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Big Consumer Brands Fight for Every Dollar as Nike Asks for Patience - Brand Voices - Week of October 3, 2026

Brand Voices for the week of October 3, 2026. Podcast synthesis on big consumer brands fighting for every dollar: Hershey betting on cheap and portion-controlled treats through the GLP-1 era, Nike asking for patience after a 26% Greater China drop, Airbnb and Disney racing to own the customer before AI agents do, and challenger brands from Kith to Kosterina taking shelf space.

Brand Voices

Week of October 3, 2026: Big Consumer Brands Fight for Every Dollar as Nike Asks for Patience

This week's theme: Big brands are fighting for every dollar. Hershey is counting on small, cheap treats, Nike is asking for patience, and Disney and Airbnb are betting on fans and AI to keep customers using their own apps.

Covers podcasts published Sept 26 – Oct 3, 2026.

In Their Own Words

Kirk Tanner, CEO, The Hershey Company ($HSY)

Kirk Tanner is one year in as Hershey's ninth CEO, after 32 years at PepsiCo. He went on Masters of Scale ahead of what he calls the company's "Super Bowl": Halloween.

His main point was that candy is still an affordable treat, even after two years of record cocoa prices.

"If you think about affordability, 75% of our portfolio is still under $4. This is a treat category. Just these small moments, moments of celebration, moments of reward. It is not a meal."

He said cocoa prices have "seen stability" and come down a little, but they are "still well above the historic norm." Cocoa has been the main reason chocolate prices went up.

The most interesting part was about GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, which cut appetite. Many investors worry these drugs will hurt snack companies. Tanner sees it differently:

  • He says the category has been "very resilient with GLP-1 users." They aren't giving up the foods they love. They are eating less of them. "It's almost a bit of freedom."
  • Over 30% of Hershey's portfolio is now portion-controlled (smaller sizes), so people on these drugs can still buy the brand.
  • Premium chocolate is "growing three times faster than the category." It is still a small slice, but Hershey is pushing Hershey Creme bars, Cadbury and Brookside to win shoppers who buy less but pay more per bite.
  • Hershey runs "empathy visits" in the homes of GLP-1 users and other shoppers. Researchers look in their pantries and fridges without saying they work for Hershey. Tanner said hearing it straight from people "hits differently than when you read it" in a research report.

He also explained how Hershey uses AI in its sales force. Salespeople used to choose their own store visits. Now an AI tool ranks the biggest chances for each rep: "Hey, Kirk, you've got to head to Target 7575. That's your biggest opportunity today. Your next stop, Walmart. Your next stop, Sam's Club."

On salty snacks (SkinnyPop, Dot's Pretzels, LesserEvil), he said Hershey is "building a business of permissible snacking," meaning snacks shoppers feel OK about eating. Asked about the backlash this year when Brad Reese, grandson of the Reese's founder, criticized recipe changes, Tanner answered briefly: "There's always critics."

Source: Masters of Scale, "Halloween meets GLP-1s: Hershey's candy Super Bowl, with CEO Kirk Tanner" (Sept 29, 2026).

Elliott Hill, CEO, Nike ($NKE)

Nike reported fiscal Q1 results on Oct 1. The stock fell sharply the next morning. CNBC's Squawk on the Street played a clip of Hill on the earnings call, and it was frank:

"Our Nike performance business is not yet large enough to offset the pressure we're seeing in Nike Sportswear, Jordan brand, and Greater China... I would characterize that our comeback is ongoing. At our size and scale, meaningful change takes time."

He added: "Our turnaround is happening. One sport, one sport community, one city, one country at a time."

The numbers discussed on the podcasts explain the selloff:

  • Greater China revenue fell 26%. Jim Cramer said Nike's share in China has dropped from 27% five years ago to 16% now, which he called "a 40 percent decline in their share."
  • Sportswear revenue fell by a low double-digit percentage. Sportswear is about half of Nike's revenue. Cramer said Dunk revenue was cut in half.
  • Cramer said Hill himself admitted Nike "oversupplied" Jordan retro styles, which damaged one of its most valuable lines.
  • Nike's new CFO gave annual guidance for the first time. It was weaker than expected, and the company announced more job cuts. Squawk counted "at least a dozen price target cuts."
  • The CFO said the dividend, at a 72% payout ratio (the share of profit paid out to shareholders), is safe. Cramer called that "the most positive thing I heard."

On Fast Money, the panel said North America looked better while China got worse, and that the guidance "wasn't that much worse" than what investors had quietly expected. Earlier, on Squawk on the Street, BTIG's analyst called Nike's November investor day in Beaverton the key test of whether its "innovation machine can be reawakened."

Sources: Squawk on the Street, "9AM HOUR: Stocks Rally and Yields Fall on Jobs Report, Tesla Delivers, Nike Tumbles 10/2/26" (Oct 2, 2026); CNBC's Fast Money, "Rate Peak or Pause?... Nike Reports Results 10/1/26" (Oct 1, 2026); Squawk on the Street, "11AM Hour: FTC Investigates AI Companies, Nike Earnings on Deck & Former Fed Vice Chair Alan Blinder 10/1/26" (Oct 1, 2026).

