In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst David Meier and host Dylan Lewis discuss:
- Hims & Hers Health taking a big swing at the weight loss industry.
- Dunkin' and Starbucks taking very different approaches for morning coffee drinkers.
- McDonald's lackluster Super Bowl ad and earnings results.
Motley Fool personal finance expert Robert Brokamp and host Alison Southwick continue their conversation on 401(k) plans and how you can get yours in better shape.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our beginner's guide to investing in stocks. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.
A full transcript follows the video.
This video was recorded on Feb. 10, 2025
Dylan Lewis: We're digesting ads from the big game and fresh results from McDonald's. Motley Fool Money starts now. I'm Dylan Lewis, and I'm joined over airwaves by Motley Fool analyst, David Meier. David, thanks for joining me. Did you enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday?
David Meier: First of all, thanks for having me, and yes, actually, I did.
Dylan Lewis: I'm glad to hear that because I have to say it felt like a lack luster Super Bowl to me. I wasn't as psyched up as I probably should have been. I'm a big fan of the NFL, but it was hard to get up for this one. Then we got to the on-field product, and it became a snooze fest pretty quickly.
David Meier: It depends on your point of view.
Dylan Lewis: [laughs] I guess that's true.
David Meier: I have to say, this is not meant to be too pejorative against Kansas City, but I did not want anybody to three-peat. I was like, that's an enormous record. It was rooting for Philly. Not a Philly fan. My team is the San Francisco 49ers. I'm a native Californian, that's been my team forever. I really didn't have necessarily a dog in this hunt, but I was like, it would be awesome for Philadelphia to break the streak, the Mahomes streak, the Kansas City streak. But I was absolutely shocked at the result on field. As someone who does enjoy good high level football, Philadelphia's defense was just absolutely amazing.
Dylan Lewis: I feel like this was the dis Super Bowl. The Eagles came out and absolutely embarrassed the Chiefs. Kendrick Lamar came out and put an emphatic finish on the rap battle that we've been seeing with him and Drake. There's just a lot of hate, a lot of spite in the game and the broadcast yesterday.
David Meier: That's actually so well put.
Dylan Lewis: [laughs] I will say, I need to give our colleague, Nick Sciple props, because on last week's radio show, he and our colleague Ricky Mulvey did a sports betting preview and rundown, and he said the Tush push touchdown was one of the most interesting prop bets out there for the game. It took all of about 10 minutes. [laughs] That happened, David.
David Meier: That's right. That one is always fun to watch. I was going back to the previous game with Philadelphia versus Washington. Washington actually stopped them a couple of times on the Tush push, so I'm surprised Kansas City didn't learn anything there.
Dylan Lewis: While the game was not particularly interesting, did the ads do anything to save the night for you this year?
David Meier: For me, overall, and I didn't see all the ads live, but I have seen most of them after the fact. I was a little disappointed. Maybe I'm just getting older. [laughs] Maybe I'm missing something in the pop culture. But I will say, I didn't understand a lot of them, and a lot of them were just frankly too quick for me to sometimes digest. I'm like, wait, was there a joke in there? Wait, what did you say? Wait, was that a setup? Wait, I'm lost. That being said, there were a few that stood out. I think there's also some interesting things that we can talk about from a business standpoint as they're related to the ads as well.
Dylan Lewis: I think there are some years where there is a clear theme that is dominant in the ads. We saw maybe two or three years ago, crypto was a very big theme. [laughs] A lot of crypto advertisers popping in. This year, I don't know that there was a clear theme to me, other than what we see in the commercials, very similar to what we're seeing in entertainment right now in movies, where it's like, we are going to put a ton of famous people in something. People will be interested and enjoy it. I think to your point, the script writing is important. We need some connective tissue there for things to make sense.
David Meier: Totally agree. Regardless of how you feel about celebrities and things like that, there has to be a narrative. Call it a hook, call it whatever you want, but there has to be something that brings it all together and makes it memorable, just putting up somebody's image who's famous. Don't get me wrong. I like seeing all the actors and actresses up there doing their thing, but I want to hook, I want something that's memorable, something that makes me laugh, something that makes me think. I didn't quite get it. Again, as a whole, I didn't quite get what I was expecting.
Dylan Lewis: One that did land for me was the Uber Eats' Matthew McConaughey ads. This has been the extension of what they were running during the regular season, the conspiracy that the NFL is about getting people to order food. They really brought it home and sent Matthew McConaughey through the ages with football touch points. [laughs] I enjoyed it a lot, and I think for me, seeing that strategy playing out, Uber Eats has plenty of competition in food delivery. We have Instacart, we have DoorDash that are really trying to eat into some of that business that they have. They're trying to maintain as much mind share as they possibly can.
