So there you go. That's our very first pop culture. Thursday,

Kyle Mountsier  22:10

and Paul use the word codified. I did, I did use

Paul Daly  22:14

codified. So go out there. Think about community and go, go build some go build some community

‍