Fashion collaborations remain a go-to way for CPG marketers to build lifestyle brands by merging culture and commerce. The same younger consumers that hate traditional advertising will have no problem wearing branded merchandise if it says something about who they are. So, maybe the ultimate test of CPG brand equity is not if they know you and ingest your products…but if they would wear you! Then, who’s better to rank the top recent CPG fashion mashups than an industry strategist that dresses in a golf polo, backwards hat, and athletic shorts every day. So, in third place…I must show respect to Crocs because they’ve partnered with so many top CPG brands. Next, Kraft Heinz dropped a vintage drip collection celebrating the iconic ketchup stain. And in my top spot, I think those Jarritos Nike SB Dunk Lows were mouthwatering.

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GLP-1 weight loss pharmaceuticals will cause equally pervasive second-order effects to functional CPG categories as AI will trigger regarding business productivity. Despite our collective ambiguity on the true extent, I believe the skyrocketing popularity of weight loss pharmaceuticals has already tangibly disrupted many aspects of the CPG industry. The problem (i.e. obesity epidemic) has reached unprecedented levels...as the most recent CDC statistics show more than 100 million people are considered obese by the U.S. government…and also candidates for weight loss pharmaceuticals. There are the obvious health-related motivating factors like managing diabetes or cardiovascular disease…but also something deeper at play involving social ideals, which has kept Americans extremely interested in weight management. Another core reason why weight management is such a mass appeal dietary outcome is that American modern life constantly messes with our ability to achieve even a fraction of the standard we set. So, it shouldn’t be surprising to learn that the United States is by far the world’s largest weight loss pharmaceuticals market, currently accounting for an estimated two-thirds of total dollars spent globally. Since its 2017 approval as a diabetes treatment, semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) has become one of the most popular prescription drugs in the United States. But while their intended purpose was to moderate insulin levels in Type 2 diabetics, new users are overwhelmingly adopting these drugs for its notable weight loss side effects. These unmet medical needs are more than enough to build demand…but countless popular celebrities (like Oprah Winfrey), positively sharing their experience, has further fueled its meteoric rise. In fact, marketplace experts now estimate annual weight loss drug sales reaching $150 billion by 2033. But let’s talk about results…because within weight management categorical spending, consumers want outcomes. Users of Ozempic and similar drugs, that followed a diet and exercise program, had an average weight loss of 15 to 20 percent and significant reductions in cardiovascular risk factors. So, I've laid out the massive problem and a very probable solution, but what about predicted outcomes (and second-order effects)? Does the “Age of Ozempic” indeed continue reshaping the CPG industry or will it quickly turn into overhyped garbage after post-market surveillance showed too many public health safety questions? Regardless, I believe it’s easiest to think about “the Age of Ozempic” as being a major catalyst that fundamentally shifts consumer behavior. And although the weight loss achieved through these pharmaceuticals has been remarkable, concerns about the long-term sustainability of these results persist. Additionally, for many users…GLP-1 drugs are not a long-term commitment but rather a step along the way in their weight management journey. But that naturally sets up three adjacent opportunities for functional CPG companies to market their products as part of the onramp, during, and offramp portions of a continued healthy lifestyle change. Finally, I'll focus on the potential impacts within the intersecting categories of functional foods, functional beverages, and nutritional supplements. This includes how these functional CPG categories can bridge nutritional gaps (i.e. protein powder) and help combat against the side effects of weight-loss drugs (i.e. muscle loss and HMB).

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Can we blame those “turn ahead the clock” Seattle Mariners uniforms from 1998 for minor league baseball creating a 121st team this year sponsored by Oatly? Because it was that fun (and successful) one-off promotion that led to MLB creating a league-wide version the following year…complete with a corporate advertiser, Century 21, which is why the futuristic uniforms were supposedly based on the year 2021. But the idea behind the Malmö Oat Milkers required a little “outside the carton” thinking for Oatly. See…those one-off food themed jerseys (that Oatly’s marketing team enjoyed) are based on each team’s local culture, but that’s an issue for the Swedish plant-based milk brand. So, their solution was to have every existing minor league baseball team transform into the Oat Milkers for one game this season. So, which CPG brand is up next?

