Brands of the Week: Ted Lasso's Soccer Boom, JIF's Big Change, Krispy Kreme x Pokémon & Why No One Can Retire
On Brand with Donny DeutschShow Notes
Donny Deutsch and Lou Pellegrino break down the brands, trends, and cultural moments defining the zeitgeist this week on Brands of the Week. Ted Lasso's Apple TV+ season four premiere is fueling a real-world youth soccer boom, JIF is reformulating its peanut butter for the first time in 30 years, and Krispy Kreme is teaming up with Pokémon for a 30th-anniversary donut collab. Plus: Frankie Valli retires at 92, a new survey shows nearly half of Americans doubt they'll ever retire, saunas vs. cold plunge science gets a reality check, Merriam-Webster adds "fridge cigarette" to the dictionary, sorority rush coaches and dorm decor spending hit new extremes, pickle-flavored snacks are exploding 70%, and why basal cell carcinoma is more common than you think. It's the fast-paced weekly rundown of what's up, what's down, and what's shaping culture right now.
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This week Donny Deutsch and Lou Pellegrino run through who's up and who's down in American culture. They start with a CDC report finding that most U.S. adults are running on empty, then compare notes on five o'clock naps and why sleep has become a $100 billion industry. From there it's senior TikTok creators talking openly about sex and intimacy, the University of Chicago banning AI and laptops from its core courses, and the dictionary's newest additions, including "parasocial," "cuffing season," and "Sunday scaries."
Anthony Scaramucci joins Donny Deutsch to break down his new book, All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, a sharp and surprisingly self-critical look at how America got here. The SkyBridge founder and co-host of The Rest Is Politics: US walks through the three turning points he believes set the stage for MAGA: letting China into the WTO without checking its rise, the post-9/11 wars funded by tax cuts that blew up the deficit, and a 2008 bailout that rescued the banks but left Main Street behind. As Scaramucci puts it, Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party "had a baby, and they named it baby MAGA."