McDonald's & Taco Bell show the real economy's state, and The genius of Bryan Johnson's marketing

Did you see the inflation, by the way? The McDonald's price inflation?

No.

Okay, so check this out. So I didn't have this on the docket for today, but now we're gonna pull it up. So, okay. In 2019, end of 2019 price, medium fries at McDonald's. I even have Taco Bell numbers here. Guys, Taco Bell was Neil's favorite restaurant before. In fact, that's where I met Neil in person before, at a Taco Bell. So anyway, I digress. So McDonald's price increases.

And don't worry, to go back, Eric didn't meet me randomly at a Taco Bell.

It was because that's where he used to do my meetings. He's like, yeah, let's meet at Taco Bell. Anyway, so medium french fries, $1.79. McChicken, $1.29. Okay, the most important one, Chick— uh, Big Mac, $3.99. Okay, mid-2024 price.

Wait, okay, go back. Just let's focus on the Big Mac.

Let's just go on one. Let's go on one. Big Mac.

Okay, and what— start with the year all over again then.

Big Mac, end of 2019, $3.99. Now, mid-2024 price, guess. Big Mac, one Big Mac.

$5.29.

$7.49.

Wow!

That's 87% increase. Okay, pick one. You want french fries, McChicken, 10 McNuggets? French fries. No, 10 McNuggets. Come on, 10 McNuggets.

10 McNuggets. All right, let's go for it.

Okay, end of 2019 price, $4.49. Guess mid-2024 price.

$8.

Close, $7.58. So 68% increase. Cheeseburger was the biggest one. Cheeseburger was $1 in 2019. Now it's $3. $2.15, 215% increase.

Went to the $1 meal.

No, it's no more $1. I think it's like a $5 menu now. Yeah. Okay, Taco Bell price. Let's do one more. What's your favorite thing at Taco Bell?

Wait, let's go back to McDonald's really quickly. Did I just— did you know when I was in Brazil last trip, I ate McDonald's?

You did? First time in a long time. Why?

Dude, we were going from Florianópolis to a farming village, which was like 2 hours away for another event. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was nothing that we can end up finding. And I had to go pee. So like, you know, I was with some of the guys on my Brazil team. Marinko was in the car. He's like, dude, you cannot eat McDonald's. And I had to pee so bad. And I thought it was like a 30-minute drive, not a 2-hour drive, right? And after like 45 minutes, I'm like, guys, I need to go to the restroom. And I didn't tell them I needed to go to the restroom. I'm like, oh, McDonald's, let's just stop there. So we ended up stopping there. I ended up going pee first. They're like, what do you want? I'm like, I don't know. I don't eat this stuff. I'm like, I just had to go to the bathroom. So then we order food. Dude, guess how long it took me to get food in the McDonald's?

An hour?

30 minutes to just get the food out. It wasn't a big order. Got some chicken nuggets and ate some french fries. No joke, their systems and processes, at least in the one that we stopped in in Brazil, was just so terrible. It was so broken. People just do random things and they move slow. Everyone was complaining in there. Not me though. I wasn't really looking forward to eating McDonald's. So I didn't really matter.

Was it good?

No, it was not good. It tastes the same in the US, by the way, as it does in Brazil. And for me, at least, I'm not saying McDonald's food is terrible. I'm just saying I don't like the taste of it. But what was funny is, you know, their kiosk, their digital kiosk was broken and they wouldn't take my order in the front. And I'm like, that's bad marketing. And in Brazil, if you look at the McDonald's, they have different star ratings, okay? Like online. The ratings aren't based on the food quality. For a lot of the fast food places in Brazil, the ratings, like the online Yelp reviews or whatever, Google reviews, is based on the service and how good they are at delivering the expected service to you.

But it wasn't good because it took 30 minutes.

Exactly. So that place that we stopped in had a 1-point-something star.

Oh, wow.

So it's interesting. I learned a new marketing lesson. Not all star ratings for restaurants, depending on the country you're in, is based off of the quality of the food or the dining experience. It's more so, were they happy with the service? And, you know, did it come out of time?

I think that actually makes more sense because if it's the quality of service, you would kind of put in the quality of the food there, right? You would assume that they kind of go hand in hand. Yeah. So I think that's a harder rating actually.

But some McDonald's in Brazil are rated like 4 stars because they're on top of getting you food at a timely manner. And it's—

I like that rating more. Okay, let's do one for Taco Bell. Okay, you can pick here. Beefy Five Layer Burrito. Okay. Nachos Bellgrande.

Nachos Bellgrande.

Why? Why Nachos Bellgrande?

Because I've had them. Okay.