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Bloom Nutrition just launched a functional beverage that puts them in direct competition with their largest investor. So, why did Nutrabolt (owner of C4 Energy) not only encourage this Bloom product strategy, but help make their vision a reality? For those that missed the investment deal news from earlier this year in January, Nutrabolt made a significant minority investment into Bloom Nutrition for an ownership stake of approximately 20%. If you remember from my earlier content analyzing that deal, I stated it would be accretive to both companies…but in uniquely distinct ways. While most pundits focused on how the Nutrabolt investment would provide strategic growth capital to fuel and accelerate many key areas of Bloom's business, I concentrated on something not explicitly stated within that press release. And that’s because I knew that Bloom’s problem was never lack of speed. Instead, it could benefit from the decision-making maturity of Nutrabolt. I might be biased because of my strategic brain, but I’ve always believed that direction is more important than speed. Bloom Nutrition might be within its aggressive scaling phase, but every “leveling up” in CPG requires a directional checkup to ensure strategic alignment. And the directional checkup needed in early 2024 was determining which category should start Bloom’s “ready-to-mix powder to ready-to-drink liquid” beverage identity crisis. But why did Bloom pick energy drinks when it’s the top-selling greens supplement brand within any large U.S. retailer it has placement? It mostly comes down to fulfilling a growing Bloom customer want (within the largest functional beverage category) and that being much easier with the brand's ability to leverage the core expertise of Nutrabolt in energy beverage innovation and commercial expansion. Bloom Sparkling Energy is positioned within a great intersection of various wellness-minded consumer product trends, the beforementioned Bloom core customer's expanding wants/needs, and within a fragment of the energy drinks market that’s more incremental than would cannibalize its friend (the powerful C4 Energy). Also, I believe the Bloom Nutrition deal is already proving to be value accretive for Nutrabolt. In 2015, when Nutrabolt started dabbling with a smaller-format RTD liquids extension of its Cellucor pre-workout C4…I believe it triggered a butterfly effect that became the single-most important strategic shift in the company history. This lead to C4 Energy becoming a beverage powerhouse…aggressively climbing the energy drinks market leaderboard into the Top 5 brands and catching the eye of Keurig Dr Pepper, which invested $863 million for about 30% of Nutrabolt in December 2022. That large capital infusion from KDP went towards fueling the growth of C4 Energy, but also allowed Nutrabolt to take on the role of investor (with Bloom Nutrition being the first minority investment but likely not the last). With the Bloom Sparkling Energy launch, it helps Nutrabolt (and KDP) get exposure into the growing wellness energy drink subcategory, but also into today’s female Gen Z audience that’s highly incremental overall and extremely important with the overall energy drinks market. But I'll end this content with a deep examination around what this all could mean for the energy drinks market, Bloom Nutrition, Nutrabolt, and KDP.

