How O.J. Simpson Changed Media & The $25B Lunchables Market

This episode explores the significant impact O.J. Simpson had on the media and delves into the controversial $25 billion market of Lunchables.

1. O.J. Simpson's trial was a pivotal moment in American media, significantly boosting 24/7 news coverage.
2. Simpson's fame helped blur the lines between celebrity culture and media coverage, influencing modern reality TV.
3. Lunchables face criticism for unhealthy ingredients, despite their popularity and convenience.
4. The integration of Lunchables into schools has sparked a health policy debate regarding processed foods in educational settings.
5. The episode also touches on broader impacts of celebrity and media on public perception and health standards.

1. Introduction

Overview of the episode's theme and celebration of the 300th episode milestone. Neil Freiman: "Today, how OJ Simpson changed the American media landscape forever."

2. O.J. Simpson's Impact

Discussion on the transformative effects of the O.J. Simpson trial on media and culture. Neil Freiman: "In the American media landscape, everything changed after OJ."

3. The Lunchables Controversy

Exploration of the health concerns and market impact of Lunchables. Toby Howell: "Schools are offering Lunchables? Yes, as of last year."

4. Closing Remarks

Reflections on the episode's topics and a teaser of upcoming content. Neil Freiman: "This is so fun to do every morning and we hope for the next 300 episodes you'll stick with us."

1. Be critical of media consumption: Evaluate how media influences your perception of reality and celebrity culture.
2. Monitor dietary choices: Be aware of the nutritional content of convenient food products, especially for children.
3. Educate on media history: Understand the historical contexts that shape current media practices.
4. Advocate for healthy school lunches: Support policies that prioritize the health of children in school meal programs.
5. Engage in informed discussions about celebrity impacts on society to better understand their broader societal roles.

Episode 300: Neal and Toby reflect on how the O.J. trial changed how media is broadcasted and how we became glued to our screens. Then, early reviews of the AI Pin have not been favorable. What will this mean for wearable AI tech? Next, Lunchables might be tapping into a billion dollar industry in schools but one group wants to put an end to that. Also, a recent study shows that not all private schools are worth the investment. Meanwhile, a real estate tycoon in Vietnam has been found guilty for embezzlement equal to 3% of the country’s GDP. Lastly, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s football team Wrexham might have a storybook ending to their season.

People

O.J. Simpson, Neil Freiman, Toby Howell

Companies

Kraft Heinz

Content Warnings:

None

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Neil Freiman

Today, how OJ Simpson changed the american media landscape forever. Ben students, you may have stacked your last wet disc of ham on artificial cheese because lunchables are facing some heat for being super unhealthy. It's Friday, April 12. Let's slide.

Toby Howell

This is a special day for Morning Brew Daily because it's episode number 300. So let me just get this out of my system. This is Morning Brew daily. How was my spartan impression? I'm scared already.

Neil Freiman

What an epic. What an epic movie. And thanks so much to everyone listening for joining us for 300 episodes, or however many of those you listen to, we really, really, really appreciate it. This is so fun to do every morning and we hope for the next 300 episodes you'll stick with us. So stick with us.

Toby Howell

For sure. There's no more movies named after future episode numbers. So that was the last movie impression you're going to get out of me. So I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted. Now let's hear from our friends over at Robinhood Crypto.

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Neil Freiman

Toby, that was Simone biles level ten out of ten. You had to have been there. You can't imagine what it was like. That is what you kept hearing yesterday from people who lived through the all encompassing OJ Simpson saga in the nineties, the 16th month stretch from when he was accused of murdering his ex wife and her friend to his acquittal for those crimes in the so called trial of the century. OJ died yesterday at age 76 from cancer, sparking conversation about his role in revolutionizing american media.

One thing that's true is nobody had a tighter grip on America as OJ. And in our current fragmented culture, nothing will ever again. 57% of the country, more than 150 million viewers, watch the verdict being read after his trial in October 1995. That's far more people than I've watched any Super bowl. And the year before that, 95 million people stopped what they were doing to watch his low speed car chase when he fled police in a white Ford Bronco.

In the american media landscape, everything changed after OJ. The attention he commanded empowered 24/7 news coverage by CNN and other cable networks. His case also showed the narrative power of true crime stories that oftentimes real life mysteries were more compelling than the ones you script. And also he laid the foundation for the celebrity fueled reality tv age we live in now. You can draw a direct line between OJ and the Kardashians.

