SPEAKER_00 0:15

Uh brand manager, how are you? Doing well? Welcome to QA session three. It is I, your slightly hungover marketing professor. I'm in London. I'm working here this week. I was in Milan this week. Oh, that was nice. Working for a very lovely brand and lovely people. And then um back to London doing lots of work here and then shortly to jump on a plane back to Australia. Uh two important modules, positioning and codes, and two very important ones to come next. Talk about those at the end. Let's do the QA in about half an hour and then let's talk about what's coming up because we really are in you know in a super important phase of the program now. So um uh Stephen clearly, in your list of what are codes from Module Six, I noticed you didn't mention uh slogans, e.g., just do it, should have gone to spec savers. Do you believe slogans are merely the tactical articulation of positioning and can be changed and adapted over time as long as they evoke the brand image, or should brands be more strict in sticking with a slogan? Oh, that's a great question, Stevo. Yes and yes. I think slogans do, it depends on the data, yeah. Tin Andrew Tyndall's data has slogans as a pretty good uh on average distinctive code, uh, but not as good as some of those, you know, uh product shape, brand character, etc., on average. Um, I would say to you, yes, a slogan is that you know, it the best way to think about slogans is they are a tactical execution of positioning, they can change, but they can also be distinctive and and more of an unchanging code. It really depends. Um, if you do the you know, my obsession with Kit Kat, if you do Kit Kat, um uh have a break, have a Kit Kat. That's what that is, according to Nestlé, one of the codes of Kit Kat. So I think it it you know it it can be, is the short answer. It doesn't have to be. Uh Stefan, we have a meaningful D2C, Amazon-only CPG brand in one big country. Uh approximately $7 million. Yeah, super meaningful. Where we don't have any physical distribution. We spend all the marketing budget on performance to drive sales. Based on the mini MBA, we should spend 60% of the budget on brand building. If we do that, I imagine sales will drop rapidly. Do you? I wouldn't even know how to think about mass marketing in a big country with a relatively small budget. How do you go about reaching the 60-40 split? Change all at once, change over time? How long? Yeah, look, first of all, I it smaller brands. One of the factors that changes how much you should spend on brand building is size. Smaller, newer brands should spend less on brand building. Um, and and Les and Pete have got that in their modeling. So it wouldn't be 60%, it it might be 30%, and you would see uh, you know, uh an impact from that. Would sales drop if you did that? I don't think so. So another myth of the long and the short, I think, is that long is you know takes a long time to work. It takes a little bit longer than performance, which as soon as you stop spending money on performance, it stops working. The point about the long of it is it endures. Now, the other point about this is it doesn't have to be 60% either. You know, anything you spend on mass salient brand building is gonna help you, Stefan. In terms of what tactically you would do with your two, three million uh that's your revenue, right? So it could be that your performance media spend continues. It's just that you your content and what you're saying changes a little bit. And you broaden out the targeting, you aim a bit more for salience, you inject a bit of emotion and brand associations into your work, and you will see a benefit of that. Um and who knows, it may stop being D2C and it may become bigger than D2C if you keep going that way. Certainly, the lesson of D2C was it's a good way to start, but at some point you run out of runway and scale and growth and you learn to brand build, which may be what you're doing here. It doesn't have to be 60%. Um, anything you do that's more broad, that's about getting the brand to have more salience and more emotion, uh, is going to be a good thing. And if you approach it that way, I think you know it's it's less challenging. Vivek, the Audemar PGay Swatch pop collaboration is everywhere this week. Yeah, I saw them on the street in Sydney, I've seen them here in London, people lining up. Swatch gets a share price bump, cultural relevance, and all the purchase conversion and footfall. AP gets awareness among people who'll never buy a royal oak. Nah, nah, you're missing it, Vivek. You're missing it. Keep going though. From a brand management perspective, is this a smart asymmetric deal for AP or a case of a luxury brand trading long-term equity for short-term buzz? And does the accessible luxury exposure ever actually hold for ultra-premium brands? No, you nearly got it, Vivek. What AP are doing, which is first rate in my opinion, is they're thinking about 30 years from now. Yeah, all them young guys can't afford an Odomar's P Gay Royal Oak right now. But if they're not careful, you know, right now, men of my age and some women of my age, um, a lot of them aspire to uh a royal oak or own a royal oak. But we're all going to be dead soon, and we'll