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You’ve fooled me once, but I’m not letting that happen again…and y’all start calling me a BUM. So, maybe it’s time we talk about an early upstart energy drink brand. Previously, I've mentioned that about five years ago, I underestimated the eventual growth in mainstream appeal of Mr. Olympia winning bodybuilder Chris Bumstead. I correctly acknowledged that he was a beacon of vulnerability and authenticity, but couldn't get past the fact that bodybuilding was this polarizing niche sport that few individuals have been able to transcend into mainstream cultural significance. People love to see external growth, whether winning championships or having business success, but showing everything from the terrible to amazing and even boring that led to that point…and internally staying true to yourself is what provides real impact. And Chris Bumstead mastered that...leading to an engaged audience of 24 million on Instagram. Athletes should no longer just be competing on the field (or stage in the CBUM example), they must also be harnessing the power of authentic personal branding to better compete within the attention economy. That being said, athletes seem to be quickly learning that collaborations and endorsements are great, but the most lucrative aspect of authentic personal branding is when they can understand how to properly articulate and aestheticize their defining personality traits. This is no different than the trending movement that involves non-sports celebrity talent or creators, and that’s because it’s those rare authentic individuals who can also hold consumer attention that ultimately have the opportunity to become the most sought-after assets in the world and potentially the biggest consumer product brands of tomorrow. Which maybe brings us full circle to Chris Bumstead, and his attempt at becoming a large consumer product brand. CBUM is involved in the functional CPG categories of sports nutrition (e.g. RAW Nutrition) and protein snacking (e.g. Vaughn's Treats), but I'm most interested in the energy drink brand BUM Energy because Chris Bumstead could get his hands on every aspect within the initial ideation and conceptualization phases. Beverages offering more than enjoyment aren’t just a passing fad…instead a reflection of a deeper secular trend towards health-conscious consumption. In fact, it’s my belief that consumers are moving closer towards this four-way intersection of taste, convenience, nutrition, and functionality. But “energy drinks” continue to dominate in terms of market share growth…partly because the category has shown this almost sixth sense ability to evolve, appealing to a wide range of active lifestyle consumers with varied energy needs throughout the day. And this is where BUM Energy enters the conversation…because Chris Bumstead made some very intentional decisions when he created his energy drink brand that launched basically a year ago in July 2023. I'll cover those intentional decisions from the energy drink liquid composition to the brand strategy and finally the eventual transition strategy away from CBUM. Finally, I'll end off the content by exploring how BUM Energy is performing in the marketplace (with Circana retail sales data) and what I think the brand’s outlook is for the future.

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Will Panera Bread’s decision to phase out its controversial Charged Lemonade derail my energy drink “on-premise 2.0” trend prediction from April 2019? With energy drink brands like Celsius paving their own path in the consumer’s mind, beyond the traditional categorical need states, there’s undoubtedly still a long runway of growth opportunities remaining within the foodservice channel. This will prove especially true within quick service restaurants…where energy drinks are starting to take lunchtime consumption share from carbonated soft drinks. But how does the functional beverage category unlock this massive market potential right now…when QSRs don’t want to be lumped into the Panera Bread Charged Lemonade negative news cycle? There are two helpful underlying forces: the self-serve beverage dispenser era is ending and functional energy “cans in hand” have become a key accessory when signaling a wellness-focused lifestyle.

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Do you remember that “Most Interesting Man in the World” Dos Equis beer advertising campaign that ran most from 2006 to 2018? It seemed like each episode’s montage of experiences layered on more curiosity, which has some similarity to this episode’s guest Samyr Laine. While it wasn’t mentioned in our conversation, his time at Harvard also briefly included being Mark Zuckerberg’s roommate but it then you’ll hear briefly that interesting life included a 2012 Summer Olympics appearance, law school, then working for Major League Soccer, Jay Z, and Will Smith…before becoming a consumer-focused venture capitalist. Since much of that journey happened at the intersection of talent, brand, and culture…that’s where my conversation with Samyr stayed, which provided some excellent depth of insights. We analyzed the evolution of talent involvement within consumer goods and detailed our most valuable non-negotiables when it comes to being successful as a talent-led brand. Samyr and I also explain why we believe this is still early innings of building celebrity brands, but also the transition strategy required for more exit events. Moreover, we talk about the nuance between creators, athletes, and celebrities that could make or break a talent-led consumer brand. But these are just some of the fascinating topics we chatted about in this episode...