Brian Chesky, Co-founder & CEO, Airbnb ($ABNB)

Airbnb launched a set of new features this week: AI search, AI property comparison, pricing suggestions for hosts, plus grocery delivery and baby and sports gear rentals in the app. Chesky told Andrew Ross Sorkin on Squawk Pod that the goal is to become "the Amazon for travel and living."

His key argument is that chatbots are the wrong way to shop for travel:

"Right now the interface for an agent is a chatbot. And so it's kind of like taking a jet engine and putting on the back of a bicycle... Chatbots are not good for shopping."

An "agent" is an AI assistant that carries out tasks for you. Chesky said agents work fine for "paper towels or something that's much more of a commodity." But booking a place to stay needs photos, filters and side-by-side comparison. His plan borrows an old Netflix line: "We have to become HBO before HBO becomes Netflix." In Airbnb's version, it has to build a great agent before the general AI assistants get good enough that nobody needs to visit Airbnb directly.

Other specifics:

  • Traffic from ChatGPT "converts better than traffic at Google", meaning more of those visitors actually book.
  • 90% of hosts message guests before a booking. That is why he wants a human in the loop even when AI agents do the searching.
  • Inside Airbnb: "Almost nobody next year at Airbnb will be writing any lines of code." Engineers will tell AI what to build instead of typing the code themselves, so "we now have to retrain thousands of people."
  • He said his own job "is totally different than it was six months ago," because AI now gives him information he used to get in meetings.

He also warned his own industry. Silicon Valley is "in such a big bubble that we don't even realize it's a bubble," and "the average person feels like AI is happening to them, not for them." He expects AI to become a negative issue in elections after the midterms if tech doesn't change how it talks about it. On money, he said "there's way too much money going to companies without products right now," and pointed to "researchers with, like, three employees with no product getting $5 billion valuations."

Source: Squawk Pod, "AI Agents with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky & Walter Isaacson 10/1/26" (Oct 1, 2026). Chesky also appeared on This Week in Startups, "Justin Kan & Brian Chesky: The Rejections That Built Twitch and Airbnb | E2344" (Sept 30, 2026).

Dana Walden, President & Chief Creative Officer, The Walt Disney Company ($DIS)

Walden is one of Disney's top two content executives under new CEO Josh D'Amaro, who took over from Bob Iger in March. She spoke onstage with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw. It was the first detailed look this week at how D'Amaro's Disney is running.

On the handover, she said the strategy "is really an evolution of what Bob put in place" and the transition has been "remarkably smooth." She also said Iger still advises her: "I see Bob all the time. I get advice constantly."

She used D'Amaro's phrase "One Disney" to explain the company. Films create the characters and stories. Parks, cruises and products then turn them into things fans can visit and buy. "People want to collect. They want to share experiences... And no one does that like Disney."

Shaw pressed her on streaming. Nielsen data shows Disney "has sort of stubbornly remained" at 4.7% to 5.2% of U.S. streaming viewing. Walden said:

  • That share "will grow this year on streaming," and engagement on Disney+ "has grown double digits over the past year."
  • ESPN now shows 300 live sporting events on Disney+ "at no additional cost" to subscribers.
  • Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN won't simply merge into one app overnight. "You can't just flip a switch... Just accept that it's complicated." For now, Disney will nudge subscribers into the bundle "through pricing or unique features or where some exclusive content may sit."
  • Long-running shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy and Grey's Anatomy are the most-streamed shows in the U.S. Disney pays for new episodes because each new season "activate[s] entire libraries of, in total, thousands of episodes."
  • A Bluey movie is coming. She called it "fresh, original Bluey content that will activate the entire library and introduce Bluey to an entire new generation of kids."

Source: Bloomberg Talks, "Walt Disney President & Chief Creative Officer Dana Walden Talks Business Consolidation" (Oct 1, 2026).

Ronnie Fieg, Founder, CEO & Creative Director, Kith

Kith is the streetwear brand known for collaborations with Nike, BMW, Giorgio Armani and others. Fieg spent 15 years on the sales floor before founding it. He gave an unusually open interview on Open Residency, and the headline claim goes against the usual DTC playbook (DTC means direct-to-consumer, selling straight to shoppers):

"No paid ads, no influencers, no wholesale."

Kith's motto is "Give people more than what they pay for." Fieg said the only real risk is losing customers' interest: "The minute the curiosity goes away, it could all go to zero."

Asked who the target customer is, he said: "It's me." That is how the same brand appeals to a 14-year-old and a 45-year-old with 9,000 loyalty points. He said he draws on 31 years of looking at shoes, going back to unpacking boxes in 1995. He calls himself "a footwear guy," not a sneaker guy, and said a 10% tweak to a familiar style "can make a huge difference." He also said most shoppers now like products because they first saw them on social media. That isn't how he picks them.

Source: Open Residency, "Ronnie Fieg - How Kith Went From Streetwear to Luxury Without Selling Out" (Sept 28, 2026).

