Transcript 0:00 The CMO is the CEO of the future. They're the ones that have the pulse on the, on the consumer. [upbeat music] So welcome to the Franchise Marketer Podcast. I'm with Bob McKay. 0:13 So Bob, um, you were kind enough to have me on your podcast, uh, which is a Franchise Whispering Podcast, um, a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I'd return the favor because when you told me what you do... 0:22 And I love franchise marketing, it's great that you have a fr- a Franchise Whispering Podcast, which does a lot about franchise marketing, which is fantastic. 0:28 But about your business, I was really interested in what your business does because I think a lot of businesses in Australia that I know of could use a business like yours, uh, with the results that you deliver as well. 0:38 So Bob, first of all, do you wanna just introduce, uh, a little b- tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about what your business does as well? Yeah. 0:46 So I'm a founder and CEO of McKay Advertising and Activation. We've been around since 2005. 0:52 We've been nicknamed the Franchise Whisperers, uh, for food brands exclusively and, um, also have a podcast on franchise marketing news, the Franchise Whispering Podcast. And, uh, 1:07 yeah, a big, uh, big, big fan of the franchise space. And let's talk about, um, who you help, because I think it's a really good market, and I think it'd be re- really relevant to people listening in Australia over here. 1:19 So do you wanna talk about exactly who you help and how you help them? Yeah. So it's been, it's been a journey, obviously, since 2005. Our, uh, agency turns 21 this month, so here in- That's amazing... 1:31 the States it'll be able to, it'll be able to drink from now on. Um, and so, uh, about 2010, uh, I mean, we leaned into digital media early days, 2008. 2010, we got our first franchise client, Medi Weightloss Clinics. 1:48 And then we're always, you know, really involved in the franchise space. And then, um, 2020, 2019, we started to realize that, um, 2:00 when we worked with the QSR, the food franchise space, we were really able to impact their businesses from a creative standpoint. Our media delivery's been great, loyalty marketing. 2:13 Because w- what we've found out, you know, over the years is that, uh, CEOs and CFOs don't get how complicated marketing and advertising is this da- these days. 2:24 So, you know, they don't have enough resources in the marketing department. They got two people, they got five people, you know, max usually, and you can just spin the plates then. You can't really do anything well. 2:38 And so we were like, "Gosh, we really come in and help them." Some of the home services, some of the car washes have bigger staffs and some silos, but in the restaurant, QSR, FSR space... 2:54 On them and, uh, deliver top line, um, revenue services that, uh, that really helped them. And then when you start to get that granular into a space, um, you start to see everything that really goes into that. 3:11 So there's literally between, you know, talking to the person through media the first time, and loyalty, and reviews, there are 428 pieces of tech that can go into that process. 3:26 And so now we have all knowledge of all the tech that goes into those processes. When to use this, when to use that. Generally, when we come into a new restaurant brand, we're like, "You got double usage here. 3:39 Take that out. You, you don't need that. Stop the subscription, save some money." 3:44 And then overall, what we're able to do is allow the CMO, the marketing director, to worry about strategy, to worry about LTOs, to worry about a new menu item coming out, how to market some of that, and then we get that, we develop new creative for it, we distribute it through media, then we bring it in through loyalty marketing and, and let them do what they really love, and that's, that's strategize. 4:11 Best part about it is it's a tight feedback loop. We have everything integrated very, very well, so we can give ROI numbers back to them like that and how things are going. So the data we've, we give them, 4:26 that's where we get the Franchise Whisperer part. It's, you know, many times, the first time these franchises are like, "I see where my 3% went, and I actually made, you know, 5X on it." So- Yeah... 4:39 "This is great, you know, this is... I, I love this stuff." A byproduct is really we're, we're able to, you know, 4:49 in some ways be like the marriage counselor for the zor and the z with this process and build trust and, and that type of thing. So it's, uh, it's, it's a great business. We love it. And yeah, that's, that's what we do. 5:02 Yeah, 'cause that's where your name come from, right? 