Episode 19: Creating a New Go-To-Market Strategy for Amusement Parks

Episode Transcript

Garrett: Welcome to the original marketing show, episode 19.

Brady: 19. Yeah, it’s great we’re calling it a show and not a podcast.

Garrett: We haven’t told anyone else that.

Brady: Well, we said it one episode and then maybe we went back to podcast.

Garrett: Well, all the branding says podcast.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But it’s a show.

Brady: It’s a show. On YouTube it’s a show. It’s still a podcast on Spotify and iTunes.

Garrett: We get millions of downloads, so we don’t want to confuse people, obviously. But I would say show.

Brady: Yeah, we’re blowing up on TikTok.

Garrett: Yeah, we are TikTok famous.

Brady: That algorithm ate up a couple clips.

Garrett: Yeah. So, anytime we talk about celebrities or drinking.

Brady: Yeah, mostly beer. It’s the beer clips that are-

Garrett: Yeah, because Taffer boy, JT, Mr. Jon Taffer, he’s going a little viral on TikTok for us, right?

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: We don’t know how to turn TikTok into downloads or listeners. So, if you currently came from TikTok, let us know. Leave a comment. We would love to know that it’s working. We did get over 300,000 views.

Brady: Yeah. The comments were crazy. It was so funny because it was my statement saying you can’t drink alcohol on a TV commercial.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: But the way it was clipped and the way I said it, people took it as I said you can’t do it on TV. So, everyone’s blowing up like, ” What an idiot. You can totally drink on TV.” And then I said because it’s illegal. But everyone’s like, ” Well, it’s not technically illegal, but all the-“

Garrett: According to my calculations in 1997, inaudible 1997 stuff.

Brady: … “All the companies sign a contract.” And then it was all about not in every country. So, I apologize, I was speaking towards my inaudible.

Garrett: So, were you right or wrong though? Because I don’t fact check you. I don’t know anything.

Brady: Yeah, I don’t think it’s like the government says you’ll go to jail if you do it. But it sounds like every alcohol company has done some type of agreement to not do it. But for TV commercials, you won’t really see people actually consuming-

Garrett: Time out. You won’t really see is a different statement.

Brady: Well, now I don’t know-

Garrett: Because you said it was illegal.

Brady: I know I said it was illegal, but that’s what I thought. Because you never-

Garrett: I know. I know.

Brady: You never see it. So, I thought, well, because you never see it, it’s got to be against the law. But then people are saying it’s more of an agreement between the companies.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: And then a lot of people said, ” Oh, who doesn’t know this?” Because I guess there was a Neil Patrick Harris Heineken commercial where he says you can’t consume it. So, it’s some type of… I’m sure it’s a funny bit around how you can’t consume it so they’re doing other things to advertise Heineken. So, a lot of people were mentioning that commercial and, ” Oh, yeah, everyone knows that.”

Garrett: So, despite all the comments and you diving into it, you didn’t do any real research though yet on if it was legal or illegal. Because I didn’t. I know I didn’t take the time.

Brady: I read the comments and those people are smart. They probably looked at, they were all Googling it.

Garrett: So, I want to look right on the camera so you guys hear this directly from us. We are here to entertain you. We may or may not educate you and most of our takes could be wrong.

Brady: I’m going to start making stuff up because people loved it. Everyone’s like, ” Ah, you idiot. It’s not illegal.” That’s why it blew up, I think.

Garrett: Hot takes. The hot takes. Yeah.

Brady: That’s why it blew up. It was so many comments of people feeling like they just had to… This is a podcast, they said something wrong, I got to go into the comments and prove them wrong once again.

Garrett: And most of what we say could be wrong, but what we’ve learned from it is we need to be more convicted, regardless of the truth. And when you used the word illegal, that was the trigger word, Brady.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: When people heard illegal, they were like, ” Actually, according to my calculations, in 1997 the law was changed. And now there’s just more of a handshake deal amongst the beer companies to not overly promote things that could backfire legally in a class action lawsuit like we were encouraging over drinking.”

Brady: I like your TikTok user voice.

Garrett: That was my TikTok user voice. That’s how I feel like they all sound.

Brady: Yeah. No, I thought it was cool though. I liked it.

Garrett: I know.

Brady: It was so funny to see that’s why it blew up.

Garrett: 300,000 views. You and I have never had 300, 000 views on anything.

Brady: No.

Garrett: So, hey. Now that keeps us going. So, thank you, everybody, who engages with our content. If you’re not following us, follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, whatever that is. But Brady, did you have any data insights that you want to share with us?

Brady: Yeah, my little finding of the week.

Garrett: Yeah. So, in case you guys didn’t know, Brady needs a way to produce content, but he doesn’t have a producer. So, I think he just wanted to make it inaudible.

Brady: I’m just hijacking the podcast and doing a micro segment to then share on my LinkedIn for-

Garrett: Yeah, he gets full videos, puts it on YouTube. I’m not even there.

Brady: For more of my job purposes.

Garrett: Yeah, I like it.

Brady: But I think it’s still entertaining for the podcast. This is a marketing podcast show and I’m going to try to keep it… The last one got a little detailed but I still think relevant to a lot of people. This one is LinkedIn though. And the finding was… So, I do a lot of audits, right? So, our prospects give me access to their LinkedIn, their Microsoft ads, Google Ads, they’re ad accounts and I do audits for them. And this one, I was going into LinkedIn and performance was bad on a campaign level. So, their cost per lead was-

Garrett: They were phoning a friend.

Brady: Yeah, it was pretty bad. And so I went into the targeting because I like to understand what’s the setup, what’s the strategy? And what the company does is internal communication for healthcare. So, my wife, at her hospital, they use Facebook groups. They’re talking about their schedule.

Garrett: Sounds secure.

Brady: Yeah, on Facebook groups. And so this company is put in place to solve that. They have a platform for HIPAA compliant communication.

Garrett: Have we worked with this company before?

Brady: No, it’s not who you’re thinking.

Garrett: Okay. I’m not allowed to say anything. That’s what’s so funny about it.

Brady: Yeah, I know that’s all the NDAs but I know what you’re thinking. It’s not that.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: But anyway, so I go into their targeting and they’re going after healthcare as an industry. Makes sense. And they’re going after seniorities. Senior and up.

Garrett: Let me just take a guess of what you did here. Did you maybe pull up a demographics report?

Brady: Yeah, that’s what I’m getting at. That’s what I’m getting at.

Garrett: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Brady: But I first to understand what… Because when you see how they set up the targeting, that tells me their intentions. And their intentions were clear, they want to go after higher- up employees within the healthcare organization like hospitals. It all made sense. I get it. That seemed like a sound strategy. But then what I do is, and this is for post- production to help with the overlay.

Garrett: There it is. This is why I need to… inaudible podcast segment.