End of 2019 price, $3.29. What's mid-2024 price? $8. No, that's too high. $5.89. So 79% increase. So basically McDonald's average across 5 items, 141% increase. Okay. Average price increase across these 5 items for Taco Bell, 57%.

So all that to say is Look, you know, times are tough still.

And the good way of looking at how tough times are is when you look at McDonald's when their sales are going down and when Starbucks sales are going down.

Dude, I agree with you. And it was funny because CNBC had an article that they published the other day. The economy is tough depending on which CEO you talk to. Because there's some, there's some franchises even for like fast food that are doing somewhat well.

Yep.

I think Sweetgreen is one of them that's doing really well.

Sweetgreen's doing really well.

Yeah.

Had it twice in the last 2 days.

It's a good, good place.

It's a good deal too.

And it's healthy.

Yep.

And some are struggling and are slowing down. Like Lowe's just put out earnings. Lowe's is doing, they beat expectations. So good for Lowe's.

Home Depot's struggling.

Home Depot's struggling, but Lowe's and Home Depot are very similar businesses.

Yep.

Similar marketing strategies as well.

All right everyone, quick message from the Agency Owners Association. So this is the peer group for agency owners that Neil and I both put together. This is for people that are doing 6 figures, 7 figures, 8 figures, even 9 figures as well. As well. And we're all here to help you grow your agency faster. In this group, we share leads, we share learnings with each other. It's a community where people can ask questions, their most burning questions personally, professionally. We'll share templates, reports, things like that. We're constantly adding more value to the group. I will tell you that the price is continuing to increase. The good news is that there's no long-term commitment, so you can just learn more by going to marketingschool.io/agency. Once again, that's marketingschool.io/agency to learn more, and we hope to see you inside. For us, at least in the agency world, I think 2022, 2023 got tougher. I'd say that's tougher. So we've been in 2 years of quote unquote B2B recession. Now it seems like there might be a little eye or like a little light at the tunnel, but still we don't really know, right? So it just depends on the industry that you're in, but I don't think the consumer's winning right now.

I don't think the consumer's winning right now either.

Yeah, 'cause my childhood malls in Arcadia, right? I walk by, there's so many stores that are closed. And then there's everything like you walk by stores, a lot of 30% off, 40%, 50% off, 60% off. And it's just like nobody's— it doesn't seem like the consumer is trying to shop right now.

Dude, I went to the dentist yesterday, all right? And they did something that was really clever marketing strategy. So I went to the dentist and my bill was $4,600. No joke, $4,600. One cavity.

How do you have cavities right now?

First cavity I ever had in my whole life.

How?

I don't know.

You eat a lot of sugar?

No.

What?

McDonald's in Brazil caused it. I'm joking, probably not caused by that. But first cavity and it was in between 2 of my teeth. So they had to drill them down or whatever.

Wow.

In between. Very painful. Well, but not actually that painful. They numbed me. So it wasn't bad. But I felt it after like not Really? But like my mouth was just tired.

Damn.

And $4,600. Now when I was signing the forms to pay, you know, one, they were just like, we notified you in advance on the price. They're like, 'cause I'm like, yeah, I keep getting emails asking for this. They're like, no, this notification that it's going to be $4,600 to make sure you're okay with it. And I'm like, well, I'm not really okay with it. And I wanted to get the price down. And then the, you know, the one lady's like, you got a black card. Why are you worried about the price? And I'm like, this is why I have a black card because I'm worried about spending money.

Yeah.

This is how I make more money. Yes. And I only have the Black Card because Amex gives you 50% off when you buy airline tickets using points, right? 50% off is massive.

Neil's the only person I know that's tried to justify the benefit of the Black Card. All my other Black Card friends are like, no, it's stupid.

No, on the price of the points. So if your airline ticket is 20,000, if I book it with points, they'll give it to me for half off. They give you a 50% rebate.

Really?

Yes.

So if you book first class Emirates—

Instead of 20, it ends up being 10,000.

Oh, I didn't know that. Is that a new benefit?

No, they've had it for a while. That's the only reason we've kept them. We canceled— we had 4 Black Cards in total and we're now down to 2.

How many millions of points do you have right now?

Not that many. I think we're only at 5 or 6 million left.

Who uses them?

Family. I don't use them myself anymore. I used to have like well over 10 million points. But the point I was getting at is When I was paying the $4,600, the way they get you is they say, hey, would you like 2 years, 0% APR? I'm like, huh, I can amortize out the payments for 2 years.

You want to pay it over time?

Pay it over time, no interest. And I was open to that. But then the moment— because I can make money on my money until then. But the moment that I found out I had to fill out paperwork to get that, I was like, no, no, it's okay.

Because it's a loan.