5:04 You went into a, um, a brand where there was a bit of issues between the franchisor and the franchise, and you were able to get onto all the franchisees and really show them and put stuff in place about what was happening, and that's where you got the term from them, from there, right? 5:19 No, that's exactly it. So we went in there, and, you know, it's, uh, 5:25 a lot of brands, you know, they're doing a lot of billboards, they're doing a lot of radio, they're, you know, buying TV in markets and those type of things, and you just don't track it. 5:34 But the POS systems have gotten sophistic- sophisticated. Toast is so great. We can track so many things through that. 5:41 That was the first time these people ever saw that their 3% returned, you know, 3X on top of their 3%, or 5X or 8X. 5:50 And, you know, even last year a, a brand we took over, uh, they now have a hun- over 100 locations in the States, and actually they're coming over to Australia too, the Great Greek Grill. 6:03 Um, they had never seen ROI before. By October 10th, we took over October 1st, they were getting to see ROI through online orders, in-store purchases, and those type of things. 6:19 And you also coined the term the activation bridge. So this is what it's about, right? 6:23 Um, really clear ROI for these franchisees and franchisors, because you're right, I think marketing teams internal-- like in franchising, I think most businesses just get blamed for everything, right? 6:32 And there's so many different things they've gotta do now, and the c- as you said, the CEO and the CFO think it's a simple job sometimes I think, and they don't realize, as you said, how many places you need to be now, all the different moving com- components and stuff like that. 6:44 They just try and look at it really simply, and I think unfortunately, a lot in Australia anyway, marketing position's probably the highest turnover in any franchise brand. 6:51 There's not a lot of longevity in it, 'cause CFOs and CEOs think just by changing the person every 12 months I'm gonna get a uptick in performance, which obviously doesn't happen a lot of the time. 6:59 So do you wanna talk a little bit about that from your perspective? Yeah, no, that's, um... Well, the good part about it is it's never been better, you know, to be able to show performance. 7:15 You know, there's still gaps, you know, there's still in-store purchases that are kinda tough to define on, you know, what media touched them, why did they come in there, at least in the, in the franchise space. 7:27 But there is certain attribution that we can bring and show and, and that and everything, but, you know, 10 years ago when it was radio, TV, and outdoor, you were, you know, if a CFO, CEO had a bad day, you were done. 7:40 You know what I mean? [laughs] Yeah. There was no justification for it. And, and it's funny you bring up the activation bridge. We're probably like on activation bridge 5.0. 7:50 Uh, the, the first activation bridge was taking people from traditional media to digital media, and then 2.0 was taking that from digital media and showing them how to attribute the digital media inside the platforms, the POSs, and the other, other things. 8:07 And now it's taking the digital media, showing them the POSs, and then showing them lifetime value through loyalty marketing, email, SMS, to give them a real feel on value. And when you can do that, you know, it, it's, 8:25 it's not only the being able to show ROI, 8:31 but it's being able to feed them back with true data that they can make decisions on, that they can make considerations on, instead of this, you know, gray area from 2015 where marketers were, you know, trying, "Here's my hypothesis on things." 8:47 We can bring them, "Hey, this email worked. This subject line, we tested it in five different places, and this subject line worked best, and here was the 5X performance over the 2X performance." 8:59 You know, now we can all make decisions together, collaborate more, and with the way technology is today, the feedback loop is pretty, pretty tight on that. So 9:10 another byproduct is we, we tend to secure the CMOs' jobs a little bit more with this data we provide [laughs] and those type of things. And, uh, and we've-- You know, you're getting me on my rant here, but I, um, 9:28 you know, previously the CEO generally came from the CFOC. 9:34 And I, and I'm not here to drive a, a competition between CFOs and CMOs here, but the CFO knew the books, they knew the business, they knew the accounting, they knew everything that went in. 9:46 They were the natural person to take the CEO seat. Well, today with all the data and the pulse that the CMO can have on the consumer, they can detect what the consumer wants. 