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Is Tiger Woods gonna endorse a product named Gonzo? I don't understand why Musclepharm signed Tiger Woods if it is going in this direction?
Monster Energy tries to keep the endorsers juvenile and silly, having their Monster girls and race car drivers....so, why so mature and s immature at the same time at Musclepharm?
I understand that the sports nutrition industry is boring and that Musclepharm's success is it's loud marketing.
Musclepharm is the loudest brand in the industry and it works globally...
Being too silly could become a problem though...I would personally rather have seen Musclepharm buying Jym. The brand is brilliant being so simple and introductory to bodybuilding. Let's not forget that most of those that enter the World of bodybuilding are very young people that are trying to figure out which way is up when it comes to sports nutrition.
Apple is a success because of the Apple stores that provide lots of information and help with the buying process.
Nike started with running, Under Armour started with NFL and Musclepharm started with UFC. Where is the athletic element in this next brand extension?
it depends on what they did?
If Musclepharm ran a prostitution ring on the side...I bet the stock will go down.
If Musclepharm recorded $50,000 too much revenue in one quarter....I bet the stock will go up.
what about getting it out in Dollar General soonest possible? doesn't it get bad sitting in the warehouse?
I guess Musclepharm is cleaning up it's mess.
I would feel comfortable if Musclepharm came up with a black line with a packaging similar to UK based Maxi Nutrition.
Glaxo Smithkline nailed it when it comes to mass marketing...It shows on the sales numbers, GSK's brand Maxi Nutrition had a 36% market shares of the market in the UK in 2012....
The current lines (ex. Fitmiss) seem to be very popular...but they don't work for all. Fitmiss is a disaster, from the packaging to Chady Dunmore's career as a singer and book writer. The Fitmiss brand should be in the center if it is intended to be a Musclepharm product, the container should have curves and the container should be in cream color...and pink and purple might be used, but no overkill. I would look at the colors that Lululemon and Vega sports nutrition use, nowadays women dig colors like brown and orange, just as much as pink and purple.
Source:
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-sports-nutrition-market-led-000000082.html
The inflation in Canada is close to 2% and in Brazil close to 7%, in United States it is lower than 1%.
Also, the downward trend for the Canadian dollar and the Brazilian real has been going on for 18-24 months, so it doesn't seem to have been hurting Musclepharm that much as it increased sales throughout that period of time.
The euro has declined sharply over the last 6 months and the inflation in the euro zone countries is close to zero....so, there there is reason for concern. The question is whether anything is invested and consumed there at the moment because looking at the numbers it look like we are heading for recession....unless the ECB quantitative easing will have a positive effect.
It looks like the Swiss don't think that will be the case....
When men attempt to make sports nutrition products for women:
http://fitmiss.com/store
When women attempt to make sports nutrition products for women:
http://www.lunabar.com/
http://myvega.com/product/protein-smoothie/
http://myvega.com/product/vega-one-bar/
http://www.maxishop.com/maxitone
Perhaps Eric Serrano got some testosterone capsules for the women too.
Jim Stoppani's presentation is zero, that said, I'm sure he is intelligent, so it was not to offend him personally.
Most founders of companies are not presentable enough to endorse their own products though...that's why we got models and famous people to endorse them.
You don't want too much silence for too long in an industry that is ever changing.
It seems like Muscletech and Body Fortress are not giving up much space at Walmart at this point in time, so that is not a positive now where Walmart is doing so well because of low price of gas.
Well, at least Musclepharm seems to be holding up at Costco....with time we might see more action at Walmart....
Regarding announcements of new lines, the trademark registration of a black line could be something that is related to the Tiger Woods endorsement. A more neutral packaging for broader segments of the market would be appreciated.
The original line should probable remain for the younger crowd, but Tiger Woods cannot be endorsing products named Combat and Assault...it makes no sense to me.
Also, making a Tiger Woods line similar to the Iron line makes little sense to me. Tiger Woods on some products that look similar to Glaxo Smithkline's maxinutrition with a little more bright colors or flashy presentation, and I think you got a winner.