It's a loan, but I didn't want to fill out the paperwork. Yeah. But interesting thing that they do in marketing that's creative is one, A, I think that's smart. 2, dude, have you ever been to a dentist when you sit down in the office, you have a view of a whole city? It's like I have a view of most of LA from their office. The 3rd thing that they do is interesting is when you're on their chair, it's a massaging chair. And even when it puts you all the way down, it still massages you. And there's a TV above in the ceiling and you're looking up and you can watch whatever you want.

See, Neil goes to a rich dentist. I go to the Hello Kitty dentist in Temple City and I see Hello Kitty in my face and like little Sanrio characters. That's all I get.

But don't you think that's amazing marketing for a dentistry?

I think it's great. I think that's how you get word of mouth because it's a story like the one you just told and you hear people like repeating these stories.

And they're packed. They're literally booked. It takes weeks to get an appointment and I'm like, what the heck at these prices? But in, you know, Beverly Hills, people pay them and there's a line out the door to go to them.

I still think it's a hard business because you have to be there.

So it is a hard business, but I bet you that business is very profitable based on the prices he's charging. And I think it's a great dentist practice overall.

All right, so I wanted to take a second to tell you about Leveling Up Founders. This is an event/mastermind for people doing 7, 8, 9 figures. These are founders that are doing that amount, and we've been doing this event for a couple years now. We've had amazing speakers, but more than anything, it's about the people. What I mean by that is like-minded people want to hang out with like-minded people, and this is the best spot to connect with people of a certain caliber, and we vet every single person that comes through. So If people are— even though they make a lot of money, but their character, we don't really align with that, we're not necessarily going to let them in. We did this event in Beverly Hills, and it's happening in the beginning of August. All you have to do to learn more about it is just go to levelingup.com/founders. Again, it's levelingup.com/founders if you want to hang out with amazing people. Neil, my podcast co-host, is going to be there. I'm going to be there. People like Syed Balkhi, he will be there as well. And again, it's going to be a great time. levelingup.com/founders to learn more, and we'll see you inside. By the way, I just came back from an interview with Brian Johnson, the Don't Die guy, the Braintree Venmo guy.

And as a side note, Eric, when he was talking about Brian from AirChat, he's talking about Brian Norgaard. Different guy. Yeah.

Smart product guy.

Who's head of product at Tinder, and before that he sold a company to either MySpace or Fox. So, uh, no, I know it was one or the other. It was either MySpace or Fox, but at the time MySpace was owned by Fox.

No idea.

Yeah, I know Norwegard. He's a smart guy. But yeah, and then now he just— you just got done with the meeting with Bryan, the Braintree Bryan.

Braintree Venmo. So, it's called Braintree Venmo Bryan Johnson. So, he has a new movement called Don't Die. And he's all over the news. He's transfusing his blood with his son and then also his dad, which there's some interesting stuff behind that. He's injecting his Johnson. With Botox.

His, his, uh, his penis? His private parts.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So he's doing all these things, right? And we got to a part—

Why would you put Botox in your private part?

And so I asked him that. And so, because I was like, do you have like wrinkles in your penis or something? He's like, no. He's like, Botox actually does a lot more for you than just that, right? It has like, actually could have like, you know, 10 or 20, 30, maybe even like 100 different benefits. And basically, so this is a side thing for men out there, but The reason he's doing this, he does electromagnetic waves. I think it's sound therapy. Sound therapy, that's right, for his penis. And he also does Botox. The reason for that is because he wants to have multiple boners per night. This is what he said. This is his words, right? And so, the more you have, the healthier you are. That's one of the markers of your health. We talk about VO2 max, we talk about grip strength and things like that. The number of times you have boners and how long you have boners per night. Guys don't usually know, right? Guys, this is not a health podcast, but I'm going into the marketing piece. Just let me get there. So anyway, he's sharing stuff like that. And then he gets to a point where he's on Twitter right now. He's going after AG1. So Athletic Greens, you know, they do really well. They spent like $40 million on podcasts last year. So he's kind of going after them and saying, hey, look, like all the claims you guys make are like baseless. Like you guys don't even show how much stuff you have, how much of each ingredient you have in your product, blah, blah, blah. So he's like, on one end, he's attacking people like publicly, Right? And that helps him get reach. On the other side, he does a lot of research, right? So, he's— you know how we talk about microplastics and all that? I'm sorry, guys. But so, he is doing studies on all food out there and showing how much microplastics there are. He's also doing other studies on, I think, how much— Brad, was it metal?

Heavy metal.

Heavy metal. How much heavy metals are. So, he's basically doing— on one end, it's like He's vilifying someone. On the other end, he's creating a lot of data that other people otherwise wouldn't have access to. And I think that's a nice way to do content marketing. That's how he's getting bigger and bigger.