9:56 They can detect what the innovation should come next. They can detect all these things that can actually disrupt the business, can transform the business, and that type of thing. 10:07 And our personal, um, opinion on that is the CMO is the CEO of the future. 10:13 They're the ones that have the pulse on the, on the consumer, which is, uh, even more important than, you know, doing the accounting and, you know, financing and stuff like that in our opinion. 10:24 You're probably the first person I've heard ever say that because, um, everyone's doing videos now, the CMO role is dying, and the CMO role is changing, all this sort of stuff that I see online, and especially in the software tech space and stuff. 10:34 You know, a lot of these, uh, people are talking about, I know the guys on the Marketing Against the Grain podcast did a video the other day saying the CMO role is dead and all this sort of stuff. 10:41 So I'm really glad to hear that from your perspective as well, 'cause, um, I agree with you. 10:45 I think, um, that, that's definitely the, the, the way it's going, especially when you've got this stuff in place, what you can put in place for businesses, how valuable does it make that person, uh, with that, with the customer insights they can get. 10:56 But what you've done, Bob, as well, like how did you come up with this? Because there's a lot of moving pieces to what you're saying. Like it just sounds to me like a hell of a lot of work when I hear that. 11:05 So how did you come up with this thing? Was it literally just mapping out every touch point in the business and trying to have, link it back to some sort of... 11:13 How, like, just how did you determine the ROI from an activity? Like can you just go a little bit about your process with doing this? 11:18 'Cause it sounds like a really, uh, big exercise and would've taken a while, uh, to really put this thing together. Yeah, I guess we've always... One of the biggest things we strive for 11:34 has been transparency about our media delivery, what it's causing, what are the outcomes of it, and we've done it from a selfish need. 11:43 There was many ti- early times we were running campaigns, we were seeing clicks, we were seeing landing page engagement- Yeah... we were seeing this. 11:53 But we had talking to the client every month, every month, "Oh gosh, are you seeing the same thing we do?" "Yes." Get to month six and they're like, "Nah, it's not working," and, uh, the relation was done. 12:05 And we're like, "Well, that's a surprise. I thought everything was cool." 12:10 So we wanted to make sure we knew- Everything about the whole funnel, what is going on, and that's where the activation bridge went from traditional media to digital media, then it went from digital media to attributed digital media, knowing the ROI, and now attributed digital media to loyalty marketing where we get the lifetime value. 12:31 How you do that is basically integrations into the POS systems. Some of these POS systems 12:39 are, have a little challenge with certain media platforms, so we've gotta go in there and code and develop some, uh, mechanisms in there so the attribution happens. So when that attribution happens, 12:53 that's the, the first media part. And then with all the media we do, 13:00 we do tend to do a lot of, you know, instead of direct mail pieces, we do coupon digital downloads through Meta and TikTok where the consumer gets to download the coupon and we get their name, phone number, those type of things. 13:13 Yeah. We have a quick, a, uh, get permission to, to market back to them. But we're, we're always like capturing data the entire time. 13:22 And so then we've got the media ROI, and now we've got lifetime value pushed through email and SMS, and we can, you know, develop a really strong picture on what's, uh, what's delivering, what's not delivering, how to talk to the consumer, how to not talk to the consumer, and those type of things, which just gives the CMO, the CEO, this data on, you know, everything about the consumer and their, and their likes and needs, and then they can make decisions about products, services, and those types of things for them now. 13:56 Absolutely. And a big, big topic over here is always national versus local marketing. So how do you, how do you view that with, with franchisees? 14:04 Obviously, you've got the franchisor with the national sort of stuff, like how do you view their role and, and how do you help in that regard? Yes, we've got, uh, um, obviously we do a lot of national brands. 14:17 What we do is a little bit different though, is even if it's a brand with over, you know, 278 locations, 14:29 there quite possibly is a franch- you know, out of those 278, 67% of those are owned by single franchisees owners. Yeah. So that person really is got his business, her business, those type of things in a, in a radius. 