Toby, thoughts on OJ? A guy so famous you don't even need to say his last name. OJ was a guy who lived a lot of lives. He first rode to stardom in college at USC, where he won the Heisman. He was one of the.

Toby Howell

He was the first running back to break the 2000 yard rushing mark in the NFL. He was also this intensely marketable character and kind of remade the marketing industry when it comes to spokespeople. Hertz made him the first black man hired for a corporate national ad campaign back in 1975. And that Hertz deal was an absolute game changer, not only for OJ, but for Hertz itself. They said their brand recall jumps more than 40% after this famous ad of him running through the airport with people cheering him on started to go live.

And in the first calendar year after he began appearing in Hertz ad, the company's net profits jumped 50%. So this was one of the first really industry leading marketing campaigns that really moved the needle for a company. It does feel like, I mean, I guess in this day and age, the State Farm, the state farm commercials with all of the NFL qbs. But using an athlete as an endorser was definitely a pioneering move at the time. I want to talk about what this meant for cable tv and television more broadly.

Neil Freiman

CNN at the time of this happening was 14 years old. It was an appointment viewing. It was. It was kind of niche in the overall landscape. Fox and MSNBC.

Fox News and MSNBC had not even debuted on Cuba cable yet. That was two years before that happened. But what happened on CNN in those days, in 1994 and 1995, when Americans literally stopped what they were doing? I heard stories of people at the New York Stock Exchange stopping looking at their trading, whatever they were trading, to watch the verdict happen. Kids in school would not learn, and the teachers would wheel in tv so everyone could watch the verdict.

Nothing like that may have happened again, may ever happen again, but it did show the power of reality. True crime, celebrity fueled chaos to that. This is an extreme media and tv power. Yeah, I mean, it is insane that we were freaking out about Caitlin Clark drawing 18 million viewers, which was very impressive, but 150 million people tuned in to watch this verdict. And according to this survey from Nielsen and Sony, that trial was viewed as the third most, quote, universally impactful televised event of the last 50 years, behind only September 11 and Hurricane Katrina.

Toby Howell

So it really just puts it into perspective. It's hard for me, a youthful Gen Z, to really wrap my mind about how big OJ was. But all you have to do is look at the docu series that have come and still resonated with people. That fascination with OJ never went away. In 2016, there was the FX miniseries.

There's this five part ESPN documentary. So the world has not moved on for OJ, even though OJ has moved on from the world. And in terms of celebrity culture, the Kardashians, you can draw a direct through line from what happened with OJ to the keeping up with the Kardashians and the Kardashian business empire. It all started when Robert Kardashian, who was friends with OJ Simpson, was on his defense team. And also Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian Empire, was friends with his.

Ex wife there's a company called Humane you may have heard us talk about before that makes a piece of AI powered hardware called the AI pin. Humane was founded by two former Apple engineers. It secured $240 million from the likes of Sam Altman, Microsoft, and Salesforce in its flagship product. The AI pin made its debut this week in early reviews for the device that retails for $700, plus a $24 a month subscription fee, or less than stellar. This device was created for a post smartphone world.

It's about the size of two aa batteries, and you clip it onto your shirt like a lapel pin instead of a screen, it projects information onto your hand via green lasers. Comes with a camera, speaker, and cellular connection, and it runs on the latest version of OpenAI's chat GPT. But out in the wild, reviewers are dragging the first generation tech. A New York Times reviewer asked it what the square root of 49 is, and it answered back 49. The Verge called it thoroughly unfinished and so totally broken in so many unacceptable ways.

An Engadget said it was worse than enochia e seven from 2012, but humane has fired back, saying that this is very much a version one and that lots of improvements are soon to come. Neil, I want to keep an open mind here, but early reviews were just really not great, right? I mean, it doesn't seem like this thing really works or does all the things it says it does, but I'm holding out hope. I want to, you know, I am optimistic about that. This, and not necessarily this gadget, but the concept of a device that uses AI to free us from the shackles of our screen time, that's really the goal of this.

Neil Freiman

And it does some things pretty admirably. And reviewers did like the fact that you could do stuff and jot down information and learn information without looking at a screen, and you had your hands open as well to, you know, carry groceries or whatever, whether it's write something on a grocery list or add something to your to do list while packing. So I love the concept of this. This 1 may not be ready for primetime, and it's part of this growing wave of companies that are releasing tech before they're ready to be released with. And they just say, oh, don't worry about it.