need younger customers who don't just spring at, you know, turn 50 and go, I want an Odomar's Pigay. You've got to seed that market over long term. So I think what they're doing is energizing their brand, exposing it, making people aware of it. And those some of those people, some of them one day will grow up wanting the real thing. I I think what their CMO has said uh is textbook good brand management. There's also uh some other stuff going on that no one understands in the media who keep writing about this. I don't want to bore you too much with it. I mean, I used to work for Tag Hoyer, so I'm I'm a little bit more into all this. Um in the US and also in Europe, they've struggled to get uh IP protection for a lot of their distinctive assets. And one of the ways they can get better IP protection is is getting more mass awareness and distribution. So this is going to help them in that case, too. That's a side issue. It's good stuff, honestly. It's good for both brands. You need to keep these big, iconic brands fresh and modern, and AP have just done that, and they'll get a big boost out of it. Uh Yihan, uh, when it comes to brand diagnosis and analyzing a brand's past, how should we approach a company whose current positioning and category are very different from its origins? The brand I currently work for originally started in fireplaces, but over time evolve into supplying and fabricating uh HDP products? Anyway, something different. The transition wasn't necessarily driven by a long-term brand strategy, but by market opportunities. In a case like this, how much weight should be given to a brand's original history when the current business has little connection to its origins? Should the diagnosis focus on more recent stuff? Partly, but you're gonna find um that the founder, the brand stuff, a lot of it isn't just product-centric. You know, we can talk about you know, watches. Tag Hoyer started out making chronographs, stopwatches, yeah, and then moved into timepieces and wristwatches. But a lot of the story of the how they made the chronographs and how they approach the business still carries over. So I'd still study the history, but obviously with a little bit more flex there as well, Ian. Vivek, a lot of brand heritage thinking assumes you have decades of history to draw on. Yeah, but what about newer brands that are only 10 years old or less than 10 years old? How important is the founding mythology and the why we exist narrative as a substitute for time? And is there a risk that leaning too hard on it feels manufactured rather than authentic? In cases where it feels manufactured, should it be left to the founder to expo espouse the mythology? Yeah, look, maybe. I had a boss who used to say, Christopher Navarre, who used to say heritage starts tomorrow morning. And his point was every brand once upon a time was less than 10 years old. So I think you have less of it, but I still think you've got to pay attention to it because it's happening before your eyes. But with that caveat, I think you're right, there's a lot more in flux and and and less history and meaning to lean on. Anastasia. Hi Mark. We've recently discovered that two brands in our company play the same strategic role. Uh-oh. One brand is smaller, but has a very loyal customer base, though the customer base is aging. Another brand is a bigger bet, so strategically important for us. We don't want to kill the smaller brand, but we cannot have two brands working on the same strategic role. What's your advice? Should we try pulling them apart by changing the positioning? No. Should we bring them closer with an eventual goal of merging? Yeah. So what you're going to do here, Anastasia, you're right to want to get rid of one of them, but don't kill either one. What you're going to do is what's called phasing. You're going to make it A endorsed by B, and then it's going to go, it's going to go A and B together, then it's going to go A from B, and then A is going to disappear, and you're just going to have B. We're going to talk about it in the brand architecture module. You're doing the right thing. Just phase them. We'll cover it in great detail in a couple of weeks. Abigail, in module four on targeting, during the three CMO story, you referred to what we used to call above the line mass media communications. Is the terminology ATL, BTL out? And now instead framed against long brand building and short activation. Saw of Abigail. I'm very happy, but I am very old. Still talking about ATL, BTL, above the line, below the line. You know, um did we talk? We didn't talk about it in the in the it comes from Procter and Gamble, right? And how they used to pay their agencies. It's 70 years old. I know what it means. You, you know what it means. It is, I think, gradually disappearing. I used it in that test of like, do you know enough about marketing? And I think about 70% of people with marketing their title didn't know what above the line meant. So you can infer a few things from that. Mostly that marketers don't know much about marketing, but I think it is going out of fashion. Um, long and short might be replacing it. Or brand and performance. Uh uh, what else have you got here? Oh, you say