14:45 And so, so that's kind of the em- emotional touch on really we've got to deliver for these people in, in, in a very sophisticated way and make them successful. 14:55 And how we do that is we know that each demographic and psychographic is gonna be a little bit different in that area. And we also realize that people have Amazon expectations. 15:06 They're, they're not gonna drive to the five hamburger place to get to this hamburger place, unless it's just crazy, exceptionally good or they're super fans of it. So what we do is we do... 15:20 Generally, we look for audience in Meta, TikTok, Google Performance Max of about 100,000 people in a tight radius around the location. 15:30 It can be, you know, depending on the product, it can be 200,000 and it can be a two-mile radius, one-mile radius, five-mile radius. 15:37 But what we do is, once again, is we make it convenient for that consumer to use that product and services. So we want them to dominate, 'cause outside of a mile, like inside a mile here in the States, 15:51 a restaurant is competing with 25 to 60 other restaurants in a one-mile radius. Wow. You get to two miles, now it's 50 to 120. We wanna keep it to that 25 to 60, depending on the density of the population. Mm. 16:05 And so if we're doing 256 campaigns or whatever, it's all individual campaigns, one to two-mile radiuses around the entire, uh, around the country. 16:17 Now we get pulses, you know, we're looking at the data, what are we seeing in these different areas? How do we need to make, you know, optimize that location or that group or that group? 16:28 And so it's not really national campaigns, it's all hyper local campaigns that grab first party data that then ingests in the loyalty system. So now you've got, ideally when we do a new store opening, 16:45 we try to capture 2% to 5% of the population in that 100,000 person audience area in the first 90 days to six months. So now that location 16:59 has 2,500 to 5,000 people that they can email the LTO to, that they can SMS this p- particular... That they can stay in touch on a, you know, on a certainly weekly basis. 17:13 And so, yeah, it takes the honeymoon phase out of it, it compiles all this first party data, and then the marketing on top of it just continues to 17:23 develop awareness, and then you can take that data and you can use it for lookalike modeling. You can not target those people in media. 17:31 There's so many different ways to nuance, but then it all goes back into the individual campaigns for 280 campaigns or more. It's very impressive. And, um, I can't believe how competitive it is within one mile. 17:42 [chuckles] You definitely don't have that over here, here in Australia. That's quite an amazing, um, number to hear from, from, from my perspective. 17:48 And also, um, just the, the, the, um, how in- how much in, is involved in those launch campaigns. 17:54 I do know launch-- people who do launch in QSR over here and stuff like that, but I don't think it's involved, as involved as what you're, you're doing, which is why I'm happy to ha- like really happy to have you on because I'm hoping some people listening to this might reach out to you from Australia because I think what you do is quite exceptional, es- especially with what you just told me there. 18:11 Um, and with, um, you know, obviously with AI and all that sort of stuff coming into it now, how does that impact what you do and how do you implement it, um, with your clients? 18:19 Or how do you actually maybe use it as an agency, uh, to help-... do what you do, 'cause you obviously gotta do a lot of stuff. Um, has it made your life a lot easier, or how are you using it? You know, it is, um, 18:31 it's in some instances it makes it a lot easier. Sometimes it makes it a little too easy and you gotta really be diligent to make sure- Right... 18:40 to, you know, be considerate, be thoughtful if you're, you know, doing a report in AI and you're not reading all eight pages yourself before you 18:51 give it to internal people, you know, you're, you're, you're requiring others to do more work for you and sift through stuff, so that's one of the policies we have. 18:59 If you're gonna do a report or something like that, you must read it all. So we've seen that comp- compact reports to two to three pages now that were eight pages. 19:10 It does help us sometimes, you know, we feel we deal with, um, 19:16 brands that might not have, like, some of the greatest creative that they're giving us, so we can run it through AI and give it a little sparkle and those type of things from a creative standpoint. 