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It’s commonly said that there are three guarantees in this life…death, taxes, and Bodybuilding.com pretty much annually being involved in M&A activity. Since July 2019, Bodybuilding.com has been involved in four confirmed mergers and acquisitions transactions. The first was a related-party transaction that happened between Liberty Expedia Holdings and Expedia Group. About a year later, Expedia Group faced huge market pressures from the “Great Shutdown” decimating the travel industry and it was forced to sell off its non-core assets. That was when private equity firm The Najafi Companies took advantage of the fire sale and attempted to stabilize the struggling specialty supplement ecommerce retailer. But it eventually decided to cut its losses early and sell two years later to Retail Ecommerce Ventures…the retail brand portfolio company that was co-founded by internet personality Tai Lopez. In a piece of content from March 2023, I mentioned Retail Ecommerce Ventures was reportedly in financial trouble and had hired advisors to consider a variety of strategic options that include lining up a potential buyer for its portfolio companies, putting up intellectual property as collateral for a loan or investment, or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Well…as of last quarter, we now know that a group of investors, that had backed Retail Ecommerce Ventures, under the new company name of OMNI Retail Enterprises, acquired most of the retail brand assets. These include three keystone assets of Dress Barn, Pier 1, and Bodybuilding.com. Subsequentially, Retail Ecommerce Ventures dissolved as an operating entity without resorting to bankruptcy…and Tai Lopez and his co-founder are not involved in the new venture. About a month after the M&A transaction, OMNI Retail Enterprises hired Sharon Leite as the new CEO. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because she was the CEO of The Vitamin Shoppe from August 2018 to January 2023. Additionally, Sharon Leite has held leadership positions previously in each of those consumer goods categories, including an 8.5-year stint at the home goods retailer Pier 1 when it had over 1000 stores in North America. But for the final part of this content, I essentially put myself in a hypothetical situation where Sharon calls me up, asks me to take the quick flight from Houston to Dallas, and says give me your Bodybuilding.com transformation pitch. Regardless, I’ve consistently said in numerous content pieces over the years that I believe there’s still value in Bodybuilding.com, but what it doesn’t need is another “let’s do as we’ve always done but a little cheaper and expect better results” owner. My hope is that OMNI Retail Enterprises is the type of transformative thinking organization that has sufficient capital and the patience to make Bodybuilding.com great again.

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Have you ever noticed how many different shades of grey there are? While collaboration has become extremely popular within today’s global sports nutrition market, most efforts go totally unnoticed because they…well lack color! When conceptualized and deployed correctly, the strategic marketing move can help brands expand their customer base, increase sales, and even penetrate new markets. Alternatively, sometimes these “co-marketing” or “co-branding” ideas could get overly vibrant color-wise, like a recent collaboration between the Taiwanese sports nutrition brand MARS and the condom maker Durex. This campaign encouraged consumers to take part in the most pleasurable cardio modality in the world…sex! But to make sure you’re recovering from all that “sexercise,” the CPG brands are promoting the consumption of protein powder…because there’s nothing more desirable than a bedroom full of protein farts!

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Consumers can’t seem to get enough protein. The focus on high protein diets started in those shadowy niches of sports nutrition and weight management, but now there’s increasingly diverse consumer cohorts that possess a heightened awareness around the value of this essential nutrient. And it’s that demographic diversity, being interested for different reasons, making protein a battleground category as it proliferates across the entire grocery store. So, it’s difficult not being fascinated by the evolving marketplace…which is why Senior Market Insights Director at SPINS, Scott Dicker, and I decided to tackle all things protein in our newest quarterly functional CPG categorical deep dive. Beyond providing some current subcategory retail sales data snippets, we describe several driving forces impacting comparative results...including how a growing variety of protein input sources, taste profiles, and form factors can cannibalize and/or provide incrementality to those mainstay high-protein offerings. Also, Scott and I cover some adjacent marketplace dynamics like “the growing GLP-1 utilization” that could create new demand for protein products that kick off the next “plus” phase of the space. Additionally, we explain why the consumer search for more protein should force retail merchandising opportunities to grow in the near-term future. But these are just some of the intriguing topics we chatted about in this episode...

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