David Meier: For that one, in particular, yes, that was interesting. The hook was, this has all been a conspiracy. You have a doubter come in. Honestly, I can't remember the young lady's name. But she was like, really? You think this is what it was all about? Again, they hit you with funny stuff to say the pig skin. Everybody likes bacon. Of course, everybody likes bacon. But yes, watching him come through the ages, we also have a little funny reference to the six degrees of separation of Kevin Bacon, who makes an appearance at the beginning. Again, that one was a little thoughtful. I hate to say it again, that was more at my pace. I could actually figure out what they were talking about.
Dylan Lewis: I loved it. I thought it was a good nostalgia tour. Seeing Matthew McConaughey suiting up in a Broncos uniform to be Peyton Manning, calling out Omaha in the play, Switch, I thought that was fantastic.
David Meier: Or him playing Mike Ditka? [laughs] Walking down the tunnel with refrigerator Perry. That was funny as well.
Dylan Lewis: One of the advertisers I wasn't expecting to be talking about on today's show is Hims. They are a brand that I think has really skyrocketed over the last year or two and become much more a part of the public consciousness. They had a pretty bombastic Super Bowl ad. They came out with this, it was almost an advocacy ad in a way, but it was this ad talking about the issues with obesity in the United States and also with the health and weight management systems that we have here. The poll line for me on this one, David was the system was built to keep us sick and stuck. Then they talk about how they are a cheaper, more affordable provider in the world of weight loss.
David Meier: What was the other line that we saw in the article, I believe it's designed for profits not for people. Look, that's actually a great tag line. Again, if we're talking narratives, if we're talking memorable, if we're talking things that you can walk away from and generate a feeling, yes that is one of the knocks on the healthcare system is that it's basically a recurring revenue business, as opposed to, how can we help people get better? That one was definitely more in your face. There's also a little bit of self serving there as well. If you don't know, Hims and Hers is one of their business lines is compounding. They can actually make pharmaceutical compounds and sell it to people. I believe this is correct, from what I have read and studied, because there is a shortage of the semaglutide injections, they are actually allowed to make the compound and sell it. But if manufacturing of those come back from Novo Nordisk, come back from Eli Lilly, then they will not be allowed to sell it. What they're trying to do is say, here's a problem, we are a solution, we are more empathetic. We're about you, we're not necessarily about profit, which is not exactly true.
Dylan Lewis: They're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
David Meier: Correct. Now, they will offer lower prices, but it's like, hey, if you want this, it's available through us, it's a little bit cheaper and we want to help you. Again, it was a lot of good messages both from their branding, from their, hey, there may be a shortage or some scarcity value, so come with us and we'll help you. Then you take shots at the system. That's a good way to get some consumers to make a decision and buy their product and help from a weight loss standpoint. I actually thought I may not necessarily agree with everything, but that was a pretty effective ad.
Dylan Lewis: There was a great Wall Street Journal piece about that ad and the positioning for Hims, because as you noted, they have a special exemption right now to be able to create this stuff. The FDA has decided that some of those drugs are no longer in shortage territory, there are still a few that are. It seems to me like the playbook here for Hims and Hers is we need to get as much awareness as possible around the fact that we offer this thing, so that we can, one, seize this huge customer acquisition opportunity, and two, maybe turn the public perception here so that the average voter pushes a little bit on lawmakers and the FDA to make these more affordable.
David Meier: Very good point. I will also say there's a third thing, and that is, Hims and Hers doesn't just offer one thing. Maybe you don't know about all the things that Hims and Hers does. Not only do we have weight loss, but we have a whole laundry list of other products and services that we offer as well. Get them into the system, get them looking around, learning more about their business. You have a good association with the brand to start off with. Again, people over profits is sort of the message they want to send. All around, I would say if I was quickly doing some back of the napkin math on a return on advertising spend, Hims is probably going to be up in the top five for sure.
Dylan Lewis: One of the other advertisers that made quite a splash was Dunkin' Donuts. They brought back their who's who of Massachusetts with their ad this year. They had Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Bill Belchek, Jeremy Strong popping out of a coffee vat in full method acting mode. It was a fun ad. When I saw that one, what I was really struck by is they are of continuing to position themselves as it's just coffee. Come and get it, and it's here for you. Positioning the Starbucks angle to things as this just overly complicated, overly expensive experience for coffee.