I do like Jym's product presentation, the branding is nice...but the way Jim Stoppani looks, talks and presents himself is terrible....it makes me sick.
IMO, the Jym packaging is a ten, but Jim Stoppani is a zero.
I was only referring to the packaging, not the contents.
This kind of packaging possesses a very clean and neutral mass market appeal....similar to the packaging of Tide detergent.
Such packaging would be perfect for a sports nutrition line endorsed by Tiger Woods...
My greatest fear with Tiger Woods is if Musclepharm tries to fit him into a line almost identical to the Schwarzenegger Iron line, like one size fits all....Then Musclepharm will turn itself into some Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian perfume type company that won't be taken seriously by anybody.
Nice packaging from Glaxo Smithkline
I would probably be willing to pay more just because of the cool packaging. The design of the containers resembles the design of luxury cars.
http://www.maxinutrition.com/products/strength-and-power
http://www.maxinutrition.com/products/mass-and-size
I'm a little stunned that Glaxo Smithkline would have a sports nutrition product line named "Cyclone"? Why would you pick a name so close to Zyklon? It's insensitive.
Brad and anybody else that got problems with their business should learn something from one of Warren Buffett's mentors, Mrs B:
Right before each earnings report there has been unusual trading....that some insiders try to pump the stock price up by buying 500 stocks is another story...
I hate losing money but no matter how good you are that is part of the game....and if you could have prevented losses, you gotta learn some lessons the hard way being individual investor
Timing and managing risks is everything.
More sophisticated investors invest into multiple focused themes, like 4-5 at the same time for shorter or longer periods of time.
The hedgefund managers invest for the short term while value investors like Warren Buffett invest for the longer term.
The value investing strategy gives you more peace of mind, and time for two wives as Warren Buffett had until one of them died.
A real investor doesn't think like that, unless you lost everything you had.
Markets go up and down and you gotta be prepared for a little bit of everything.
I probably lost $140,000 last year...or less or more, I don't even count....because I don't have to follow any bench mark, I'm a long term investor that can take some beating.
As I financed some of the investments with loans, that is a bit of a concern....but the interest is like 1.75% and the loan is in euros...so, really I owe less now than when I took the loan.
You lose and win in investments, in 2013 I made $250,000...last year I lost, this year I might lose again or make $300,000....I don't care because I'm confident about my investments enough to not fear a complete melt down.
Musclepharm is definitely the most risky investment I have ever had, apart from one Danish shipping company and some Canadian gold mining companies, terrible investments but very small too.
I think insiders with knowledge about quarterly earnings and/or sales numbers are leaking information as Musclepharm had unusually high volumes right before each earnings release last year.
Musclepharm needs to monitor employees a little better, in particularly those with access to it's accounting.
Each time, these traders with insider information make trades in the right direction....They get it right each time with no exception.
what is this language? you write like a Jamaican smoking ganja.
Many of these upstart sports nutrition brands can be bought for little more than what Cory makes each year....It is tough to break through the barrier of not having any financing or sales capabilities.
http://www.manta.com/c/mb84vgt/fluid-sports-nutrition
Musclepharm can pick up these brand concepts and make them greater, in particular if 70% of the brand creation is done nicely and some additional shelf space can be created easily.
you only compare one particular flavor of the product vis-a-vis GNC, the most expensive channel for these products.
Not only that, you don't tell the correct price for GNC gold card members which is close to $64...Also, you forget to tell that GNC sells much more of these products than Sam's Club....and that wholesale warehouses always sell bulk cheaper than anywhere else and always demand bigger presentations of products.
Furthermore, the price you refer to at Sam's Club is a promotional price, a price system that all of Musclepharm's competitors adopts at Costco and Sam's Club. One Week Cellucor sells it's 5 lbs Whey protein tubes for approx. $35 at Costco, another week it is Optimum Nutrition, then Musclepharm....and same system at Sam's Club.
These products are always priced around $43-45 when there is no promotion....The promotion is like $8-10 off.