Brady: When you go to the campaigns, you select the campaign you’re looking at and then in the top right, there’s a button, I think it’s to the right of performance, called demographics. You click on that and then there’s a dropdown on what you can look at. And for this example, I looked at job titles. And what it does is it shows you, instead of just the table that shows your cost per lead impressions, it shows you your lead performance per job title that you’re targeting. Over half of their costs and impressions were registered nurses and nurses. Those were the job titles. And it’s because they fell under a senior employee within a healthcare company. And so their intention was like, ” Oh, we don’t want nurses.”

Garrett: Hey, don’t talk bad on the nurses.

Brady: I’m not talking-

Garrett: They’re very senior.

Brady: My wife is a nurse. No, but their intention was probably thinking, ” Okay, nurses at the hospital won’t be classified in this seniority level. We want to go after the decision makers for software. But the reality was half of it was nurses and no one there knew it because they weren’t looking at the demographics.

Garrett: You are telling me that an ad platform, like a LinkedIn or a Google or a Meta like Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, or even Twitter, God forbid we use that word right now. You’re telling me that they might have overly broad targeting that bucket weird titles into things to increase the amount of spend they have on their platform because that’s how they make their money?

Brady: Well they might have even employees that are consultants for the platform tell you to target that way because the best performance comes from a larger audience.

Garrett: And I would imagine that those set employees who work at these ad platforms, they get their promotions based off of customer results?

Brady: No, it’s more settings checked off to expand the target.

Garrett: Maybe it’s like customer spend is more important than the customer results to the ad platforms.

Brady: Yeah, that could be. it. Which you would think does go hand in hand. But from my career, I’ve realized that’s not the case.

Garrett: No, there’s only so much money you could effectively spend in direct response platforms like these. Brand awareness, you can spend a lot. But in direct response, there’s only so many people that have intent. There’s only so many of the right ideal customer personas.

Brady: Yeah. There’s only so many people looking to make a platform decision on how the nurses and the doctors communicate digitally. There’s not that many people in the org influencing that decision.

Garrett: So, what’s the solution? So, you had this kind of job function targeting with some type of seniority filters, right?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, what was your recommendation for someone who might now, right? They’re listening to the show. They’re watching the show. They go to their own LinkedIn, they go to their own ad accounts, they check their demographic reports, they’re like, ” Oh, my God, we have a bunch of junk in our titles too.” What was your recommendation for them?

Brady: So, for this one, I mean, half of them being nurses was a very large chunk and a lot of spend was going there. But then everything below it seemed pretty good. Right? It was IT roles within the hospital, it was operational roles, director roles. And so they had a lot of good stuff in there. It was just they allowed the nurses to slip through the cracks and spent half their money on them. And so a quick exclusion.

Garrett: So, we do an exclusion instead of a targeting overall. So, instead of only targeting the right titles, we actually… And this is the weird thing about platforms for how facetious we are and joking we were being about the platforms. All the platforms actually do run better the broader you are. The problem is is that the results or the quality you get isn’t necessarily equitable. In other words, the fact that the platform runs so much better when you’re broad doesn’t mean you get so much better results when you’re broad. So, if I hear what you’re saying is you kind of liked the function level kind of broader targeting because it did a good job encapsulating and the value props weren’t wildly different for an IT person than they were for hospital manager or so-and- so. The roles didn’t need different level of segmentation and messaging to maybe drive better performance. We just need to exclude the wrong people. Is that fair?

Brady: Yeah. And there’s a handful of unique roles making these decisions in that industry versus a very clear, ” We only go after CMOs.”

Garrett: And it’s not universally consistent. In other words, some hospitals, the IT person might have the power. Other hospitals, the admin person might have the power.

Brady: Yeah, could be the COO at the hospital.

Garrett: Yeah, understood.

Brady: So, yeah, an exclusion would be the first step. And then doing more research into should we upload? Because even the talking point was around finding the nurses. But you can also, in that same report, look at companies and see, okay, we want to go after hospitals and so the best thing for us to do is to go after the healthcare industry tag. But if you look at companies, you can see are these actually all hospitals or is there a two- person home care-

Garrett: Well, that goes to our customer generation methodology, right? Where instead of relying on LinkedIn targeting all the right companies on our behalf, instead what we do is we actually go out and just build our own database of all the hospitals we want, have sales sign off on it, and then we upload those to the marketing platform and we only advertise to the companies that sales and marketing as a group have agreed upon as our audience. And that really decreases all the waste. And then you can be broader in your targeting because we just need that account, and we might want to build a buying center of influence of maybe the IT person, the COO, the CEO and this other person have all heard of us, gotten our ads and we have a higher close rate. Right?

Brady: Yeah. It’s gaining that confidence in every impression, and you got to dive deep to get there. The setup was totally what a LinkedIn rep would tell you to do, which is why I’m passionate about it. I’m kind of sick of seeing it.

Garrett: You’ve hated the reps for now 10 years and you’ve been doing it for 10 years, right?

Brady: I mean, I’ve built healthy relationships now, but they definitely have often a different agenda than what we do for our clients. And I’m passionate about fixing that. Even Google, their stock’s going down, what do we see? An email saying, ” We’ll give you a hundred dollars Google credit if you turn on auto recommendations.” Which essentially just gives Google full automatic control changing your settings. But their stock is-

Garrett: For $ 100, we’ll take a thousand.

Brady: Yeah. Their stock is tanking right now. Most of that value is from ad revenue.

Garrett: There goes Hot Take Brady.

Brady: We’ll give you$ 100.

Garrett: Here’s Hot Take Brady.

Brady: Let us control those settings. It’s dangerous. So, that’s why I’m here to help you guys out one little audit at a time.

Garrett: As a marketer, what have you named your little segment here?

Brady: We’re still working on that. Finding of the week. Thank God we found it. I don’t-

Garrett: Thank God we found it.

Brady: I don’t know.

Garrett: Phone a Brady.

Brady: Yeah. Weekly finding. Something like that.

Garrett: I think it’d be cool. Yeah. I like that. Well, anything notable from the weekend?

Brady: I mean, it’s been busy. I feel like I haven’t been working my normal work just because I went to Hawaii. I’m saying this to the CEO right now.

Garrett: No, no. He know.

Brady: Really smart. Really smart. No, I had my vacation and I was back for a week and my partner in crime in sales was at a conference that week, right? So, it was kind of a weird week. And then also-

Garrett: You go to conferences all the time, right?

Brady: Well, so then the following week or that Friday I flew out to London for a conference.

Garrett: I haven’t found you going to a lot of conferences. Is it unique that you chose to go to the one that was in London?

Brady: I did not choose. They reached out to me and I was like, I’m not missing Thanksgiving with my family.

Garrett: Yeah, of course not.

Brady: But if you need me there, I’ll be there. Because I’ll do anything for the business.

Garrett: Yeah, you’re an innocent man in a brutal world.