I also think he's getting bigger and bigger with content marketing because his TAM is big. His content is about health, nutrition, living long.

Don't die.

Yeah, which is applicable to pretty much any adult human, right? I don't think a 15-year-old or 16 or even 18-year-old is thinking about death. I don't even think a 21 or 25-year-old is thinking about death.

You know what he said? He said a really interesting quote. I think it was, making money is the most expensive thing you can do. Is that what he— that's what he said, right?

I'm paraphrasing. Why would making money be the most expensive thing you can do?

I think my interpretation of that— we didn't get to dig in because it's towards the end. But my interpretation is I think he's saying that trying to take in short-term profits, like that becomes really expensive because when you sacrifice and you wait for long-term, like you're going to make a lot more. So his whole thing is he's not gunning for an exit with this company. He's building it for long-term. He said he's trying to build religion. And like the next level is like, how do you build like a god, right? So, he's like going like super— you talk about large TAM, like religion is everybody.

So, with his market and him saying that he's not trying to make money or making money is— what was the quote again?

Making money is the most expensive thing you can do.

Do you also think it could be making money is the most expensive thing you can do because you put a lot of stress? They say CEOs have some of the most stressful jobs and That ruins your health and maybe may not make you live as long?

No. So I asked him, so I asked him at the end of this, I said, hey, are you— because he sold Brain Qi for $800 million. I was like, are you way happier and way less stressed doing this? And he's like, 100,000. He basically said, I'm paraphrasing, 100,000%, right?

Whoa, you want to know why?

Because he had that Brain Qi money. And I said that. I said, you made your nut already, right? And that's why you're like, good, you're at peace now.

Give me $800 million too, and I'll tell you I'm not stressing. And life is great. Yeah, I'm ready for my check.

But going— wait, what was the question you asked again?

Is it because— is he saying that whatever the quote was, I forgot it again.

Here, I'll give it to you. So, making money is the most expensive thing you can do.

Yes. And what I was saying is, does he feel making money is the most expensive thing because it can impact your lifespan due to all the stress that it causes?

I don't think that's the case because we got to this quote through— I asked him why he gave away his book on audiobook for free. And his whole thing is he wants to give away as much content as possible and not try to monetize it right now and then instead wait for 5, 10, 15, 20 years and let the religion, this movement compound. And I mentioned to you, he has someone really famous going to his place tonight. And so, it's clear that this movement's catching on. He has a lot of celebrities reaching out to him about this stuff.

It's kind of crazy.

Yeah. And when you have a phrase called don't die and that's your movement, Like, okay, that's something people can get behind. Like, people can either really hate it or people can really love it. So, it's polarizing.

You should talk to him about like Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett eats McDonald's for breakfast, drinks Dr Pepper or Diet Coke or one of those things and he's still pretty healthy for his age.

So, yeah, I mean, that's a good point but you know, his response is probably gonna be like, you know, well, that's an outlier. And I did press him on this and we can move on after this but I was like, you know, some of the doctors out there like Dr Peter Attia, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Mark Hyman, like all these longevity experts, right? They eat meat, they eat fish, and they get a lot of sun, right? And I said, so, why don't you do it? And he's like, well, you know, at this longevity summit, the YPO Longevity Summit, he's like, who shared their biomarkers? I was like, you did. He's like, did anybody else? And so, his whole thing is like, my biomarkers crush everybody else's. And so, like until they can beat mine, then like they can, you know, so—

F off.

Yeah. He didn't say that but like, you know. Yeah, yeah.

I look at it as the reason his marketing does so well is because he's taking things to the extreme. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I agree with you on the Warren Buffett. He's an outlier. You know, I'm not associated with McDonald's and Coke, but I would never give my kids McDonald's and Coke every single day.

You just give it every other day.

I would not even give it every other day or even once a week.

How many times you get chicken nuggets?

From McDonald's? 3, 4 times a year. Oh, wow.

Oh, it's a quarterly treat.

You said for McDonald's. I'm not talking about homemade chicken nuggets.

No, chicken nuggets for your kids.

From McDonald's.

Yeah.

Not homemade chicken nuggets.

Homemade too.

Homemade much more often, multiple times a week. But it's healthy when it's homemade.

Like actual homemade or like—

No, actual homemade.

TV dinner?

Not in the microwave.

Not TV dinner.

No, no, no. Like as in made from scratch.

Okay, okay, okay.

Right?

See, that's rich chicken nuggets. Even the ketchup is organic. So anyway, that's it for today, everyone. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe. Marketingschool.io/agency. We're going to show you all how we build this community. And if you have an agency, we're going to help you build your agency faster. So that being said, we'll see you tomorrow.