We'll, we'll, we'll upgrade it. It'll be in the next, it'll be in v two. We saw this with Fisker and the terrible review it got, and it just said, hey, we'll, we'll update it. Don't worry. This is not ready, but it is curious that they're releasing it, especially with a dollar 700 price tag and a $24 a month subscription.

I'm not sure how many people are going to buy this version of it. Right. Part of the issue is when you release a piece of tech that costs that much money and then a lot of people, it enters review culture these days because we have spoken about Fisker and how much impact these reviewers. We've talked about Marquez Brownlee. He's this very influential youtuber.

Toby Howell

His review is dropping tomorrow. A lot of people kind of look to him. So there is definitely a risk with putting out an unfinished product into the wild because it just got universally dragged yesterday. The issue I think that a lot of reviewers found was that it just doesn't work about half the time. Half the time you want it to do something, it will just pause for 10 seconds and then say error message or something like that.

So when you want something to replace your phone on the surface, sounds great to just ask it like, hey, how many calories are in this bagel? Or hey, show me the reviews of this restaurant by taking a picture of it. All these sound great, but if it doesn't work, then of course you're not going to pay dollar 700 for it. No, there's a food fight going down in the school cafeteria. Consumer Reports urged the government to remove lunchables from its school lunch program after analysis found high amounts of sodium and elevated levels of heavy metals in the product.

Neil Freiman

Those should stay in the band room. The advocacy group said these meals aren't healthy for children and should be swapped out for healthier options. A question probably popped into your head. Schools are offering lunchables? Yes, as of last year, lunchables owner Kraft Heinz secured a deal to sell two different varieties in school cafeterias.

Turkey and cheddar, cracker stackers and extra cheesy pizza. Lunchables was overjoyed to take your lunch money. Kraft Heinz said getting into schools was a $25 billion opportunity for the company. But the agreement also met a lot of resistance from health policymakers who said ultra processed food shouldn't be served to kids. And this consumer report study only adds to the pressure.

For its part, Kraft Heinz says it stands by the quality and health standards of lunchables, so it's not backing down. Toby, I know you're a big lunchables guy. Do you think there's merit to these criticisms? Absolutely. I can, I can hold two thoughts in my head at the same time.

Toby Howell

I do love lunchables, but you just know that they cannot be the most healthy things for you because they are very processed foods. And through that process of processing foods, it does add a lot of these harmful chemicals and elements into food. Sodium content is just wild. The lead content is higher than you ever want it to be. And it is just crazy that we do have this system that allows companies to soften nutritional standards in order to get their food in front of this very young audience that doesn't really have any other options other than to eat the food that their schools provide to them.

So it is opening up the Pandora's box of why does our nutritional system work the way it does in schools? Right? So this. Let's talk about how this program works. Basically, it was started in 1946.

Neil Freiman

Schools receive cash subsidies from the government for every eligible meal they serve. This is governed by the USDA. And the USDA doesn't set standards for what particular products or items you can serve. They just do a holistic nutritional value for the entire meal. So say you want to serve lunchables, you can do that, but it has to be accompanied maybe by an apple or a banana, because lunchables, as far as I know, don't have veggies or fruits.

You're shaking. No, they do not. So it's not just like you can serve lunchables, you can serve this particular product. It is. You have to hit these particular benchmarks and you can do whatever you want with it.

Schools to be eligible for these subsidies, and many schools in low income areas that are underfunded are looking at lunchables and they're like, oh, this is great. Like, I know exactly what I'm serving to kids every single time. I can read the nutritional facts. There's a level of standard and there's a level of consistency that I'm not getting with other meals. So that's why lunchables seems attractive for a lot of school districts.

Toby Howell

And one of the main selling points of lunchables is that they're refrigerated, not frozen, which makes them a lot easier to ship, a lot easier to store as well. So, yes, had a lot of things going for them. And I will say Kraft on the Kraft Heinz of things, it was a big marketing win. Imagine being able to get in front of your ideal customer profile, which is young children every single day for lunch. The company even noted an investor update last year that the rollout of lunchables in schools resulted in media exposure that was 99% positive or neutral, while costing the marketing virtually nothing to do.