Brady: So, they’re like, ” Brady, we need you.” I was like okay.

Garrett: And so what’d you learn at the conference? Was it fun going to the UK?

Brady: It was cool. I haven’t been there since I was 18 and our COO was there too from New York and she’s never been to London. And so, on Sunday, we walked like 22 miles.

Garrett: In those?

Brady: No, I did not bring these. It was raining.

Garrett: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Brady: I brought high- top vans.

Garrett: Heck yeah.

Brady: The ultra comfort ones. Anyways, we saw all of London, we walked a ton and then Monday was more of a working session, then the conference kicked off Tuesday and Wednesday, and I flew home Wednesday night. But it was good, the conference itself, just not the right people. But that was a learning experience. I got to meet a CMO who’s been in our pipeline. We’ve had a very lengthy sales process so far. She lives in Dublin, Ireland. So, I saw her in person and got to talk to her and I thought that was pretty special. Never felt like I was across the world for five days. It was just kind of bizarre.

Garrett: Yeah, it is. Right?

Brady: But it was cool.

Garrett: That was great. It was exciting to see. We’re expanding pretty aggressively right now into Europe. We’ve got reps hired in France, Germany, UK. So, it’s exciting to see those relationships start to blossom. I mean, those are people I’ve never even met before, right? So, it’s crazy to see how much bigger our visions become and how dynamic it is to accomplish.

Brady: Everyone wanted to follow up on Thursday, Friday. I’m like, it’s Thanksgiving.

Garrett: Yeah. Everybody likes, they’re not working.

Brady: A lot of people knew what Black Friday was. Black Friday deals were big. They didn’t know it was connected to Thanksgiving, which at least I think it is. Black Friday came from the day after Thanksgiving is how that shopping holiday started. But over there-

Garrett: Yeah, it’s a random day. Yeah, yeah.

Brady: Yeah. And there it’s massive. But a lot of people didn’t know that it may have started from-

Garrett: We should do a little deep dive on that maybe next week. The history of Black Friday. inaudible-

Brady: Well, now I’m scared. Or not scared, but it’s like if I say Black Friday, maybe I just have to say that. Black Friday is because of Thanksgiving. Clip that, put it on TikTok, Black Friday existed-

Garrett: Yeah. So, according to our-

Brady: It started in Scandinavia actually.

Garrett: …Extensive research, we believe Black Friday came because people ate too much Turkey and needed to spend their money.

Brady: Yeah, makes perfect sense. Exactly. Quote it. What’d you do?

Garrett: What did I do?

Brady: Oh, yeah, yeah. We’ll talk about you before we get into the advertising jealousy.

Garrett: What did I do?

Brady: Did you have Thanksgiving?

Garrett: I did have Thanksgiving.

Brady: Okay, cool.

Garrett: Yeah. Yeah. It was very good. I made my own honey- glazed bake ham.

Brady: Oh, okay.

Garrett: But I smoked it so it came out fire. Just did my own. First time I ever done it. So, I got a ham, sliced it all up, pre sliced it, kept the bone in.

Brady: So, this is raw at this point?

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: It’s not cooked at all.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah. And then smoked it in my smoker and then did my own glaze. Glazed it, finished it again in the smoker, deep fried the Turkey.

Brady: Nice. You didn’t blow it up?

Garrett: 16 pound Turkey. I don’t understand those people in these videos. Okay, man? Doing a turkey is not hard. I don’t know. I think the-

Brady: Well, it’s because they don’t defrost it, right? That’s the whole thing.

Garrett: Yeah. But I mean, there ain’t no fix for stupid, Brady. Okay?

Brady: Yeah, there’s YouTube.

Garrett: So, essentially if you do a Turkey without… I mean I’m going to blow up, right? I know. I shouldn’t said. Now it’s going to come back and get me. But in theory, turkeys actually really aren’t that hard. You just get the oil to the right temperature and you just drop it in real slow. And you can buy something on Amazon, like a Turkey deep fry kit. It’s like a couple hundred bucks.

Brady: But it has to be defrosted, right?

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: That’s the big thing. Okay.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah. And then essentially my wife injects it the couple days before, preps it all, does all the hard work. And then I get to look like the hero-

Brady: Shove a Coors Lite up there? Is that the secret sauce?

Garrett: No, no. No Coors Lite. No, no, no. It’s just covered in… I can’t give away all the secrets. But it’s covered in a marinade, sits for a couple days. It’s injected everywhere and it comes out and, I mean, you would think Turkey tasted good by the time this thing’s done.

Brady: Dang.

Garrett: And that’s saying something. So, the turkeys was great, the food was great. Heated the pool, the whole kind of good vibe. And then I went fishing on Friday, caught some fish, did some fish tacos, and then mostly just hung out with the family.

Brady: Nice. Yeah. You got World Cup going.

Garrett: We do.

Brady: I know you’re a big football fan.

Garrett: Zero, zero draw. Brilliant. Got to love a big high scoring event here in America.

Brady: Yeah, that was England versus US, right?

Garrett: Yeah. Yeah. It was England versus US. But I mean, I would rather watch that a trillion times than Thursday night football lately. Thursday night football is just bad.

Brady: Yeah, that was my running joke at the conference, is getting out of here before the US- England game. People loved it.

Garrett: That’s great too.

Brady: I don’t watch much soccer.

Garrett: But that was a hit?

Brady: Oh, yeah. They were loving it.

Garrett: You should ask them how their prime minister is.

Brady: I didn’t get into those politics.

Garrett: inaudible.

Brady: They could talk about our politics and I would-

Garrett: Yeah, didn’t inaudible.

Brady: Didn’t want to start that one.

Garrett: Yeah. But no, weekend was good. And it’s always nice to get that… Well, Wednesday was our last day of work. I mean, I know you do a lot of vacations, but for some of us, that was really nice.

Brady: We have a policy, we have to take time off.

Garrett: Yeah, no, you have to take at least two weeks off, which is good. I’ve tried to this year, but three kids under three. I’m one for five on family vacations right now. I’m low batting average. And it was nice to just have a couple days off to relax, so.

Brady: Yeah. Yeah. That volcano I was talking about just erupted I think last night today. So, I’m surprised you guys aren’t out there.

Garrett: Oh, geez.

Brady: It doesn’t look too bad. It didn’t say like any evacuations, but it looks pretty cool. It’s lava is flowing down the Mauna Loa I think is what it’s called.

Garrett: Oh, I know if I land for-

Brady: Yeah. If you go out there right now that thing’s really going to erupt.

Garrett: It’s going to erupt. Yeah. It’d be bad. Well, they don’t want me. I should not be allowed to enter the country or the state.

Brady: They should know.

Garrett: I know. All right, so should we talk advertising jealousy?

Brady: Yeah, let’s do it.

