Episode · 2026-04-16
Amazon Ads Boycott
Amazon Ads Boycott | Allbirds: The AI Company | TJ Bongiorno x Jason Wong
Rundown
Chris and Colin cover TikTok Shop's quiet policy walk-back after fulfillment pushback, mock Allbirds' pivot into an AI/GPU compute company (Newbird AI) amid a meme-stock-style rally, and dig into a possibly misleading UGC hat ad. TJ Bongiorno joins to talk launching his caffeinated seltzer-style drink Yapp (co-packing, bar distribution, founder-led ad angles), and Jason Wong discusses his pivot from broad overseas sourcing to a focused packaging/unboxing business.
Takes from this episode
TikTok quietly walked back forced fulfillment-through-TikTok requirements after seller community pushback, showing platforms will flinch when sellers push back hard enough.
there was pushback on fulfillment on TikTok Shop all happening having to happen through TikTok. There was pushback on that... they flinched.
Allbirds rebranding as an AI/GPU-compute company (Newbird AI) after selling its footwear assets is a nonsensical pivot, and the resulting stock spike is speculative mania investors will regret not selling into.Prediction
pivot its business model toward AI compute infrastructure... If the market crashes and you didn't sell your stocks you will look back at this exact moment.
The grandma-narrated hat ad is borderline deceptive (gray-to-black hat) but will still convert extremely well and scale fast in the ad account.
Does this mislead? ... I would argue this is like maybe gray to black hat, but like this is absolutely going to print.
Getting the new canned drink physically into bars, on par with High Noon's on-premise presence, is the crucial next distribution move for the brand.
this needs to be in every bar in America... We need to get them in the bars, TJ.
AI-made founder-led ads reliably drive down CPCs and CPMs and can realistically deliver around a 4x ROAS.
Chris just showed you a great founder ad that was made with AI... I actually truly believe you'll get a four ROAS out of it.
Unboxing is the brand's 'first handshake' with the customer and packaging must be Instagram-worthy and protected by an outer carton to survive shipping.
when you open that box... that is your first handshake with your customer... it needs to be great for Instagram.