19:27 Um, obviously testing different verbiage helps us to, uh, to do that. And then, you know, especially in the restaurant, uh, um, I guess it was three weeks ago, um, ChatGPT, 19:43 who bar none in the AI, uh, dominates, you know, people asking what, where to eat, what to eat, and those type of things compared to Gemini and the others, 19:54 they switched from accessing their, uh, information from Reddit to Yelp. Mm. So now they access all their information from, you know, Yelp. 20:06 So like on Monday they access 15% of their information from Reddit, by Friday it was 0%, at least in the restaurant space. So do we have the silver bullet with that right now? No. 20:18 We've had a half a dozen meetings with Yelp. We're testing things. We're finding it out. How is this gonna affect the GEO and those type of things. And, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna figure it out quick. So, uh, 20:32 you know, it's funny, you see commercials or, you know, messaging about everybody's got it figured out and, uh, it, it just moves too fast. It, it does. 20:41 This month everybody was saying dominate your Reddit space and doing all that stuff. Yeah. 20:47 Yeah, it's funny, um, I'm glad they did that change, 'cause when I saw that as well I thought fantastic, 'cause Reddit in regards to buying a franchise is probably not the best place with respective franchisees. 20:55 And in Australia for example, um, we have, because we're such a big brand in Australia, we have Reddit threads, you know, is buying Jim's franchise a good idea? 21:01 And people who've got no idea about being a franchisee answer that, and then obviously they get services in, in LLMs. 21:07 So when I saw that with, um, with what, with, um, Yelp, I thought that that's, that's at least a good, a good little change there as well, 'cause Reddit can obviously impact a lot of businesses and it's nothing to do with their business, and, um, I'm glad to see that sort of changing. 21:19 But as you said, it moves so quick and I just think the models and, and what's happening is just too fast for anyone to keep up with. 21:25 And you mentioned the word GEO then, and there's a lot of, there's a lot of people now, SEO agencies are now AEO and, you know, get- you know, guaranteeing LLM visibility and all that sort of stuff. 21:34 So what are your thoughts about GEO? What do you know about GEO and AEO and, and how's that sort of going now and, and how do you maybe, uh, talk about it with clients and maybe raise it with you? 21:46 Yeah, we're, um, we're really transparent on it. Um, we're figuring it out. We, uh, we don't have a silver bullet right now. 21:56 Like I said, we know the, you know, Yelp, and we're- we've had six meetings with Yelp, how do, how do we think this is gonna, um, factor in on, on those, you know, reviews, different type of content and those type of things and the structure that you need it. 22:13 Um, but we're, we're, we're figuring it out and it, it's kinda one of those things that, uh, 22:20 when we collaborate with the brands we're working with, we don't charge them right now 'cause we feel that we're learning on their dime. But, uh, together. 22:31 And so we, we do have a, a couple relationships where, "Hey, let's figure this out together as we move it forward for writing content while we're doing this, while we're integrating it. 22:42 There'll be some hourly charges, but let's do this together." 22:46 Yeah, no, it's great to hear 'cause I think there's so much certainty around it at the moment, and we have a lot of agencies here that pitch, you know, guarantee 200 prompts in ChatGPT, and the, the franchisor thinks, "Oh, fantastic. 22:56 I'm gonna be guaranteed to show up in ChatGPT." 22:58 And I'll have a bit of a t- trouble sometimes educating our franchisors that that can't be ha- that doesn't happen, and the reports that they're providing are wildly inaccurate. So it's a bit of a education- Yeah... 23:07 I think, and unfortunately marketing agencies are taking a little bit of advantage of it over here. But I was gonna ask about, um, the creative side because, um, creative is obviously massive im- massively important. 23:16 You've gotta get people's attention on social media now. Um, how, like, what are your thoughts around creative? Because it's obviously something here I spend a lot of time on with, um, the recruitment stuff. 23:25 But recruit- re- creative trends or what, what do you think works best or how do you sort of go about when you start working with a brand like the Greek brand, for example, you're bringing to Australia, the creative aspect? 23:37 It's, um, it's, it's all in the data really for us. Right. 