Garrett: So, should I go first?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: All right. So, we’re going to show a commercial from 1983 called 1984.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: That context actually is really important, and this is why I love this show. I still hate the ad. No matter how much data I’ve done to prep for this segment, I think it’s the worst ad ever.

Brady: The ad we’re about to watch?

Garrett: Yeah, I hate it. Which is totally my style.

Brady: In the advertising jealousy segment?

Garrett: Well, because just because I like an ad or dislike an ad doesn’t mean it’s not effective.

Brady: Yeah, yeah, so that’s why.

Garrett: They did over$ 150 million in sales after this. Completely changed the way Super Bowl commercials were done, completely changed the viewpoint of how to do a commercial, and were revolutionary for their time. Conversely, so little backdrop on this story. So, because there’s a story to this and it’s actually really consequential to our careers and kind of our own journeys. The board hated this idea and concept of a commercial. Jobs initially had bought a 92nd spot on the Super Bowl. They immediately told him that he needs to sell the ad space, the board doesn’t want him to do this, they don’t approve. The ad doesn’t even show the product. They also thought that they were slapping IBM in the face, who was their primary competitor at the time. And they figured why wake up the thousand pound gorilla in the room kind of thing. And Jobs, as well as Scully, who was CEO actually at the time, were so convinced that this was the best thing for the future in the business, that they essentially said they’d pay their own money for it and all this stuff. And then the board was like, no, you still got to sell it. So, then all they could sell was 30 seconds. They still kept the 62nd slot. So, they kind of gave the board the middle finger and was like, oh, we couldn’t sell the ad space. Guess we’re stuck with this horrible ad. And it revolutionized Super Bowl commercials. That’s why you’re going to get the storytelling ads of the Budweiser horses and the dog sniffing the nose of the horse and all the storytelling and the big campaigns and the kind of more feels like a small film or a movie. That all was pioneered here. And they got one of the biggest directors in the world, at the time, to film the commercial. He had done Blade Runner, Alien, what’s his name? Will you click on the other tab for me, Scarlet? No, the other tab that you pulled up. The second one. Ridley Scott. Yeah. Yeah. So, they hired Ridley Scott. So, the reason I love the theory of it all is I always think movie producers are way better at commercials than we are. Ryan Reynolds is better at advertising than I am, just is a fact. And watching people who have that ability to be on camera, to tell stories, right? Well, that’s what they do for a living. They’re actors. They make us feel something, right? They get a story, they get how to portray an idea. The ad changed everything. Now I don’t think it’s that good but it proved to be amazing. So, it’s shot in 1983 and this was their ad to launch the Apple Macintosh computer. Let’s watch it.

Apple Commercial: Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true thoughts. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail. On January 24th, Apple computer will introduce Macintosh and you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.

Brady: So, I had to look into this one.

Garrett: That was the ad.

Brady: And Scarlet, maybe if you can just Google 1984, I think it’s a book or a movie that I know nothing about that it referenced.

Garrett: Yeah, by George Orwell.

Brady: Yeah, dystopian social science fiction novel. So, I know nothing about that book.

Garrett: When was it written? Go on Wikipedia because I wonder if this was like a… You’re right. Okay, so this is where George Orwell… I thought it was taken from his thematic writing. It’s not like it was an actual… 1949. I mean, that couldn’t be that… Come on. A Super Bowl? Your Aunt Susan’s like, oh, I remember 1984, the classic George Orwell science fiction dystopian novel.

Brady: I mean, I can text my aunt Susan right now. I have two of them.

Garrett: Really?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: You would have two Aunt Susans.

Brady: Well, one I call Susan, the other one I call Sue.

Garrett: Aunt Sue? Not Susie.

Brady: Yeah, just Sue.

Garrett: They’re both aunts or one auntie?

Brady: No, they’re both aunts.

Garrett: Aunts.

Brady: Yeah. One’s my dad’s brother’s wife, the other one is my mom’s sister.

Garrett: There ain’t no-

Brady: I bet they both know about this book. But I never heard of this book. And so when I first saw the ad, I was like, man, is this a play on communism? Is this a play on Stalin? Is this Nazi Germany? It had some weird vibes to it.

Garrett: Correct. It’s a dystopian, we won’t become this kind of group think-

Brady: Yeah, it’s like the Matrix kind of.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Everyone just marching in one order. But I had to look it up and it’s based on this book.

Garrett: Dang. We’re smart. We’re so smart. I spent so much prep, didn’t even know that. I mean, honestly, do not watch this show for any other reason than just pure genius. So, when-

Brady: And I think that the whole ruling the world was based on what IBM was doing. Because IBM was shutting down Apple from acquisitions because they’re like, oh, your stuff’s not going to work. We built the IBM PC, we’re just going to dominate this space.

Garrett: And they’re saying be a part of the revolution kind of thing.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Be a part of the counterculture.

Brady: Yeah. So that lady with the hammer was Macintosh. That whole room I think was IBM and their vision of-

Garrett: Which you don’t know until they write the word Apple computer. And you’re watching that drunk at the Super Bowl with your Aunt Susan who you say has read a book from World War II. Okay, so George Orwell. What other books did George Orwell do? I believe Animal Farm. Am I crazy? I know I’m not-

Brady: Well, maybe 1984 was in the school system.

Garrett: Oh, my gosh. Homeschooled. Look at that, guys. I remember this. So, I knew about Animal Farm and I’ve read George Orwell but I had not read 1945.

Brady: 1984.

Garrett: 1984.

Brady: Written in 1945.

Garrett: Which was written in 1945. And so my point being here, he was born in Bengal in India? Oh, crazy, crazy world back in the day. But my point being is I would argue, Brady, it’s a pretty good big stretch to assume Americana football, stereotypical blue collar American has read 1945 by George Orwell and has a complete understanding of what this is referencing.

Brady: Yeah. But that’s what it was about. That whole line at the end, 1984 won’t be 1984, it’s saying it won’t be like how that novel depicted.

Garrett: I know. That’s what’s so crazy to me is to assume that that novel is so-

Brady: Which is then calling out IBM because IBM thinks 1984 will be them just ruling the personal computer space.

Garrett: Correct. But it won’t be because Macintosh is here to change it.

Brady: Because Mac came in and swung the hammer and threw it out the screen.

Garrett: So, you love the ad.

Brady: I mean, maybe if that novel 1984 was in the school system in the US during that time period or correct before that time period and-

Garrett: Well, you remember all the books you read in school.

Brady: I mean, somehow just aced every book report without reading them.

Garrett: Yeah. But do you think… That’s a separate conversation. You sound like some people I know in my life. Now would your subconscious-

Brady: I’m efficient.

Garrett: I know. Yeah. Don’t hate the player, hate the game, right? So, would you say your subconscious is so educated in books from 1945 that-

Brady: No, when was Holes written?

Garrett: I don’t know.

Brady: That was a great book. No, that was a joke. It’s not written any time-

Garrett: You inaudible.