David Meier: [laughs] It only wasn't until after the fact until I finally digested everything. I may have rewound a couple of times just to figure out what was going on. In one sense, that's the irony of the message. This was a complicated commercial. This one went very quickly for a message that was, we brew simple, good coffee. It took a lot of mental effort for me to get to that point. That's not what you want to do. [laughs] You want to get to the point right away and then hammer it home with funny things that support the point. Dunkin' is free to do whatever they want with their creatives. But I was like, I'm lost. I was sitting next to a friend. My wife was over on the other side of the couch, and I'm just like, I have no idea what I'm supposed to take from this on the first pass through. Then, again, I watched it a couple of times and figured it out. But contrast that, well, let's go with a simpler one, which was the sketchers ad with Andy Reid. Andy Reid pokes fun at himself.
He's not doing the manual labor, he's not getting in there, so he's a hand model. That's of funny. As a hand model, I don't want to disturb my hands. Look, I have comfortable slip in shoes. What's the demographic? Quite frankly, it's the older guys watching the Super Bowl ads. For me, I'll be 55 this year, I play golf, and one story that I keep telling about sketchers is I see more and more of their golf shoes out on the golf course, men and women in my demographic. Why? Because they work and they're comfortable. If you're walking five miles on the golf course, you don't want your feet to hurt at the end of the day. Again, it's an interesting contrast between those two.
Dylan Lewis: I think at the end of the day, we have to remind ourselves. For as much entertainment as these Super Bowl ads are intended to provide, you want to do something that drives people to interact with the brand at some point. I will tip my cap to Starbucks, because they were the butt of the joke when it came to Dunkin's ads. But they came out today and said, this is Starbucks Monday. We know that you guys might have been up late, [laughs] might have had a couple of drinks last night. We're offering rewards members a free talk coffee to help you get through the day. Connecting the messaging of the night before with actual action and trying to get people back to the stores, which is a major priority for Brian Niccol right now and that team. That just seemed absolutely brilliant to me.
David Meier: I think you're spot on. It's interesting before where I said, get to the point. Their point was actually at the very end. It was the last phrase, hello again. I'm like, oh my God, that's great. One, it's memorable. Two, it fits what they are going through perfectly. The knock on them recently is that, we need to revitalize, we need to make this part of the community, we need to make this a place where you want to go. You want to interact with people, you want to interact with the baristas. The whole mantra of we begin your day, we energize your day, come to Starbucks. We have all things that you may want. You can get whatever you want. Then the hello again just brought it all together. I agree. I wish I would have seen that one live, I did see it after the fact, but I thought that was a very good ad considering where Starbucks CEO wants to take the brand from this point forward.
Dylan Lewis: One of the surprises for me was for the big brands, McDonald's, didn't have a particularly splashy Super Bowl treatment. [laughs] If you were watching the broadcast and didn't realize they had an ad, you'd be forgiven because it was a pretty forgettable one. It was almost a slideshow. It was leaning into this model that they've approached recently of taking famous people and showing what they eat at McDonald's. Which can work, but it just felt a little empty to me.
David Meier: I agree. Again, I realized that the thing you talked about earlier, let's get as many celebrities in front of the camera as possible. They probably went through 10-12 players, maybe five or six on each side of the ball in terms of the Chiefs and Eagles. But I couldn't read them fast enough. I wanted to see who they were. I couldn't discern exactly what their meal was because it cut so quickly. I was trying to listen to see how they were describing the meal, and I'm like, I don't even know what to come away with this. The only thing I come away with is somebody on the Eagles goes to McDonald's to get a blueberry muffin and an orange juice. That's the only thing I walk away from this with. That's wrong. McDonald's used to be so good at their advertising. I think they dropped the ball. This is definitely a fumble.
Dylan Lewis: [laughs] Love it. Color me skeptical on that. I think that it's more likely that whoever that player is is getting a McDouble or is getting an egg McMuffin or one of the more staple what you really want type items.
David Meier: As somebody who has frequented McDonald's in the past, and we were talking about this a little bit before we got on the air, an egg McMuffin breakfast sandwich, that does hit the spot at the very beginning of the day. I'm not going to McDonald's to get a blueberry muffin. I have a local bakery that makes a hell of a blueberry muffin. That's where I'm going for that. But again, I would imagine there is the truth in advertising. I won't completely write it off, but it does seem a little odd.
Dylan Lewis: Maybe their Super Bowl ad didn't hit, but they did wind up dropping earnings today as well. We have plenty to talk about there. It seems like the quick line here is earnings generally in line with expectations, revenue down a little bit. The market seems pretty happy, even though the customer is visiting more and spending less.