Initially when a product is launched the price is set low to promote it. Musclepharm cannot tell the customers that it discounted the price, because the product was just launched...There is nothing suspicious about this as everybody does the exact same thing.
Musclepharm doesn't need Sydney Rollock to tell them what they already know.
Nice interview with Fluid's ceo.
Green is the color of Musclepharm...
Nike targeted runners to begin with, look at where it is now.
Fluid sounds like a good name for smaller sized protein products, that are perceived to be otc medicine products...but that are not in reality.
This is Schiff Nutrition's strategy....brand and market C Vitamin as it was medicine even if is not.
The max container size would be 2 lbs, but at Costco for better presentation, you would sell it with 2 tubes together.
A company like Fluid got no distribution to speak of, so the company would probably cost little. Musclepharm buys it for a few millions and turns it into an operation with $40 million revenue per year....without doing much to it. Musclepharm got the sales and distribution assets to make it happen.
The company targets runners and active sport enthusiasts...with a market segment similar to Premier Protein, though with a little more credible sports image.
The brand image is entirely different from the other Musclepharm brands, entirely different presentation....so, it get it's own shelf space separate from the other products. This will give Musclepharm more diversification, reduced risk and more revenue.
Distribution is key in this business and Musclepharm seems to have gotten it right with all due respect.
Musclepharm could alternative expand by buying another upcoming brand that is targeting another segment of the market.
I really like this one from California:
http://livefluid.com/about/
I wonder why Musclepharm isn't entering the market for infant and medical nutrition having Phillip Frost on board?
I mean, products with whey protein in infant and medical nutrition is the big thing right now. I guess the quality standards of products might be stricter from a FDA perspective....but on the other hand, if you can make pharmaceutical grade quality products, all your other products should be good right?
At least, Musclepharm should consider a brand similar to Premier Protein, because the old people are loving it....and they are older for longer nowadays, than young people are young in America. Youth is like 10 happy years, old is like 50 miserable years, from 40 years old to 90 years old. It's sad, but most people are old!
I wonder what kind of academic journals that Musclepharm publishes it's "research studies" through?
I just read how bad some of the newer publishers of scientific journals are. Essentially we got loads of phony online journals that act like vanity presses....meaning that anybody that submits an article is accepted as long that author/"scientist" pays for it.
So, reading an article from one of these "academic" journals is just as enlightening as reading a sponge bob children's book.
Reminds me that such companies exist in the financial news and research industry as well...like
http://www.redchip.com/
I guess Musclepharm has never been particularly credit worthy forcing it to issue millions of shares, so when it finally got a loan, it got so excited that it went out buying shares back to feel better.....
Well, I have it the same way....It makes me feel so much better that I walk to the car after having eaten fried chicken at KFC....at least I'm burning some fat, even if my car is parked right at the front with a retard sticker.
Well, Musclepharm did a lot of weird things, among other things it issued a billion shares to make the share worthless, then doing a reverse split to bring the share up to something that people can trade.
Later is raised capital to buy back shares?
I have never seen anything like it...I wonder who told them to do that?
Musclepharm should try to make some money on the lifted embargo in Cuba if exporting to Cuba becomes unrestricted....The Cubans will crave anything American now...
Canada is probably not in the cards, unless the Canadian dollar drops 50%.
USA, China, Mexico and Brazil are probably the only places that are relevant to Musclepharm
Musclepharm can only invest in the countries with weaker currencies if it can get a loan in US dollars.
I would not bet that these currencies depreciate much further, as nobody would now for sure....I bet they will stay low for a while though.
I do have some Euro loans active for some margin investments in Europe....I felt comfortable as I took the loans when the Euro peaked....I would not be too aggressive going forward though, as the drop in the Euro seems to price in more quantitative easing than what ECB is known for. The ECB always got the German hawks unhappy with any attempts to fix the less responsible fiscal policies of Spain, France and Greece. US will never cease with the loose monetary policies, and the US got less of a problem with inflation going through the roof, so EurUSD 1.20 is probably more realistic than 1.16.
well, then it might not be such a bad idea producing your products in Brazil...In particular now where the currency is so cheap....perhaps even better than China where the currency follows the dollar.