Brady: Yeah, look it up. But I-

Garrett: 2006.

Brady: 1998.

Garrett: 1998. Not even close. All right, so now what I want to show you is the second video, which to me is the romanticism of this. And I want to bring this to the show because people, I think, hopefully if you’ve been watching me and how I like to think about advertising and marketing is I like the soul. I like the art. I like the part where you believe in something so much that you publish it like an artist would. And then you hope that it impacts other people’s lives or their actions, in this case, to buy a product. Or in art’s case, maybe to think about something differently. But both of them, you’re trying to change human behavior and make someone think about something that they might not have without it. Get a human from apathy to action is what we’re trying to do in marketing and advertising. What I think is so cool is to hear how a cinematographer or film director of critical acclaim, they themselves thinks about advertising. So, let’s hit play here. And it’s six minutes so we’ll talk a little bit over it. But I think it’s really important.

Commercial Interview: The entire time I’ve been doing commercials, I’ve always thought of them… Because I didn’t come from advertising, I came from BBC. So, I’ve always come into commercial advertising and looked at each commercial as a film. As a little film. Always have done and I always will do, I guess. Okay. To make a change now. But I looked at it from a point of view. The first idea was dealing with the look of the thing and instead of doing a contemporary, absolutely contemporary, idea of the future, I thought it was more interesting to look back at, I think it was, during the’40s Alexander Korda’s Shape of Things to Come. And I thought that, to me, if you take those interiors which are slightly decadent looking, even though with all their gloss and all their kind of what was then marvelous architecture and now looks archaic as architecture, I thought that was an interesting look. Well, what was your reaction when you first saw the board? Boards I thought one of two things. One of two things.

Garrett: They’re referring to the storyboard.

Commercial Interview: My God, they’re mad because this is terrific from a filmmaker point of view. And I knew exactly how to do a kind of-

Garrett: They got this from the agency, right? So, the agency does a storyboard inaudible.

Commercial Interview: …In dramatic terms rather than factual terms, right? And I thought it was such a dramatic idea that it would either be totally successful or would all get put in state pen. Were the bits of things that you’d done an Alien that found their way into’84? Yeah because in Alien, the whole process of Alien on inaudible of a spaceship.

Garrett: This was such a big commercial that there’s all of these sub videos about it.

Brady: Yeah.

Commercial Interview: … As tohow you make those corridors look inaudible.

Brady: Just the process.

Commercial Interview: And so what we did very simply finally is, in frustration, we bought three aircraft and dismantled them. And those three big jet bombers actually were then assembled in the corridors in the sculptural process. And that’s why it looked very business- like. Very nice. Now those two big blank walls at the back of the main auditorium in 1984, we hauled in those huge 747 engines and just hung them on the wall and they look like… What did they look like? I don’t know, they look like inaudible-

Garrett: This isn’t all post production. This is really building the set. They spent $900,000 on this in 1984.

Commercial Interview: … What I call good,dramatic bullshit. Did you have any thoughts on the girl that… As you look at the board, what sort of person that would be? Let’s start there and work back to the- Yeah, no, one of the one… As you remember, one of the main problems was actually, funny enough, finding a girl who could throw a hammer and look businesslike. And so that immediately narrowed down the field apart from the fact she had to look great. It narrowed down the field and I think almost immediately to athletes. Because we went through the whole process of having models come in and actresses come in. Those Hyde Park days at the inaudible. But we finally narrowed it down to actually seeing athletes. inaudible.

Brady: That’s crazy that they had her actually throwing that hammer right in front of these guys.

Commercial Interview: I think out of everybody we saw, inaudible-

Brady: Like, nowadays, that would be a green screen because if that thing slips out of your hands-

Commercial Interview: Handle itself.

Brady: …It hits one of those people.

Commercial Interview: One of their-

Garrett: Wait, look at this. They brought in real skinheads for this.

Commercial Interview: …Trademark seems to be. It’s like a combination of almost a punk look. For some reason or other, they all seem to walk around with shaved heads. And so we organized one of these rather frightening casting sessions where there are about three or four hundred youths-

Garrett: Skinheads.

Commercial Interview: And I was surprised how elderly some of them were. Yeah. I thought it was tended to be a kind of youth movement, but it’s not at all. I think we had three generations. Absolutely. Yeah. And we chose 150 skinheads out of that group. Yeah.

Garrett: 150 skinheads. Just to do this commercial.

Commercial Interview: inaudible. Well when we got into the process of where would the speech come from. Right. Because inaudible.

Brady: inaudible. He needs the Martha Snoop lighter.

Commercial Interview: I think it worked out very well. It’s a great speech. Where did it come from? Steve. Steve Hayden manufactured that. Yeah. It’s terrific. And because what we discussed at that point inaudible-

Garrett: Seems Steve Hayden was creative director at the agency.

Commercial Interview: …Karl Marx, which I guess is what 1984 was vaguely focusing on. And so that was the first idea. So, the brief to the casting director was just that. And so the notion at that stage was to get somebody with… I think Marx had pale red hair, didn’t he? Yes. Faded red hair and a little goatee beard. Thought of going to that extent. But then when I actually saw the guy who came in, he was enough. He’s interesting enough. He gave a manic enough performance. If you’d have had to double the budget on this one, what would you have done differently? Triple the budget.

Brady: Geez, what a question.

Commercial Interview: Within the same 60 second slot? Yeah. Not very much. I think we nailed it. I thought so too. Yeah

Brady: That’s a tough question.

Garrett: Can you guys hit pause? That’s good. So, what I thought was so cool about that is we’ve lost so much of that as marketers and advertisers, right? We feel so constrained. Whether it’s I don’t have the budget. More what I hear, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the team, I don’t have whatever. There’s always I don’t have. But to think Apple was any different than the startups we help today in 1984 is incorrect. We have an Apple right now in our portfolio, Brady. We are that large of an organization. We do have that many exciting startups that are going public and IPO- ing and will change the world. But I don’t think there’s that many heads of marketing that we get to work with. And the truth is, it didn’t come from head of market, it came from Steve Jobs. Came from Scully, CEO. I don’t know if we have founders that know how to tell their story nearly as well as Apple do. I know I don’t know how to tell my story at Directive nearly as well as Apple does. But being able to tell a story, being able to connect with a cultural landscape and being so confident in your product that if they only knew about it, they’d have to buy it, which is what this is saying. We are going to launch our product, the new Macintosh computer, and we’re going to do it in such a compelling way that’s values driven by we believe that the world doesn’t have to exist in a dystopian future, but can actually be the change that they want. And the power to that change is the technology of the Macintosh that we’re going to put in every household in America. And they pulled that vision off. But the grandiose nature of that vision is what gives us, I think, the ability as advertisers and marketers to fulfill it. And as a call to all the founders and owners and entrepreneurs out there is how do you get grandiose with your vision? How do you tell your story? You don’t have to do a Super Bowl spot. You can do influencers, you can do ad campaigns, but you got to get away. And this is what Directive’s got to do too. Directive’s got to go away from slinging$ 3 million in gift cards every year to spending$ 3 million to tell a story of Directive and its values to the masses. And I think that goes to every brand. We’ve got so married to direct response and attribution that we forgot about values and storytelling and the power that can have on a lower customer acquisition cost. Every one of our clients, ourselves included, every marketer in the world right now, their number one channel is direct traffic, guaranteed. The number one driver of revenue for your business, you can’t say exactly where it came from. Guaranteed. Highest performing channel is direct every time. Yet 0% of our budget… And us or-

