Business

How Modelo Dethroned Bud Light as America’s Top Beer. I have seen multiple versions of the “Fighting Spirit” marketing message. I like them. Constellation and Modelo did a good job coming up with catchy ads that connected to non-Hispanic audience. The time for Modelo is now as tailwinds are right behind their sail. To Bud Light and Budweiser, the time to fight back, no pun intended, is now if they don’t want to decline to continue.

Solitude and Leadership. “I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing. The position of the leader is ultimately an intensely solitary, even intensely lonely one. However many people you may consult, you are the one who has to make the hard decisions. And at such moments, all you really have is yourself.”

Apple finally breaks Android’s grip on Southeast Asia. Tailwinds are behind Apple when it comes to Southeast Asia. Apple has always been associated with higher quality. The only hindrance used to be prices. Now that folks have more disposable income, Apple becomes more attractive. Plus, the company works hard to keep its products as affordable as they can, without tarnishing the high-end image and hurting margin. I think it’s an underappreciated aspect of Apple’s operations. Last but not least, sales distribution. Even though there are only a handful of stores in the region, Apple came up with other ways to bring phones to consumer hands.

Deliveries keep getting faster. Will it last? I’d say no. Last-mile delivery is expensive and similar to running at a higher pace than a jog. The longer you do it, the more tired you’ll be. Not every company is as “fit” as Amazon.

How FedNow and faster payments will impact U.S. fintech. A good primer on ACH, Real Time Payment (RTP) and why FedNow is needed. I also wrote about Real Time Payments on this blog before.

One-Percenters Keep Shopping at the Dollar Store. Private labels no longer carry the taboo they once did. Shoppers, especially affluent ones, are more comfortable with buying private labels. I myself am an example. My income more than double compared to when I was still a student at grad school several years ago. But I have been religiously shopping at Aldi and Walmart, and only seldom at Whole Foods. I don’t think I will change that pattern any time soon. For several quarters, Walmart executives talked about this observation as well. The trend is going to be tailwind for grocers/retailers that can build great private label brands. For Whole Foods and Amazon, it’s actually a headwind. How are they going to restructure themselves to compete in a cutthroat market when folks want cheapers goods? How are they going to shred the “whole wallet” image?

Other stuff I find interesting

Why Spotify’s big bet on Meghan fell flat. To generate compelling content, podcasters need to take a bit of a risk in being controversial. Talk about hard-hitting topics and sensitive matters from angles that may anger plenty of listeners. If podcasters keep taking neutral position, they will lose people interests quickly. I think this is what happened with Meghan and her husband. I don’t follow them closely and whatever has been reported makes me annoyed more than interested. For their sake, they need to think long and hard about their positioning in the media world.

Harry and Meghan Produce a Hollywood Flop: Themselves. I read this article a few days after I did the one right above. Erich Schwartzel and Sarah Krouse revealed a bit more about the chaos Archetypes, the production company founded by the former royal couple. I am quite baffled by the revelation that they have little experience in putting ideas into reality. For Harry, I am not surprised, but Meghan used to be in the industry. Their struggle should stem from the lack of ideas, not from the inability to materialize them

Finland’s plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100,000 years. ““Onkalo” is a Finnish word for a cave or a hollow. It implies something big and deep: you don’t know where an onkalo ends or whether it ends at all. It’s a fitting name for a huge grave made in Finland over the last 20 years. Onkalo, which lies 450m (1,500ft) deep inside the bedrock of Olkiluoto island in the southwest of the country, is the world’s first permanent storage site for spent nuclear fuel. Both Onkalo and the proposed Swedish facility aim to keep radioactive waste safe for at least 100,000 years. “We’re trying to construct something that should work longer than the homo sapiens has been alive,” says Joutsen. “The time span is mind-boggling.“

5 Deaths at Sea Gripped the World. Hundreds of Others Got a Shrug. My main position on this issue is that every life is worth saving. The five people on that vessel deserved our best effort and so did the 500 immigrants. What bugged me was that we barely heard about the dream chasers who just risked their life for a chance at a better living environment and a brighter future. Yet, the news cycle was littered with coverage on the rich folks who didn’t need to put their lives at jeopardy, but did anyway.

Paying attention. “Expiring knowledge is things like quarterly earnings, election polls, market information, and politics. It catches more attention than it should, for two reasons. One, there’s a lot of it, eager to capture our short attention spans. Two, we chase it down, anxious to squeeze out insight before it loses relevance. Permanent knowledge tends to be principles and frameworks that help you make sense of expiring information.“

Geography Is the Chessboard of History. This is precisely why unless one country has the same geographical make-up as another, the two countries will likely have trouble replicating each other’s growth strategy. Simply because they are dealt with different hands, to begin with.

Stats

45% of Modelo’s consumer base is now non-Hispanic

16% of BNPL users who buy luxury items are Gen Z

The median age in the United States reached a record high of 38.9 in 2022