Happy Saturday Besties,

 🎃 H A L L O W E E N  E D I T I O N 🎃

It’s Costume Crunch Time… so we brainstormed some pop-biz ideas for ya to steal.

👻 Pop-Biz Costume Ideas 👻

• Frappuccino Phantom (nothing freakier than Starbucks sales right now)

• Sneaker Reaper (because Nike’s biz has been buried)

• Abercrombie & Freak (A&F’s stock is back from the dead)

• Costco Casket (they probably sell gold-covered caskets now)

• Or, of course, Couples’ Costumes: Founder Mode Mummy & Manager Mode Mummy.

By the way, you’re required to send us pics if ya use one. 📸

HINT: Scroll to the bottom for a hint on episode 3. #TheBestIdeaYet

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DID YOU KNOW

These things about candy…

• ⭐️ Starbursts were 1st called “Opal Fruits,” then “M&M Fruit Chewies.”

• 🐓 The Chicken Dinner Bar was a discontinued candy bar. It was chicken-less.

• 🌽 Candy corn was originally called “chicken feed” by The Goelitz Confectionery Company.

• 👽 Sales jumped 300% for Reese’s Pieces after their feature in E.T.

GET THIS

🍫 Less cocoa, more gummy: Cocoa prices quadrupled in 2023 to all-time-high. The reason: 75% world’s cocoa beans are grown in 4 West African countries — and El Nino weather destroyed the harvest, which killed supply.

• But what about the candy!?! Pivot to gummies — Candy Companies are pushing cheaper gummies or filling chocolate bars with substitutes.

• Let’s be clear: This isn’t a swap-flation, it’s a swap-grade. And back in the early 1800s, a similar “we need an alt-chocolate” situation resulted in Nutella — Chocolate was subbed for hazelnuts during Napoleon’s blockade of Italy…Nerd clusters anybody?

🎃 The 12-ft tall guy out front: is the viral Home Depot skeleton named Skelly. It’s alarming and it’s on your next-door neighbor Jerry’s front lawn. Skelly was actually the idea of Lance Allen, who worked in the power-drill department for 10 years. After visiting Universal Studios he shared his idea with corporate. This year Home Depot even made it 2-ft taller and sold 4x as many…Not too shabby.

😱 Are Haunted Houses a booming biz? Nope. The majority fail within 3 years (60%). This is a wild stat: If the local baseball team is in playoffs, then local haunted house sales drop 23% as would-be visitors stay home instead. Another stat: ⅕ of Americans visit a haunted house each season. And only 2% of houses have reached 50K visitors/year. Booo.

• FYI this site has the best Haunted Houses by state in the US.

DEEP DIVE

🥠  Fortune cookies edition…

There’s a Fortune Cookie monopoly: The startup OpenFortune is in over 47K Asian restaurants, and says they control 90% of the fortune cookie market. But it’s as much an ad biz as a cookie biz… The co-founders saw an opportunity for advertisements in the center of the cookies (so Gary Vaynerchuck just invested in ‘em). Where there are eyeballs, there will be ads.

Here’s the Don Draper key: Fortune cookie are opened during a rare moment: You’re satisfied, social, and optimistic at the end of a meal. It’s rare to meet a customer at a moment of such universal positive attention as during the fortune cookie opening in front of your whole crew. Plus, it scales…

🥠 6% of openers share their fortune (with that ad) on social media

🥠 100% of openers share their fortune (with that ad) with the whole table

The Takeaway: “Great advertising isn’t about places, its about moments. It’s Momentizing”

Btw, if you’re curious about how fortunes are written…

(From OpenFortune’s cookie ads story)

GOTTA’ KNOW

🕶️ Apple, how’s it going?: Curious about Vision Pro sales? Not looking good (literally). Apple hasn’t released numbers…. but The Information reports they’ll likely halt production by the end of this year. Apple’s biggest launch of this year may not make it to next…

🏠 Housing update: Home Sales are on pace for their worst year since ‘95. 2024 is on pace for just 3M homes changing hands (-50% from 2021). This will be 3rd straight year of slowing home sales. The Fed has begun lowering interest rates, but mortgage rates are still stubbornly high (hey guys, time to budge).

 🐢 In a national security memo from The White House, The Biden Administration says we’re moving too slow with the use of A.I. So The Pentagon & intelligence agencies are going to up their usage. The interesting twist: Given the sensitivity of the data they input into an AI system, which one will they choose? Love is Blind… but AI isn’t.

BEST TAKEAWAY

👻 Great branding neeeeeds tension.

Ghost energy drink was just acquired by Doc Pepper for a smooth $1B — It’s the fastest-growing energy drink brand in the US, with sales up 4x in 3 years. But the key to Ghost's success is the tension in the brand:

• It’s wildly immature… Ghost’s R&D team sounds like a class of 3rd Graders who hate their dentist. The top flavors: WarHeads, Swedish Fish, Bubbleicious, & Sour Patch Kids.

• But it’s also wildly mature… Ghost’s other differentiator is radical transparency. Unlike other energy drinks, it lists the exact amount of key ingredients (Ex: 200mg caffeine, 100mg neurofactor… etc.).

That contrast, that tension? That’s the blueprint for great branding. Ghost got it.

Listen to the Scariest Drink Ever for the deets.

TELL A BESTIE

The best headlines to bring to the weekend tailgate…

• 🏡 San Diego’s “Sand Castle House” sets local record at $108M (looks fun)

• 🛒 Gen Z is “designing” their fridge with boujie snacks

• 🍕 Jeff Bezos & tech CEOs snack choices.

• 👯‍♀️ 70% of people say they have a ‘work spouse.” Next Question: But should you?

• 🚬 Nobody smokes on planes, yet “No Smoking” signs will now stay lit up on ‘em… forever

And one more thing. The HINT for The Best Idea Yet episode 3 is… 🍾🩴

— Nick & Jack

PS: Enjoy these pics from Halloween’s past 👻