UK is the main market in Europe, so the strengthening US dollar versus the euro is not such a problem to Musclepharm as the pound is strengthening versus the Euro, and following the upward trend of the US dollar and Swiss Franc to some extent.
Brazil, Turkey, Poland or Canada might be places to consider producing given the strong currency problem at home.
The Canadian dollar will continue to drop as the Saudis have decided that there should be no major oil industry in Canada.
Musclepharm might have been very wise by not investing in manufacturing in America or China for that matter.
I could see a brand like Nature Sport being more popular in Europe, but it will probably never be able to conquer much of a market share, considering each European country got local players that are strong within healthy and plant based supplements....
The US economy is not in a good shape. The December retail sales confirm that.
The gas price is riduculously low and still the retail sales dropped from the prior year.
Europe might be the place to invest in 2015 if France, Spain and Italy are supported with quantitative easing from the ECB. The German economy got better prospects than the US economy, as the low euro should support the export driven economy long term, the dropping oil price is perfect for a country that hasn't invested heavily into that. Also, the Germans got huge savings, no debt to talk of and some of the cheapest real estate prices relative to wages Worldwide.
low interest rates coupled with multiplicator effect from quantitative easing that releases liquidity in troubled euro zone countries should only spark the German economy.
I don't see the spark in America, the credit has been extended for too long making assets too expensive, the real economy is not improving.
I would assume that these foreign markets are the ones with most potential for Musclepharm:
Canada
Brazil
China
Mexico
Australia
Russia
UK
Turkey
The popularity of UFC, the popularity of sports nutrition, the popularity of American products, the body culture and the size of the young population are all factors that determine the market potential.
Countries in warmer climates typically offer the most market potential, but not exclusively considering these products are popular in UK, Canada and Russia.
All these products work and people will buy them regardless in US, Canada and Brazil.
In Europe where there is little demand for sports nutrition because of health concerns and strict regulation, such a study doesn't help for sure.
Americans need to eat more fruit and vegetables...and less protein, less processed sugars and less fat....but that is not where the nutrition industry is heading.
Americans favorite flavors used to be different flavors of fruits....now it is different flavors of cheese cake and ice cream....and one day it will become the flavors of victoza and plavix....or the flavor of swallowing your own vomit
The industry is not worthless and Musclepharm doesn't need to compare itself to Quest.
Musclepharm is different than Quest as it has positioned itself as a sports nutrition company, with it's image tied to athletes.
That may be an advantage in itself as Quest's space is very crowded and ruled by Clif Bar and Quest Nutrition.
Musclepharm is up against Cellucor, MuscleTech, Dymatize and Optimum Nutrition which is not so bad as these may have better cost structure and some good relations to some distributors....but very little to offer when it comes to brand image....close to zero imo.
What is particular about Dymatize? the name sounds like a detergent brand. Cellucor? WTF? is this a brand of epoxy glue?
Quest offers an uncomplicated functional snack product that fills you up without any guilt.
Many times, the sports and bodybuilding image leaves the consumer with some health concern. Quest stays out of the drama by focusing on what everybody believes is harmless, which is protein.
I mean, everybody needs protein and it is claimed to be good for you.
There are many different flavors and different types of Quest protein snack products (bars, chips) and it is widely available.
I mean, Quest bars alone will most likely surpass 5 Hour Energy revenues, and will most certainly surpass what Monster Energy will ever sell. If I were in the food and beverage industry I would offer Quest Nutrition $500 million without blinking.
Musclepharm could be overexposed with top athletes endorsing it's few products.
Nike got many top athletes as endorsers but it also got many different products that each need attention.
Musclepharm still has no obvious fit for Tiger Woods, so undoubtedly Tiger Woods creates little value to the company as of today.
Had Musclepharm had the products and brands in place for Musclepharm to capitalize on his endorsement, Musclepharm would already be making money of it.