it was taught that activities belonged in either above the line or below the line, e.g., TV is above the line and in store is below the line. Is there a firm distinction? No, no, no, don't no, that's a that's incorrect, right? It's it's an easy mistake to make. I always use McDonald's as the example. So McDonald's can use outdoor for long-term brand building stuff about Maccas, or he can use it to say turn off the motorway and the next McDonald's is 200 meters away. So my point is any medium can be used to brand build, and any medium can be used for performance. It's true that certain media that are more targeted are probably more useful for short term, but I think you have to be media neutral on what is like there isn't a long or a short medium. Yeah? They can be equally good in theory. Nick, question about codes. What is your point of view? Okay, what is your point of view regarding changing codes to look more attractive for a target audience? I hate it. Do codes drive preference in any way? Uh, if not, and this is what I got from Roman Young's book, how do I communicate this to colleagues? Get rid of the book, especially in our case. We started a new business unit, but the idea is to use different codes only for this business unit while keeping the same logo and brand name. It's stupid, Nick, and you know it's stupid. Listen, use my rule, right? 40 years and you can change your codes by playing with them. That's not what's happening here. Your company is being different for the sake of it, they're stupid. You need to get them to read Jenny's book, or you need to tell them, yeah. It's a silly, silly thing, and they will regret it. Yeah. Don't be too clever, don't be too different. Boring is good. The consumer doesn't know it's right. It's really important. Uh, Ryan, high prof, for a large branded house operating across multiple categories, e.g., wealth management, insurance, and more, is it possible to run more than one layer of long activity? Oh, yeah. Specifically, a master brand layer for overarching salience and trust, and a category layer to build mental availability for products. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. I would say that's two-speed, right? I would say you've always got your overriding big brand salience. We stand for this, this is us. And then in the different categories, you've got different product or even sub brand stuff going on where it's like, you know, this is nationwide, this is who we are. We sponsor the lionesses. And then down below, the nationwide ISA package is aimed at this consumer for this thing at this time. That's entirely appropriate and I think relevant. Uh Aramas, um, in invisible low interest categories. Invisible, low interest categories, utilities, insurance, and banking, where CMOs respond to nobody cares by slashing brand spend and doubling down on performance. This just sounds like badly run brands, Aramas. But anyway, carry on. Are there uh are they reading the situation right? No, they're not. Or is this the exact moment brand matters most? Yes. When Binett and Field 6040 should swing further away from sales and towards brand building. Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's absolutely the moment where you need to go right. You're cutting back on the thing that you shouldn't be cutting back on, right? Johan, I work in a very small market, Iceland. Ah, lovely country, Iceland. Reaching brand awareness above 75% is quite common for brands, both in a short time and a relatively low sum. Whether or not the brand remains memorable over years is another matter. My question is if the 6040 split for long and short holds for such a small market. Do you have examples of how brands do this in markets of similar size? Iceland has a population of about 400,000 people. To my knowledge here, Johan, it's no different. I mean, all I do know is with smaller markets that are not too geographically sparse, outdoor overindexes, because everyone is is in the same space. Um, in Reykjavik, you can probably hit 350,000 people of the population, right, with a bit of outdoor when they come into the city. But yeah, the the there's nothing that I've ever read that says 6040 doesn't work just as well in smaller context or bigger contexts. Sam, where and how does the mission, values, and values of a company come into brand? Well, it depends on brand architecture, Sam. Um, I would suggest in the past it's got in the way a lot. And i if you're if you're part of a house of brands, for example, nobody cares what the mission and values are uh of the holding company in the consumer world. Now you can use those for your leadership, you can use them for the employees, but we don't want to stuff them into what's otherwise already a very complex thing. But it depends on the brand architecture. If you're a branded house, then maybe the mission is part of what you position upon. So let's get to brand architecture in two weeks' time because the answer will vary as you'll see, depending on the structure. You've only really got vision, mission, values at the holding company, corporate brand level, normally. So it's a question of where that brand is playing its playing its role. Mark, help me unglitch my