Brady: Yeah, it goes to influencing, trying to influence-

Garrett: Influencing direct. And that has to change. That’s what I’m going to change about our marketing and 2023 at Directive, is we’re going to start spending a lot of money on things that are going to be attributed to direct. Things that make Directive relevant in Americana, in the global cultural landscape. You have to make your brand culturally relevant. And once you become culturally relevant, you become less co- dependent on this pay to play that us and all of our clients are still stuck in. I’m going to pay you this. I’m going to get back this. To I’m going to invest in my product, I’m going to invest into my viewpoint. I’m going to be different. I love how George Ridley Scott talks about, ” I didn’t want to do something like this. I wanted to do something different.” And why different is so much better than better. And I think that’s just so powerful is how do you tell your story and convince people that you’re different, and that when you drive… And if you choose them, you can be a part of a tribe, you can be a part of this movement, you can be a part of this cultural connection that we all have. We all are that young woman running down the aisle, throwing and giving a middle finger to the establishment, which is what they’re trying to show in that ad. And that’s the part I love about the ad. Now I hate it because I don’t know how it worked and I know why the board hated it.

Brady: It’s because we never read 1984.

Garrett: And we aren’t consuming the commercial in 1983.

Brady: Yeah, yeah. It’s such an interesting time. When you talk about attribution, back then it was really-

Garrett: Sales.

Brady: …Just sales of personal computers. Them versus IBM.

Garrett: 150 million. Skyrocketed.

Brady: Yeah, and when Steve introduced this commercial in the keynote, he read the whole history of IBM turning down Xerox. And then what happened with Xerox. IBM turning down Mac, IBM turning down Mac again saying, ” This is way too small, it can’t do the computing.” And he led up to them versus IBM and IBM missing out on opportunity. And then he ran this commercial and everyone went crazy.

Garrett: I love it. I love it. Well, what do you have first today, Brady?

Brady: So, I have a different format. Something we haven’t done before, it’s very long so we’re not going to watch the whole thing. But I actually discovered this when doing research for a prospect that does explainer video, but more drag and drop, do it yourself. And he was interested in influencers and he was asking me about it. And so I was doing some research and I found this sponsored YouTube video by this influencer who’s in the video creation space. But it’s essentially him building… He does commercials for fun and people love watching his process.

Garrett: Click on Daniel Schiffer for me, Schiffer. One was Schiffer, I think I’m okay. Let’s click on it real quick. I just want to see how I film my big pizza B- roll case. It’s kind of explainer type style. He’s at 2. 24 million of subscribers. Okay, so he’s testing out a lot of camera stuff. So, he is like a technology influencer.

Brady: Yeah. He unpacks his lighting to do product TV commercials.

Garrett: So, he does the commercials, he gets paid there, and then he makes another money from his own audience, teaching them how to do it themselves?

Brady: Yeah, I mean, he’s making good money just on the channel doing even fake commercials but walking through his process.

Garrett: Okay. So, are they real commercials or?

Brady: I’m sure he’s done work professionally, but I think a lot of his videos are just him choosing products and having fun with it.

Garrett: So, it’s an influencer who, in this case, to me isn’t even connected to Canva. To me Canva’s kind of like a clip art Adobe version, right? It’s a no- code version of Adobe.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: It’s like no code for designers. Right?

Brady: Yeah. So, his goal is to replicate what he normally does using Canva. But this is-

Garrett: For a product commercial.

Brady: Yeah. And if you scroll down, we can do it now. You can see there that click here to get Canva Pro free for 45 days. So, this is all a partnership with Canva.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah, inaudible.

Brady: But I think this is an ad.

Garrett: It is an ad. Correct. It’s an influencer marketing campaign as an ad.

Brady: Yeah. I don’t know if a lot of people see these types of videos as advertisement.

Garrett: Which is the best kind of ad, right?

Brady: Yeah, exactly.

Garrett: All right, so let’s watch it.

Brady: Yeah, we can watch the first minute intro and then we can skip to the halfway mark to see some of the process and that at the end you can see in the view spike, it’s at like 10: 15 when the final product.

Daniel Schiffer: Welcome back to the channel. I’m Daniel Schiffer and today I’ll be attempting something that I’ve never done before. Now, I’ve made a lot of videos for companies over the past 10 years and something that every video I make has in common is that the equipment I use to create them costs a lot of money. I tried to break that trend a couple weeks ago when I demonstrated how I turned an ordinary photo I took on my phone into a captivating video asset without using expensive equipment. Now, while that video was cool and didn’t cost a lot of money to make, it certainly costs a lot of time. Not just to make the asset itself, but also the several years of learning the techniques that go into creating that style of content.

Brady: He’s a great marketer.

Daniel Schiffer: Today, that is all out the window.

Brady: That’s a perfect intro for what the goal of this is.

Daniel Schiffer: I want to create a professional quality product commercial for under$ 20, and the catch is that it has to be easy. No key frames, no masks, no practical effects. I want this to be so easy that literally anybody at any level of experience can do it. So, let’s get started.

Garrett: Better be pretty easy if I can do it.

Daniel Schiffer: So, to keep this commercial consistent with the other types of ads I would typically create here on this channel, we’re going to stick with a food and beverage theme and we’re going to try and create an ad for this soda brand called Olipop. Now, seeing his final cut-

Brady: So, yeah, we can skip. So, that’s how he stages it all.

Garrett: Understood. Okay. Good job, Brady. It’s a good intro.

Brady: I mean, it was his intro, not mine.

Garrett: Yeah. You clipped it. One minute there. That was good.

Brady: Yeah, yeah.

Garrett: All right, so then 5: 05 is our timestamp.

Brady: Yeah, well, we can just watch a little bit of this. It just shows he’s been building inaudible whole time.

Daniel Schiffer: These are animations that are part of Canva Pro and they’re actually really cool as well. If you’re interested in trying 45 free days of Canva Pro-

Brady: He’s pretty much doing a demo the way he explains every piece of Canva.

Daniel Schiffer: … You can click the link in the description below or go toCanva. me/ inaudible.

Garrett: If you try 45-

Brady: Oh, there you go.