David Meier: Which is odd. There are a couple of numbers, we'll say, stood out. The first one is 130 billion, and that is what they call the system wide sales. If you don't know, McDonald's uses a franchise model, so they actually take from their franchisees, they take a percentage of the top line revenue, which is this system wide level revenue, $130 billion. It's just sometimes it's hard to think on a global basis just how big McDonald's is. In the United States, the comp store sales were down 1.4% in the quarter. They were actually up 0.2% for the year. For the quarter, the international developmental licensed market sales, which I'm pretty sure was mainly Japan, increased 4.1%. International sales carried the day in terms of the quarter. From a global standpoint, it looks like it was about a wash in terms of what they did relative to the last fiscal year. But McDonald's, it's good at what it does. The opportunities to grow are difficult because it's so big, but it just generates so much cash flow. If I go down to the cash flow statement and look, this is all about returning cash to shareholders. Cash and share repurchases, three billion dollars, dividends about five dollar billion. Pretty much any cash that's not going into incremental growth, which we'll talk about in the sec, is just being returned to shareholders, and shareholders are happy about that, especially when your dividend yield is just under 2.5%.
Dylan Lewis: Speaking of growth, one of the ways they are trying to re engage is to focus on that more value oriented customer. They've rolled out a five dollar deal. I've bought that five dollar deal many times. I've gotten that craving, as it sounds like you have a time, David. [laughs] They've been able, I think, to successfully get people into the stores. They've talked about how the average check on that five dollar meal is more than $10 in a lot of cases. The hope is that people are creating add-ons as well with those orders. It seems like that's happening a little bit. What's interesting is McDonald's approach to traffic declines has been to discount and try to work their way out of it that way. We talked about Starbucks earlier. Brian Niccol recently has said, we went way too far in the discounting direction to try to get people back in the store. That's not something that we are going to be continuing to do. We're going to put that promotional spend somewhere else. It's odd to see two staple companies in their industries approach the same problem very differently.
David Meier: But I think if we step back a little bit or move out to 10,000 feet, McDonald's does have a little bit more of a value-oriented brand, and Starbucks is definitely more of a premium brand. You could argue both are actually taking steps in the direction of their brand, which is what you want to do. You don't want to be incongruent with the brand message that you're trying to get out there. The other thing to your point is, if shoppers, and I've noticed this, I will say, at the beginning of 2024, if I would go get a breakfast sandwich, I was paying on the order of 450, sometimes almost five dollars. Then about the August-September timeframe, I noticed, I can actually get off the value meal, I can get two sandwiches for four dollars. McDonald's made a conscious shift, and anecdotally, at least in the one around me, it does seem like there's more traffic moving through the drive through line. McDonald's can afford, especially because of their model to use that pricing as more of a lever to generate traffic, and then, to your point, if you get you and someone else in your family and maybe someone else, if you're all going to the value meal, instead of just a five-dollar ticket, then it becomes 15, and then somebody orders one extra thing, and it becomes 17. One more thing becomes 20, and it's those incremental dollars added to the check that start to add up.
Dylan Lewis: David Meier, to borrow a football metaphor, thanks for going through the game tape with me on Monday morning. [laughs] Appreciate it. Thanks for joining me.
David Meier: Thank you very much for having me.
Dylan Lewis: Coming up on the show, you're getting answers early this week. Robert Brokamp and Alison Southwick continue their conversation on 401(k)s and how you can get yours in better shape.
Alison Southwick: Last time we were all together, Bro delivered a few ways to make the most of your defined contribution account, by which we mean your retirement accounts like a 401(k), 403(b), and Thrift Savings Plan. We're back with even more tips for making the most of these types of accounts. Are you ready, Bro? Here we go.
Robert Brokamp: I'm ready, Alison.
Alison Southwick: All right. The first piece of advice is don't crack your account. I have no idea where you're going to go here.
Alison Southwick: [laughs]Well, it's important to know that withdrawals from a 401(k) before age fifty nine and a half maybe partially or fully taxed, depending on the mix of pre-tax, roth, after-tax money, things like that, and penalized 10%, though there are some exceptions. The bottom line here is it's best to leave the money alone until you retire in your 60s. Unfortunately, many people raid their retirement accounts long before retirement. More than one in three workers cash out their 401(k)s when they change jobs, rather than rolling it over to an IRA or the 401(k) at their new job. This cost them thousands of dollars, maybe tens of thousands of dollars in taxes, penalties, and foregone growth on what they could have had if they had just moved it into another retirement account. When you change jobs, make sure that you move the money to another account, another IRA, another 401(k). If your old 401(k) sends you a check, which might happen if you had a low balance, don't put in your bank account, instead, again, get into an IRA or 401(k) ASAP, or it will eventually be considered distribution, possibly subject to taxes and penalties.