23:41 There's been, uh, one of the things I've, I've found out over the years is, you know, sometimes we'll do a creative brief with a client and be like, "Hey, here's, you know, four different, you know, types of, uh, creative we wanna run." 23:55 And, um, if there's a high ego person who's like, "Well, I wanna run that one. I think that's gonna work best." Yeah. And I'll be like, "You know what? I think this is gonna work best. 24:05 Why don't we have a $20 bet but we're gonna run all four and we're gonna find out real quick what the consumer likes the best." Yeah. 24:11 And so it's, it's all that optimizing, utilizing the data, understanding the demographics. But it's also about building, you know, a brand. And when I, when I s- 24:23 I think the greatest touch point in brand building is when the consumer is inside the restaurant, dining on a Juicy Patty, a Jamaican Juicy Patty that's new to the United States, and they're, you know, 24:38 engaging the brand for the first time. Now that is where the brand is built. That's where the product is, uh, integrated into their lifestyle and those type of things. So 24:50 it's whatever that creative is gonna work best to make that happen is where we really concentrate on, on the brand building. And, uh, and yeah, no, uh, that, that's an interesting brand. They're out of Jamaica. 25:04 They've never been to the States. We started with them three years ago. 25:07 They've got 42 locations, Miami, Atlanta, New York Bay, Bronx, Harlem, Times Square, and, uh, it's been really fun to introduce them to the United States. 25:19 Amazing thing you mentioned to me before, I think it's the biggest difference between the Australian and American franchise market is just the franchisees, how many locations some franchisees can actually have. 25:27 Whereas here, franchisee might stop at one or two locations, especially in QSR. Whereas you said somebody had a 60-something locations in, in the brand. 25:35 It's amazing, um, just the, the amount of stores or locations some of the franchisees over there own. It's completely different to over here. 25:43 Um, with, with those sort of people, 'cause they're obviously really successful business people, how, how do those sort of... How do you manage those conversations? 'Cause they're extremely obviously wealthy. 25:52 Um, you mentioned the word ego before as well, so you might have some really, um, sometimes, you know, difficult clients sometimes. How do you manage those sorts of massive franchisees with those, those locations? 26:05 Yeah, it's, um, it's all about, um, I think collaboration really because, uh, um, obviously the data helps us. We've got the data. 26:18 They're providing, "Here's what's working, here's what's not working," and those type of things. But what's next? Because the restaurant space is a tough, tough space. 26:30 Uh, FSR, QSR, all of it is really a sharp elbows business, a lot of competition and, you know. Yeah, we had a good past six months, but, but what's next? What's the next LTO? Where are we going with this? 26:47 And for s- some agencies that I've teased, that's a lot of work or whatever, but it's, you know, the, the space we've chosen, but it's, it's also invigorating. 26:59 It's, you know, y- you come to work ready to go every day and you know, how are we gonna innovate? 27:04 'Cause, uh, uh, with AI, with everything going on, it's, uh, it's a fast-paced environment, not only in the restaurant space, but all around business. How do you- And so, so- 27:17 I was gonna say, how do you keep up- And then it's- Yeah, Bob, how do you keep up with what you do? Are you- Um, we're-... 27:24 time aside to learn every week, or you just literally, like, once you find something, like you're just spending a bit of time on deliberately learning about, like how are you actually maintaining or how are you staying up with everything or, or putting these things in place? 27:37 'Cause you gotta, you gotta do your job for one, you've gotta run the business, you gotta keep clients happy, but then y- you've gotta constantly learn as well. So how, how do you do it? 27:45 Is there any things you listen to, or is there any places you go to where you try and stay up to date with information, or how are you learning all this new stuff? Yeah, so I, I'm a very early riser. 27:56 I get up at 4:30 every morning and then, uh, do a lot of reading, um- Right... listening to, uh, podcasts. But it's, it's funny when you mention that, and, and you'll probably validate this, 28:10 hosting my own podcast, just some of the people that come on and the, the stuff they share and those type of things, it's like, it's awesome. It's like- Mm-hmm... 28:20 I literally learn one or two great things every time I host a podcast. So- Yeah... when you're banging out two of those a week, it, uh, it, it accumulates fast. 28:31 And then additional reading, and the team on my staff is, uh, like Kate Webb, she's our director of marketing. She came to us with 14 years of Popeyes and RBI experience. Yeah. 28:44 She's got this vast amount of franchise experience. So Maryanne Kaplan has worked with franchise. She's our traditional media buyer, and she's got over 30 years of working with franchises. 