Daniel Schiffer: I’m going to go back into page animations here and just hover my mouse over different options to see how the elements on the screen respond. I think this talk animation really inaudible.

Garrett: Is he an affiliate?

Brady: He has his own link. He has his own URL. So, yeah, affiliate.

Daniel Schiffer: So, I’m going to select that as our page animation. And I think to create some variety, I’m going to select our neon tubes and I’m going to highlight all of them by holding shift and clicking the drag.

Brady: Okay. I think we can get the gist on that’s what the core-

Garrett: I mean, he said easy. Okay. I’m all right.

Brady: That’s what the core video is and then go to 10: 15 I think is when he’ll show the final product of what he made.

Garrett: There we go. Right there.

Brady: Yeah. Anywhere close.

Garrett: Okay

Daniel Schiffer: To do is go up here to download inaudible.

Brady: Oh, boy.

Garrett: Scarlet.

Brady: Our favorite. We got an ad coming.

Garrett: She forgot. You didn’t sign back in, right? I kind of was into that. inaudible. All right, here we go. Putting us out of business.

Daniel Schiffer: Let’s just make something clear. This video cost me less than$ 20 to make and it was incredibly easy. That, to me, is shocking. I feel like this method of making content is an-

Garrett: Was that it?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I want to see it again. It was so quick. Can we see it again?

Brady: Yeah. And he took even those images, he dragged them off the site and he showed in Canva how there’s a music library for usage and-

Garrett: All right, let’s see it again, I just want to watch the ad.

Daniel Schiffer: All we have to do is go up here to download, save it as an MP4 video, and here is the final result.

Brady: So, it’s like a 15- second social YouTube, maybe Hulu, ad spot.

Garrett: Yeah. That’s pretty darn good though. Dang. Don’t need so many designers, huh? No. So, I think that that’s really cool. But I think, to your point, what I find interesting about this is is Daniel doing this with Canva or did he find out that Canva has really good affiliate deals and he did this video on his own to monetize their affiliate program?

Brady: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if you don’t have to ever meet with Canva to do this, but he does have a Canva link at the bottom.

Garrett: inaudible. So, what I’m trying to say is, did Canva pay Daniel to do this and personally… Because there’s two different perspectives that people don’t understand. Okay, this is going to take us down this weird, random rabbit hole, but I like this kind of stuff. So, here, I’m going to take us there. So, Andrew Tate. He became very popular online because of an affiliate program he had for some type of be a dummy course, you want to be like me, buy my course. But the way he became so famous on social media is he had an affiliate program that he blasted out to everyone and then you would get paid essentially for people who signed up for Andrew Tate’s online course. So, all the-

Brady: Through your link.

Garrett: From your link. So, all the social media content you saw online when he took everything by storm and you couldn’t cancel him and you couldn’t get rid of him was because he wasn’t creating the content. Everyone else was creating the content on his behalf. So, every channel, every random… If you’re on the explore feed of Instagram or TikTok and you get that random stuff where it’s like, wish I knew this before type ads, and it’s always some knickknack product, all those people were pushing Andrew Tate because there’s essentially marketplaces for affiliates, and then you can find which companies have the best affiliate deals. He put together a really compelling deal and he blew up on the internet.

Brady: And anyone could do that versus selecting your influencer.

Garrett: He didn’t go reach out and do influencer outreach and select these 10 influencers are going to be my strategic go- to market strategy. He just went to an affiliate marketplace, put together a really good thing, and then created viral content so that all they had to do was post it and then the content would essentially go viral and then they could just clip it, kind of like our clip did 300,000 views on TikTok, and essentially did that while talking about sex and misogynistic type angles that he knows, as we saw, what type of clip did best on TikTok?

Brady: Yeah. The people disagreeing and arguing and going back and forth.

Garrett: It’s not legal. It is legal. Exactly. So, he did that same thing with just taking… The pendulum has swung where masculinity is considered a bad thing, I’m going to say it’s the best thing ever and everyone’s wrong, and I’m going to go back to, let’s say, Middle Eastern values and kind of integrated Islam with the west and masculinity and misogyny and then bundle it all up into a confusing cocktail just like religions did historically, and then blasted it out to the masses. But he did that via affiliate network. So, my point to you when I watch this film is I’m curious if Canva reached out strategically to Daniel. See? Or-

Brady: Yeah, he talks about his link there. I think they did. Personally.

Garrett: Oh, for sponsorship probably use collaboration. Okay, there it is. So, that’s the part I was looking for. So, Canva probably reached out to him, paid him to make the video, and he can put an affiliate link in.

Brady: Yeah. They probably were like, Hey, we have a video idea I think is going to work really well with your channel. It’s based on what you already do. We want you to try to build a commercial just using Canva.

Garrett: Well, for us, I think it’d be really cool. Let’s watch it. Go search for it for me because it’s something we could do here. This just gets my brain going. Search Dan Martel. So we could theoretically… Dan. Sorry. That one. Yeah, we could theoretically pay someone. So, go to Dan Martel. Ready to scale your SAS business, right? And he’s got 91, 000 subscribers. We could theoretically do a deal with Dan where he talked about the importance of performance marketing for SAS companies.

Brady: Yeah. Finding the right agency. How do you find the right agency? And-

Garrett: Now that to me is a clever strategy for us. I’m going to call our director of marketing after this. But my point being is that is a really healthy way to go to market. So, I really love the ad you kind of showed us today.

Brady: Yeah. It’s just such a cool under- the- radar advertisement to where it’s just all influencer, which I think is a fascinating space.

Garrett: Way more compelling to come from someone else than yourself. We’ve always known that with social proof.

Brady: Yeah. And it’s been big. It’s not the first time I’ve looked into this for all of our developer- based clients. Developers like learning from their peers.

Garrett: They got a lot of open source stuff.

Brady: Less marketers telling them, you got to use this new tool to code. They don’t want to hear it from a salesperson or marketer, they want-

Garrett: No, they want to feel like they came up with it themselves.

Brady: Yeah. They want to go on Reddit and they want to read what their community thinks. So, I thought it was powerful. That video has how many views? Over 600, 000.

Garrett: Yeah, 600, 000 views that, I mean, I guarantee it would’ve cost them more to get 600, 000 views if they advertised on YouTube. And those 600K views wouldn’t come from someone with 2. 2 million subscribers.

Brady: Yeah, it wouldn’t be authentic.

Garrett: It wouldn’t be authentic. And so I absolutely love this. It gets my juices going and gets me really excited about how I can kind of build a strategy for us for brand advertising in 2023. But this, to me, is so much more compelling.

Brady: It made me actually went into Canva, I think, after I found that. More for presentations and stuff. But to me, I was like, oh, I didn’t even think Canva could build videos like this. What else have they innovated on since the last time logged in?