brain. Okay, Eras. Brand codes are the superficial 2%, but also the part that delivers whether anybody remembers you while doom scrolling in bed. Absolutely right. So are they actually the highest leverage piece of all? The crucial there where strategy lands in in memory or evaporates? Less decoration, more lever to maximize ROI in a world of TikTok attention spans? Should we spend more time on the tip of the iceberg everyone actually sees? Am I missing something? No, I I mean I don't know where you've got the 2% from. I hope hopefully not from me. Um oh yeah, you do get it from me. I get it. Yeah, it's it's the it's the edge and it is the superficial, but it's super important, and you're right. Um, you know, 85% of ads that people see, they can't remember who the ad is for. That tells you something, right? So no, no, they're super important. They they're in the scheme of things, I hate to say this, but it's probably they're probably more important than the positioning itself, right? I'd say codes is more important than positioning. You're absolutely right. Abigail. For the moon case study, should we take the pros, trendies, savvy's as done and move straight into targeting? Yes. With the bonus segmentation module, I got in so much trouble about that. I've been tempted to apply the meaningful action. No, no, no, don't do that. You've got enough to worry about, Abigail. You could resegment, but when you get into the simulation, you've got those options prefixed. And also it's a good enough segmentation. So no, don't do segmentation, get to targeting. Andrea. Hi Mark. In a regional marketing role, we often need to protect a brand's global positioning and distinctive brand codes while adapting campaigns, channels, and messaging to very different local markets. How would you decide what should remain absolutely consistent across markets and what can flex locally without diluting the brand? Are there any principles or warning signs? Yeah, look, I think the main principle, Andrea, is you want to run it globally unless there's a bottom-up reason why it wouldn't work. Yeah. When I worked on, we're gonna talk about it a couple of weeks, when I worked on dialysis machines in Japan, uh, we had to change the colour of the white machine that went into people's houses because white is literally the colour of death. And it's like having a big black box next to your bed, and we didn't feel that was good. Um, so when you can make a case upstream for why you need to change, that's good. But generally, unless you can make a case, don't change. That I think that's the single rubric that should that should drive the thinking. Megan, and a good answer from Matthew, too. Uh, how does account-based marketing uh uh interplay with the long and the short of it? How should I be thinking about ABM budgets and measurement? For context, I lead marketing for a B2B company. We're running ABM for specific accounts, both one-to-many and one-to-one approaches. And measuring these through the lens of money can be tricky because they take longer to turn into real revenue. But because we're going after global enterprise brands, we've never seen any, we've never seen success with classic lead generation performance marketing techniques. I'd love your thoughts. Yeah, and thanks, Matt. That's a good contribution. Um, I here's my take on it, right? For what it's worth. I think ABM is brilliant in terms of your short performance approach. So in B2B, I've always thought of the short of it as whatever the sales force do. And in this case, account-based management. It still doesn't, you know, by definition, it's targeted by account, yeah. Um it still means that 40-50% of your budget should not be going into uh account-based stuff and should be the giant atomic bomb promoting the company to everyone. And that means every company in your target and also every decision maker and the whole, the whole suite. I still, so I'd say in in a nutshell, it's the short of it. Wowzers, Matthew. Good man. Good man, look at that. That's a 30-minute answer right there. Uh, Rebecca, my company has recently acquired the IP for a brand that hasn't operated in 10 years. Is it Jay Walter Thompson? Uh, it has strong heritage in its category and spontaneous awareness to rival many current brands. However, the market and customer preferences have changed significantly. How would you go about preserving all the distinct elements of this brand's positioning while updating it for 2026? Is it possible to revive brands? You bet it is. It's a smart play. Rebecca, honestly, I would say to you, you want to bring it back in its traditional form. You should use its brand codes. I think the brand positioning should just be brought back to life. You should ask the question, what does it mean for 2026? I think where you you do your work is in the two-speed thing, is in sort of positioning the products from the brand. Uh but you know, go back to our positioning module where we did revitalization. You're effectively bringing it back to life. Now revitalize it. What does this positioning mean for 2026? Don't reposition, revitalize. Go back to that, Christian Dior case, you'll get it. Uh Tara, uh, targeting the short-termism graph. Do