So from their perspective, from a business perspective, it was a big win. But from a nutritional perspective, we might need to take a step back and reevaluate our priorities. Up next, you have a hearty dose of stock of the week, dog of the week coming your way.

Neil Freiman

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Toby Howell

It's time for your stock of the week, dog of the Week, where Neil and I dig into the markets in a merge with one stock that is looking like a million bucks and one that's wearing a brown belt with black dress shoes. But today we're switching it up for you. Instead of looking at stocks, we're looking at universities. Bloomberg did this big breakdown where they looked at the ROI of 1500 nonprofit five or four year colleges to see which one led to greater earnings after graduation. The results were surprising.

The ivy's, known for their prestige and lofty price tags, actually lived up to expectations, with a median ROI ten years after graduation of $266,000, by far the highest of any group. The surprising part of the study was that public flagship colleges, places like University of Georgia, Purdue or Florida, proved to be far better investments than the so called hidden ivies, those costly private schools like Vassar or Tulane. So with all that preamble, Neil, which college from this study really stood out to you as our so called stock of the week? Well, I think I looked at what we went to. So what the matchup between University of Maryland and Brown.

Neil Freiman

Gotta say, Toby, I come out on top. I'm a big public flagship university guy. The ROI of University of Maryland is $200,000 after ten years. Narrow. I have Brown University is 172,000 after ten years.

I'm not knocking brown. I think this is more good for University of Maryland. Other of these public state universities that really punch above their weight. They absolutely punch above their weight. But I will say we're in the same job right now.

Toby Howell

So I feel like our past have converged in a meaningful way. Yes, you're absolutely right that these big public flagship universities do very, very well. One of the things that this study did want to point out, too, is that majors play a outsized role in it, not just the college you attend. Because a lot of colleges that focus more in stem have more stem majors, lead to higher earning potential than, say, those smaller liberal arts colleges. Oberlin was one of the colleges in this study that turned out to be one of the worst investments for your money.

Cost $77,000 to attend, only has an ROI of $18,000.10 years later. Definitely the worst performer of this grouping of elite private schools that I referenced earlier. And in total, I think what this study really did show is that there is a much bigger difference between the best colleges, the ivies, and the next best colleges. So if you are having the opportunity to go for a name school like the wake forests of the world, instead of going to a public school like University of Georgia, it probably pays off to opt to that big public school. If your goal is to for ROI, sometimes you don't go.

Neil Freiman

You know, a lot of times people go to college for the financial investment. That's obviously a huge factor. Oberlin, though, let's, you know, we've been bashing Oberlin. This particular segment, the number one major there is music performance. So you're not going there because you know you're going to make a lot of money.

You want there because you want to learn a lot about music. And there have been many fantastic musicians that have come there. Moving on. It didn't achieve the scale of the OJ trial, but in Vietnam, a very high profile case wrapped up when real estate tycoon Chuang Mai lan was sentenced to death for perpetrating the biggest fraud in the country's history. One of Vietnam's wealthiest women, Lan was convicted of embezzling $12 billion from Vietnam's Saigon commercial bank and paying millions in bribes to officials to keep it quiet.

To give you a sense of the size of this scam, that $12 billion is nearly 3% of Vietnam's entire gdp. Lan's death sentence may seem particularly harsh for a white collar crime. After all, in the US, Sam Bankman freed received 25 years for stealing 10 billion of customer funds. But Vietnam's communist leadership is in the midst of a major graph crackdown called blazing furnaces, a campaign that's already led two presidents to resign. Vietnam is one of the world's fastest growing economies right now, as multinationals look for cheaper manufacturing alternatives to China.

But this intense anti corruption purge might have a chilling effect on foreign investment, the opposite of what was intended. Yeah. The scale of this fraud is truly remarkable, and it's not how Vietnam wants to be making headlines right now. But when you're measuring a. The scale of an embezzlement case as a percentage of a nation's gdp, that's how, you know, you embezzled a lot of money.

Toby Howell

This, uh, the way that Lon pulled this off, she created a lot of shell companies. Through those shell companies, she wrote more than 2500 loans to herself and her constituents, even though she didn't even hold executive power at the bank. Through her shell company, she owned 91.5% of the bank's shares through all these third parties and shell companies. So it was this very complex, very wide ranging and very, very expensive embezzlement case. Yeah.