Danny Meyer, Founder, Shake Shack ($SHAK) & Union Square Hospitality Group

Meyer appeared on How I Built This last week. This week he went deeper on how he hires, on two more podcasts. Shake Shack started as a hot dog cart that helped pay to fix up Madison Square Park. "Never mind today we have 700 of them in 22 countries."

His hiring rule is 49/51:

"49% of what I'm looking for is how well I think this person can do the job we will be paying them to do."

The other 51% is "hospitality quotient," a set of six emotional skills: kind optimism, curious intelligence, work ethic, empathy, self-awareness and integrity. In restaurant terms, "cooking a great piece of fish only gets you to the 49-yard line with our company." On culture, he said companies have to be "really, really clear with everyone in the company which behaviors we are going to celebrate and which behaviors we are not going to tolerate."

Sources: The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk, "708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel" (Sept 27, 2026); Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel, "What Four Decades of Building Great Restaurants Taught Danny Meyer About Culture" (Sept 28, 2026).

Challenger Brands: the Founders Taking Shelf Space

Several smaller brands' CEOs gave useful numbers about getting into big retailers:

  • Maria Stipp, CEO, Suja Life (cold-pressed juice and wellness shots, now public). Suja runs its own plant in Oceanside, Calif. Orders arrive on a Wednesday and product ships within eight days, with a 99% fill rate (the share of retailer orders delivered in full). She says brands that use outside manufacturers "don't own the cost structure" when "input costs [go] up" and freight prices swing. Her growth plan is to sell more products in stores that already carry Suja: "upwards of 50 SKUs" (individual products) at Whole Foods but "low teens" at other retailers. New launches include energy shots with 75mg and 150mg of caffeine and a mood shot, because "the question I normally get from [consumers] is, what does it do for me?" Suja also brought back Slice, the 1984 PepsiCo soda, as its better-for-you soda. (Welcome to the Arena from ICR, "Maria Stipp, CEO, Suja Life: Juice That's Worth the Squeeze" (Sept 30, 2026))
  • Katina Mountanos, Founder & CEO, Kosterina (Greek high-polyphenol olive oil). She started the brand at night and on weekends while working full-time at Walmart. It now has eight-figure annual sales and is in over 6,000 U.S. stores. It started in 150 Whole Foods stores and is now in all 500+, with 16 products. Its tins "launched nationally this year at Walmart. Every Walmart store carries them." It does not compete on price: the everyday bottle is about $25 at Whole Foods, compared with $15–20 for typical bottles. (Everyone Talks To Liz Claman, "My Big Fat Greek Olive Oil Idea: Kosterina CEO Turned a Childhood Taste into Liquid Gold" (Oct 3, 2026))
  • Katie Lee, Founder, Katie's Pizza & Pasta (St. Louis). She runs four restaurants, a frozen-pizza plant and about 500 employees. Target picked her for its innovation program, which she says includes "only 20 brands out of 14,000." Target is putting her memoir Unemployable in all its stores in a 30-day exclusive, displayed next to her products. (The Arch City Report, "Unemployable: How Katie Lee Scaled From St. Louis to Target Shelves Nationwide" (Oct 1, 2026))
  • HiYo founders Evan Quinn, George Yeomans and Signy Cooper (non-alcoholic "social tonic"). The brand has a strategic investment from Constellation Brands and a partnership with Live Nation. The founders "think they're going to do over a million cases of sales in 2026." (Unlocking Moves, "Happy in your Own. How Hiyo Turned Family Tragedies into a New Way to Drink | Ep. 75" (Sept 30, 2026))

Consumer Read

  • Shoppers are cutting back on how much they buy, not on whether they buy. Tanner's GLP-1 view (fewer bites, bigger share of premium, 30%+ of the range portion-controlled) matches the pattern across food. People still want the treat, in a smaller or better version. Selling an affordable small luxury "under $4" is how Hershey is protecting volume.
  • Private label is winning at the low end. On Marketplace's Nike episode, a guest said they had recently spoken with P&G's CEO, and that P&G is losing some share "because store brands, which are usually cheaper than their brands, people are turning to that." (Marketplace All-in-One, "Nike's not just doing it" (Oct 2, 2026)) Combine that with Kosterina's $25 bottle doing well at Whole Foods, and consumers look split: they trade down on everyday staples and pay up for "functional" or premium items they believe in.
  • Big brands are struggling to rebuild interest; small brands are still winning it. Nike's problem is sportswear and Jordan styles that shoppers saw too much of, and China. Meanwhile Kith wins with scarcity and no ads, and retailers like Target and Walmart are actively making room for challengers like Katie's, Kosterina and Suja.
  • The next fight is over who owns the customer relationship. Chesky (build our own agent before general chatbots take over) and Walden (pull everyone into Disney+) are fighting the same battle. Each wants customers to come straight to its app instead of reaching it through someone else's platform.

Quote of the Week

"At our size and scale, meaningful change takes time."

Elliott Hill, CEO, Nike, on the fiscal Q1 earnings call, as played on Squawk on the Street, "9AM HOUR: Stocks Rally and Yields Fall on Jobs Report, Tesla Delivers, Nike Tumbles 10/2/26" (Oct 2, 2026).