you have data for 2016 onwards? Is the trend still going up? Yeah, it's it's we're still more short-term. Uh, Peter Field did a presentation start of this year. I haven't got the chart. We're still more short-term. It's slowed down a bit, but we're still we still suck, is my uh uh summary of the data. Tara, again, module five. What if your customers associate with you is not what you want to be associated with. A made-up example. In research, customers say reliable, safe, quality, but the brand wants to be seen as pioneering, tech forward, and confident. Do we lean into what the customer thinks? Yeah. You look, the positioning has to the cup, the customer C has to be partly what they want, but also what do they think of us? Now, you'll you'll do this with Moon. Yeah. There's some stuff out there that they want that you're kind of close to. You've got to make the call. Can we move more that way to the customer? Yeah. Can we change how we're perceived to fit them? What you don't want to be doing is trying to change the customer to say, listen, we're pioneering and you should want more pioneering stuff. That's the dangerous one. Yeah. So generally, you're leaning into what the customer thinks. Um Rather than trying to boil the ocean. And when you do moon, you'll this will play out, Tara, and you'll get some pretty good uh uh challenges when you get your perceptual maps. Uh Orimas, having a you're having a good week, Orimas. I'm definitely saying your name wrong, but I don't know how to fix it. Anyway, Oramas, in categories where the dominant emotion is frustration, telcos, utilities, brand campaigns can feel like lipstick on lipstick on complaints, lipstick on the gorilla, surely. Should brand strategy here begin in service design operations before comms, can a brand promise outgrow service reality, or does brand collapse into just operational excellence with a logo on top? No, look, I think all of that is tactics, or my way to think about it. Yeah. Uh so your positioning for the brand should then drive comms, but it should also drive how you're doing your service, how you're handling your customer complaints. So as long as you get positioning and strategy before tactics, the answer I think there is inherent. You can do them both from the same sort of strategic direction. Corin, uh, in the last two modules, I've been thinking about how to build a global brand while staying locally relevant. Well, if you work it out, do let me know, Corin. In our brand health tracker, the attributes most correlated with consideration vary significantly by market. Yeah, they always do. For example, what matters most in France ranks much lower in Germany. How do you recommend balancing one consistent global brand position with market-specific drivers? Should we keep a single global position and then adapt product positioning and short-term tactics, or is it sometimes better to develop distinct positionings by market? Mate, I've got to tell you, it's a great question, and I've got no answer for you. What you've beautifully done there is basically summarise the quandary of global marketing. It really depends, depends, depends. I I can't tell you the right answer. If the market is huge and really perceives things differently, it does make sense to do it differently. But it's a big butt, then we really are starting to get into a different universe. When I worked on what's a good example, uh when I worked with LVMH, Louis Vuitton was absolutely uniform across the world and positioned itself the same, even though the perceptions were different. Hennessy, completely different. Hennessy positioned itself differently to different cultures, um, and and did it in a uh in a way that you you know the Chinese Hennessy was totally different from the American Hennessy, and they were both right to do that. So it depends on the market size, it depends on the DNA of the brand, and it depends on you know how advanced and capable the organization is. So you've you've asked me a brilliant question, and I have not been able to answer it because I think you've you've beautifully captured the nature of the beast. Uh Marcos, when trying to drive desire through executional design choices, how do you recommend measuring whether we're actually strengthening the brand position rather than just improving short-term liking or aesthetics? Um, I I I think because you're testing not just consideration, but you're testing whether the market perceives you to be more X and more Y. Yeah. So the data is going to be specific in that area. Sam, just going through module five round positioning, I'm on the part about the sin of genericism and agree that these words are rolled out by lots of different companies. You question when do consumers ever buy based on innovation? Oh yeah. For me, I think I work for a technology company, and when I interviewed customers, they all commented how they would describe us and all said innovative. Yeah, that's not my point. They see you as innovative, but my point is that's not why they buy from you. Keep going, keep going. And that it was important to them. I work in a particularly niche area, and companies are looking for innovative companies. They're not, they're not. Sam, you're just trying to defend your bullshit here. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure you are an innovative company. And don't get me wrong, I do think customers respect your innovation. But what's missing is the benefit of innovation. Yeah, you're innovative, and that means what specifically? That's my point. Nothing wrong with innovation, but finish the sentence. Yeah? Allow the consumers to tell you, and because you're innovative, I get this. That's what's missing. Go one step further, right? And and and and and and get it through there. Uh, Adam, when developing an emotive brand campaign, how do you decide how prominently the product should feature? Some campaigns seem to build broad emotional associations around the brand with little product included, while others stay much closer to product demo. What determines the right balance? Uh look, it it I think generally more product is a good thing. Um, it depends on whether there's a suite of products there. But generally, you know, we talked a lot about Louis Vuitton uh already, but um, I think one of the strengths of Louis Vuitton's emotive brand advertising was it always had a bag in the middle of it and it was always a best-selling bag. So, unless there's a good reason why not, yeah, I think keeping the product or service in the center is a good thing. Uh, Mathieu, in module six, you brushed very quickly over something I thought I should ask. What exactly should we codify? Very good, Mathieu. What should we codify? Everything. Matthew, why? I'm interested in whether you know of any strong examples of B2B brands using tactile brand codes on their products. Tactile codes seem more commonly associated with consumer brands. I'm curious to explore how they're applied in B2B. I can't, I I read this question earlier and I've thought about it all morning. I can't think of any. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, Matt. It just means I can't think of any. Um, I I think I I worked a lot for Lueve, the Spanish leather goods brand, and uh the touch that what was it again? The touch that creates desire was a big part of the Napa, was a big part of that brand. Um, I think you could do that in B2B, and I think it would be wonderful. Eve, hey, what would be an example of a product positioning where the what is not the product itself, but rather the brand or the category doing things differently? How closely related should a product position and the brand DNA be? Or how different can they be? Yeah, well, the what when we do um when we do positioning, the what is often the product, but it can also be uh let me give you an example for my actual career. Uh yeah, well, we we once when I was working in hemophilia, we want we had a new product come out and it was um a much better version of the same drug. And the what that we positioned wasn't the new drug, it was upgrading. Um, and we very specifically didn't want them to think of it as a different product. We just wanted them to go to your nurse and upgrade your product choice. Yeah. So the what was see your nurse and upgrade. Um, and the reason we did that was we didn't want them thinking about switching products to competitors, we wanted to see them as a natural, just like upgrading your software. So it can happen all the time. What you have to do is just say stay flexible to the idea of um, you know, I I want them to think about this, I want them to do X. Now, normally that is my product, but sometimes it can be something else. And just stay open to it and you and it will come up, even up, you know, consuming more, right? That's another good example. Uh, is there any data research about whether the importance of codes and distinctiveness changes with more complex product categories, particularly in B2B? The B2B Institute Tara has done a lot of work, and almost to no one's surprise, there is an almost identical uh impact of codes. I wouldn't keep looking for, you know, is B2P different? The answer is not really. Yeah. Uh codes play just as much a role, and I think they are even more valuable in B2B because it's so bloody generic. You go to these trade conferences, they are so anonine and generic. Two more to go. Catherine, I'm sorry to ask, but I have to. In module six, you can hear your dogs barking in the background. Right. What are the doggo's names? Thank you so much. But also, I feel I've come up with a new brand code. All I have to work with is the name of the company in a plain circle. Neither are unique. I've been through the archives and the company's heritage, and there's not much to go at. Do I go back to my brand survey for ideas? Yeah. Um, but if you really want to do it, Catherine, you could invent a code. Um and and think about what you've got. You could choose characters or product shape or colour because you know they're very powerful. You could choose a sonic asset. So, yeah, do it. My dogs, what can I say about my dogs? I have rescue dogs, uh, I have Asia. I had I had Ginkgo, um, who passed away only a couple of months ago. So uh Ginkgo might be on there, but she's no longer with us. She made it to 16. Uh uh age is now maybe older. We don't know with rescues how old they are. But because they're, you