Neil Freiman

And this is. Comes at a very interesting inflection point for Vietnam. All these multinationals with production in China are looking at what's going on there and saying, maybe it's time to move offshore. Apple is spending loads in India, and Vietnam has pretty cheap labor and is seen as a very attractive place to set up your factory if you want to move out of China. The FDI foreign direct investment hit an all time high of $36.6 billion last year in Vietnam.

The goal of the Communist Party leadership here is a little unclear because they want to show that there's no corruption in their country. But at the same time, this crackdown has led to a lot of bureaucracy and delays and a lot of just business businesses not really getting going and a lot of investments stalling. So it's maybe it has the opposite effect of what they originally intended. Right? And it does seem a little bit crazy, at least in our culture in America, to issue a death penalty, but it just does go to show you how serious they are taking this high profile campaign against corruption.

Toby Howell

Finally, let's talk about Wrexham, the fourth division welsh football club that you probably know as a team owned by celebs Ryan Reynolds and Rob McIlhenny. Ryan and Rob took over the club almost three seasons ago with the goal of turning it around and taking it from the bottom of the english football pyramid all the way to the top. In its first season it failed to get promoted from the fifth division, but then came back and won the league, jumping up a tier. And now Wrexham is a few games away from moving up the footballing ladder once again. They have three games remaining in the league.

Two season and two wins will be enough to guarantee they'll see higher division football next season. Should that be the case, they would be only, and I say only with air quotes here, two divisions away from entering the Premier League. Even in their wildest dreams, Neil, I don't think either of them thought that this Wrexham experience would be going as well as it is. It's going so well. I mean, this does not really happen a lot in english football where you get promoted to a league and then you get promoted to the next league right after that.

Neil Freiman

It never happened in Wrexham's 159 year history and Wrexham is one of the oldest football clubs in the world. So this is going super well. Attendance is up three x from before they, they began their ownership of the company. They're finishing up their third season of welcome to Wrexham, which is the series that's been super popular, has followed their journey and drummed up a lot of pr and a lot of marketing excitement around Wrexham. Wrexham has tick tock as a sponsor.

Expedia has come on board. So I don't know if you wrote this out. As you know, it's, it's always sunny in Philadelphia episode or one of Ryan Reynolds movie, you could script it any better than what's going on right now. Right. There has been some pushback, for sure, from various parts of kind of the english footballing world for sure, because what Rexam did was pay outsize salaries to players.

Toby Howell

Actually, some players moved down leagues, which is something you never see as a player. You never want to essentially reduce the level of competition you're playing against, if you can help it. But they have been overpaying for these premier players and it has led them kind of speedrun this promotional process. There's also been some pushback about the promotional nature of its welcome to Wrexham series, even though there is a lot of heart and a lot of soul, and they definitely do uphold and showcase the community that they operate in. The fact that TikTok is plastered everywhere.

You got Expedia as a main sponsor and it does feel, there's some critique that maybe it's just a capitalistic, soulless kind of adoption of sport in order to advance their, their commercial aspects. But still, it is a compelling story and they are doing something meaningful for this community. Yeah. And one thing that english football has to get ready for is that corporate America vibe, because us investors are scooping up english soccer teams like it's the hottest investment right now. Uh, if seven, seven, seven partners, which is an investment firm, buys Everton, which it wants to, then half of all of the Premier League team will be owned by Americans.

Neil Freiman

And then if you just look at the top four leagues of english football, more than a third of the 92 teams are owned by Americans right now. So there's been a huge takeover and Rob and Ryan are just one of a wave of Americans that are planting their stake in, in England. I would love to own a lower English. I don't know, there's, there's plenty of ones that you've never even heard of. But I would love to come in as a player owner coach as well, see if I still got any run left in these old leagues of mine.

Toby Howell

Maybe in 600 episodes we'll have enough cash in the bank to, to buy our own team. Neil, let's finish up there. Hope you have a chill Friday and an excellent weekend. Toby, what's the Corey Connors update at the Masters? How is our boy doing?

He's two under. He's right in the six of the thing, thick of things. He's five shots back. And if he pulls this off, this will be the greatest storyline in Morning brew daily history. Absolutely.

Neil Freiman

As always, you can write in with any feedback to Morningbrew Daily@morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer.

Uchenawa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Menino is on audio, hair and makeup. Come back with your shield or on it. Devin Emery is our chief content officer. And our show is a production of Mornings Group.

Toby Howell

Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back on Monday.