28:56 So it- we've just got a lot of experience and then the others with five or seven years of experience, just a very curious group around here that, uh, helps us stay on top of it. 29:08 Yeah, I think as a marketer now, you just have to listen to podcasts or have YouTube videos in the background or something like that. 29:13 At work I'm pretty lucky, I've got a pretty quiet office, but I've got a YouTube channel that I'm just flat out listening to podcasts in the background about different things, or if I need to learn something, I'll basically search for it, and I've also used Google NotebookLM a lot. 29:25 So for example, I'll have, um, you know, an RSS feed automated with an agent going to like my NotebookLM when a new YouTube video comes out from someone, and you can go and have a play around in there and, and see what comes up. 29:34 But yeah, you've gotta be constantly learning. It's just moving so quick. But my, my other question to you as well is more of a, just a business question. 29:41 Not many businesses in Australian market past 10 years, and you've made it to 21 in a really tough, tough field. Um, with, you know, to be in an agency for 20 plus years is, is quite amazing. 29:50 I don't think there's many in Australia that, uh, that, that have passed that. How have you stayed in business for so long in 21 years? 29:56 What's, what's some advice about longevity in business, or how, how have you done it? Um, gosh, I mean, I've been blessed. Uh, I guess one of the core things maybe is always, uh, you know... 30:15 It's changed so many times. I mean, uh, like I said, we've done-- It started out in 2005, TV, radio, and outdoor. By 2008 we were pushing digital. By 2010 Medi Weightloss Clinic. And then, um- 30:32 I guess a lot of being blessed is part of it. Um, I will say during, in 2020, we like on March 10th or whatever, we lost all of our business- Yeah... and stuff. And COVID, it came to a crest. Um, and 30:48 if you're in, in, under that situation, you know, I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, I only work with referrals or whatever. I only do stuff by referral." And, and that's great when people are handing out referrals. 31:00 But when something like COVID goes out there [laughs]- Yeah... no referrals to be handed out. Yeah. Everybody wants them and nobody's giving them. Um, and I remember we were going up to Cape Cod with my, uh, my family. 31:15 I'm like, "Hey, you guys are on vacation. I am not." And I made cold calls from 9:00 to 4:00 during that, you know, two, two-week vacation. 31:26 And the funny thing about COVID is everybody was sitting around on their desks looking for something to do. I was on an appointment tear [laughs] during- Right... that frame. And we landed Village Inn restaurant. 31:40 At the time we were doing hair salons, we landed Fantastic Sam's hair salon. A Woody's Wash In. I don't know about car washes in Australia right now, but they're, they were a vast, big brand. 31:52 And so I always look back on those times fondly of, you know, going from zero to doing great in a matter of nine months because COVID actually made everybody sit by their desk and wondering what to do next, and you were able to help them. 32:08 And then once we got the accounts, that, that localized marketing thing, you know, location by location, was really able to work well. So if Denver had a shutdown, we could go to online orders for Village Inn. 32:20 If Tampa, you know, it was d- it was a interesting time, but I guess that is one of the times it's like, wow, we made it. We made it [laughs]. No, you've done well, mate. 32:31 Well, but pr- it's a great, it's a great story and, um, I can hear why, you can tell why from listening to you with what you've done over the years, and being able to shift and adapt is really, really important. 32:39 But Bob, thank you very much for your, your time today. If people wanna learn more, they can go to Mackay Advertising or Franchise Whispering podcast and check it out with Bob. 32:47 There's obviously a lot of great guests, uh, from the States he has on there. Um, I learned a lot today listening to this as well. 32:52 It sort of made me come away with some ideas I need to implement back with head office with us. Um, but thank you very much for your time today, Bob. I really do appreciate it. Oh my gosh, it was great. 33:01 Thank you so much. Have a good one.