Alison Southwick: Next piece of advice is to choose the best investments. That sounds so easy, Bro.
Robert Brokamp: It does sound easy. Unfortunately, in many cases, you just don't have a choice. Because the investment choices within your account are limited to a collection of maybe 20-25, maybe 30 mutual funds. I will say the situation has gotten better over the last 20 years or so. Costs have come down, and now more plans have, index funds, target date funds. But most plans still include at least some underperforming actively managed funds or just have higher costs because the costs of the plan are embedded in all of the funds. Make sure you evaluate the funds in your 401(k), perhaps using a site like morningstar.com to make sure that you're choosing a fund that is outperforming most of the other funds in its category over the past several years. If you'd prefer to invest in individual stocks, you may not be out of luck. Approximately one in four 401(k)s offer a side brokerage account. That allows you to buy stocks, bonds, ETFs, choice of literally thousands of other mutual funds. The option is not always well publicized within companies, so check with your HR team or the plan provider to see if you have the ability to open up a side brokerage account in your 401(k).
Alison Southwick: After you've done that, you'll also want to make sure you're going to coordinate your 401(k) allocation with your other accounts.
Robert Brokamp: The principle here is you want to be looking at the asset allocation of your portfolio across all your accounts, not just one account. Ideally, you have at least a couple of good fund options within your 401(k). In fact, they may be funds that you wouldn't be able to get outside of the plan because they're only open to institutional accounts, like a 401(k). These may be funds that are closed to regular retail investors or maybe funds with lower expense ratios than what you'd be charged if you had to buy it on your own. You can choose the really good funds in your 401(k) to play their respective roles in your asset allocation, and then you just round out your portfolio with your other accounts. Your taxable brokerage account, your IRS, maybe even your spouse's accounts, because you should really be thinking of asset allocation across the whole household. For example, let's say your 401(k) has a particularly good small-cap fund, international stock fund, and is often the case, a higher yielding cash like option. You could overweight those types of assets in your 401(k), and then you focus on other asset classes in your other accounts. Many Motley Fool listeners and readers and even employees, myself included, like a mix of index funds in individual stocks. Since almost all 401(k)s offer index funds these days, many Fools use their employer plans primarily for the index portion of their portfolios, and then invest in stocks or other funds in their other accounts.
Alison Southwick: Once you've got your allocation dialed in, you'll also want to take advantage of the features offered by the provider because there might be other stuff there.
Robert Brokamp: Many of the financial services firms that operate 401(k)s also offer additional benefits. They can include things like online tools, retirement calculators, maybe educational articles or live webinars, and even some provide access to financial professionals who you can call and discuss your 401(k) asset allocation or maybe even other aspects of your personal finances. Some will also offer wealth management services, like they'll manage your 401(k) for you, but that's usually for an additional fee of maybe 0.3 or 0.5%. Poke around your 401(k)'s website and the documents to see if there are any side perks that might be intriguing to you.
Alison Southwick: We've been talking a lot about if your plan offers this, if your plan has a number of good options to choose from. But what can you do if they don't? Well, maybe you can move your money.
Robert Brokamp: If you have a less than excellent 401(k), you want to roll over the money to an IRA. You can do this anytime you switch jobs and when you retire. In some cases, you might be able to move the money while still working for your current employer. This is known as an in-service distribution. It's very common to provide it, but it's also most commonly available to employees who are age fifty nine and a half or older, but not always. Check with your plan provider to see if you can do an in-service distribution and at what age.
Alison Southwick: Another option for if your plan maybe isn't so great, is to advocate for a better one.
Robert Brokamp: If you think about it, everyone at your company, you, your boss, HR department, is in the same 401(k) boat. If the plan has high cost, subpar investment choices, limited flexibility, no side brokerage account, no in-service distributions, no after-tax contributions, then everyone's retirement prospects will suffer. Do some research, gather some data, and then recruit allies that could help persuade your employer to improve your company's 401(k). Over the years, I've heard from many readers and listeners who have successfully convinced their employers to at least add features to their 401(k)s, if not change the plans altogether. Really, there's no harm in asking. If you're successful, your future retired self, and those who your colleagues will thank you.
Dylan Lewis: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards. It is not approved by advertisers. Motley Fool only picks products it would personally recommended friends like you. Signing off, I'm Dylan Lewis. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.