know, rescues and genetically diverse, they live longer and cost you less. You know, all this crap about pedigree dogs, they're all dead by the time they're seven or eight because they're inbred, you know. Mongols live longer and cost you less. It's one of one of my passion projects when I retire is to get people to stop buying breeder dogs, pedigree dogs. Um, we kill in the year, I'm sorry, but I'll mention it. We kill uh about 30,000 healthy dogs in the United Kingdom every year, around a quarter of a million dogs in America every year. Perfectly healthy dogs that nobody wants. So I don't like breeders because they make money doing something we don't need. The world doesn't need more dogs. We need homes for the dogs we've got. And um, you've just got to see a big pile of dead dog bodies uh to see what's wrong with buying a pedigree dog. And I don't but blame people for doing it. It it's ignorance to buy a poodle that's been bred, you know. Go to your dog's home. The dogs need us, man. They need us, you know. So uh, and the worst thing, I gotta tell you, because it's important, you know, it's an audience I have to tell you. The saddest thing is when the vet goes in to put the dogs down, they're two or three years old. The the dogs are happy to see the vet because they're lonely, and then he puts them down. Yeah. So I don't like breeders' dogs. And um, I'll adopt more dogs when I'm older and I've got a bit more time. And uh, and greyhounds, if you ever want to see a good person, look at someone that adopts a greyhound, you'll always see a good person. They're not the the prettiest dogs, but they're uh a rescue dog knows it's been rescued, put it that way. So they're rescues. I've got another one called Tipsy. Uh she's a she's an interesting dog too. So yeah, I have th I had three, I've now got two. Um, and my long-term goal is to destroy the pedigree uh dog industry uh from top to bottom, and that's what I'll do with my retirement. So you asked, so that's what I intend to do in about 10 years' time. I'm gonna use my market the dark arts of marketing to shut down the dog breeding industry completely, starting with crufts. Yeah. And when there's no dogs left to uh adopt and we don't have to put them down, maybe we can breed some. But let's start by saving the dogs that need saving. Sorry, you got me. Catherine, uh hearing you reflect on your brand work and the methods behind it, particularly in consulting, is genuinely inspiring. I'm curious about the process and particularly the use of workshops as a brand manager. I've run quite a few workshops with C-suite executives, senior managers, and agency partners, but I often find myself unsure of the best approach. Would you be willing to elaborate how you navigate the process as a consultant? Yeah, look, it's a long, it's a longer chat, Catherine. Um I've found in my career that teaching is the best way to do consulting. You know, when I used to do brand workshops, we get, you know, what's a good example? Don Perignon. I had like a trademark approach, right? I insist on doing it at the home of the brand in Anier. Annier, that's in Viton. In Audvier in the chateau. I insist that the CEO or managing director is present. I want everyone from all the regions to be there as well. And I'm not being a prick about it, but I want them all to be part of the new work that we're going to do on the brand. Um, and then feel like they developed it. And and and what I normally would do is split a planning day into a day of learning and then a day of strategy, and sometimes then a day of tactics. And I found that was very useful. So day one, you weren't allowed to do anything. You we had to go through the data together and learn and summarize the learnings at the end of day one. And then when we went into day two, I'd structure the strategy day. And then day three, we'd have a bunch of tactical questions that we started out on day one, and now we'd go back to them and answer them. And um, yeah, that it works for me. I I I found it it was it was a it was a great way to do it because everyone felt like they'd made the decisions, so the buy-in was very strong then. And um, when I worked on DeBeers, there's a famous moment where we were doing that for the DeBeers brand and for the positioning, and we were gonna spend three days working out the positioning with loads of data, and just before we started, the CEO gave me a little bit of paper, and it was I think I might have told you the story, but anyway, that that was what you wanted the position to be at the end. We should have three very good days, but can you make sure they come up with these three things at the end? Which miraculously they did. Um, so yeah, it's a very good technique. All right, great questions. I gotta go. You've got to go. Um, we're gonna go into objectives, it's a really fun module next week, and then we're gonna do brand architecture, which comes up all the time and which is super important. And that will finish strategy. Get into moon now, get it done, play around with the planet, doesn't matter. So we can really have fun with that in the simulation. Have a lovely weekend. I'll see you in class for the game show that is objectives next week. So yeah.