Garrett: Well, I love seeing a tech company like Canva doing that though. It inspires me and I think it can inspire our customers to do more as technology to engage with, like I was saying before, culture, society. Being a part of the actual conversation of day- to- day people is critically important.

Brady: Yeah. So, would you say that ad made you a little jealous?

Garrett: That ad made me jealous.

Brady: Nailed it.

Garrett: Nailed it. Way to go, Brady.

Brady: Thank you. Got one. I think the last one, what was it? Poo- Pourri?

Garrett: I did a jingle for that and everything, bro.

Brady: You did do a jingle for it. I appreciate that. I’m usually the one singing on here. I’ve gotten some internal within the company. They’re like, oh, can you sing that jingle again? I’m like, oh, gosh, I need to stop setting myself up.

Garrett: Oh, I love it. Well, let’s talk market this.

Brady: Let’s do it.

Garrett: So, on market this today, I’ve got… Now that sounds like the name of the segment. Segment’s market this. Today-

Brady: Market this today with Brady and Garrett.

Garrett: Exactly. We’re going to talk about an amusement park. Now, if you’re from Southern California or if you’ve ever visited, you might be familiar with Knott’s Berry Farm, which also, during October, does a Knott’s Scary Farm.

Brady: Yeah. Similar to Universal Studios, I think, does it as well. The Haunt?

Garrett: Yeah. They’re a tier- two amusement park, let’s say. Right? I would say Universal, Knott’s, Six Flags. They’re all tier- two.

Brady: And is there one tier one?

Garrett: I think there is one tier one.

Brady: I think so, too.

Garrett: Disney.

Brady: Yep.

Garrett: They’re the global powerhouse.

Brady: Just got my passes.

Garrett: You did?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Okay. So, what compelled you? Let’s start there. So, today market this is going to talk about what we would do to compete with Disney using Knott’s Berry Farm as our muse. So with that being said, tell me why you bought the Disneyland. Let’s start with some competitive research.

Brady: Yeah. So-

Garrett: You like lines?

Brady: I had Disneyland passes as a kid growing up. My wife and I, on our second date… This was pretty aggressive by me, but we went on our first date, it went well. She told me she had a pass and wanted to go to Disneyland. I was like, I’ll just buy a pass.

Garrett: Doesn’t seem aggressive, seems logical. Yeah.

Brady: So, bought a pass. Second date was Disney a couple days later.

Garrett: Did you go back since?

Brady: Yeah. We used those passes, we renewed passes, and then COVID hit. And so COVID hit around when our passes expired, Disneyland was shut down. And then now that COVID is cleaning up a bit, they still just didn’t release annual passes, so we bought a package of three tickets that we had to use by September of last year. So, we did that last year. And then they finally released passes.

Garrett: Do they do the SoCal thing? Because I think they all go into our strategy.

Brady: They do the SoCal thing.

Garrett: What does that mean for everybody listening?

Brady: So, if you live within a range of ZIP codes, you get a pretty low price on a pass. But unfortunately, it’s mostly weekdays you can go.

Garrett: So, it’s blacked out.

Brady: Yeah. So, you can’t go on weekends. And for me, I kind of need at least Sunday open if you-

Garrett: You can always just take the workdays off.

Brady: I mean, I might, yeah. I’m known for it. So, yeah. When you see me out on Thursdays, you know where to find me. I’ll be in Anaheim.

Garrett: Oh. Oh, it was too easy.

Brady: So, they actually had one that was perfect where they had some weekends, mostly Sundays, and it was canceled all of December because of Christmas. I’m fine with that. But it was sold out. So, we got one tier up.

Garrett: Okay. So, one tier above the… So, how do the tiers work? So, I understand there’s two in our pricing strategy. How does Disney get you?

Brady: They have you can pretty much go anytime. And now you have to reserve. So, you can only hold six reservations at once. So, you can’t just show up with your past and be like, ” I decided to go today.”

Garrett: Whoa, whoa. I’m a big last- minute guy. Personal life, I’m very last minute.

Brady: Dangerous.

Garrett: Professional, you got to be prepped. Personal, what do I want to do today? I don’t know. Disneyland. Not going to happen.

Brady: See, you could look at the calendar and if it shows availability, you could go last minute.

Garrett: Oh, my God, I’m going to have the perfect ad to compete with Disneyland.

Brady: Yeah, I mean, it’s probably because of the demand and they can.

Garrett: Imagine the ad right now. Okay? You got somebody, they show up to an amusement park and they’re like, ” I got my passes, can I get in?” They’re like, ” No.” You’re like, ” What? I paid all this money. Look how expensive. I’ve paid over X amount of money for this pass. It says I can go anytime.” They’re like, “You can but you can’t.” And I can just show this person getting completely frustrated with not being able to use their annual pass and it’s got to be like the… It’s like, want a better theme park?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Is that a huge problem for you or not really? You don’t mind scheduling and all that?

Brady: My whole life is three months in advance these days.

Garrett: Oh. I just died a little inside.

Brady: So, I’m cool with it. I think I’m going at 5: 00 PM tomorrow.

Garrett: Got it. Okay. So, you’ve already literally identified, you have it in your calendar.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, Disneyland is now a calendar type scheduled event.

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: It’s not like a going to the beach, catch some waves type event.

Brady: No, but yeah, you can only hold five at once. You still have to pay for, I think, it’s called a Genie Pass.

Garrett: What’s that?

Brady: Which is their fast- pass system. I think it’s expensive each time you use it. It’s a lot of money. So, in terms of the competition, I think these tier- two theme parks, that’s been their biggest play, is it’s not as much money.

Garrett: Yeah. But I feel like they make them too cheap. I think it’s kind of ironic. Right?

Brady: Well, you asked me why. It’s like, for me, it might be the brand, Disney Channel as a kid. Just the Disney brand.

Garrett: The park’s inaudible.

Brady: Little Mickey, Donald, Goofy.

Garrett: When I was little, I’d play tag at Tom Sawyer’s Island. I would run around in… What’s the Lost Arc? What’s the guy’s name?

Brady: The Lost-

Garrett: The Lost Arc. It’s owned by Disney. It’s a guy who’s gallivanting around saving the world and then the Aliens come. Spielberg is the director.

Brady: Star Wars?

Garrett: No, the other one that Spielberg directed.

Brady: The Lost Arc.

Garrett: Yes. That’s the name. The Lost Arc.

Brady: City of Atlantis?

Garrett: No, there’s a guy. He goes around. Indiana Jones. Dang it.

Brady: Oh, Indiana Jones.

Garrett: Indiana Jones. The Lost Arc. I’m not wrong, it was the Lost… Okay.

Brady: That’s a video game.

Garrett: Yeah, I know. But I mean, she’s been off today.

Brady: She just googled The Lost Arc.

Garrett: It’s Indiana Jones.

Brady: Yeah, the temple may have gotten me there.

Garrett: There is a temple and Spielberg and aliens.

Brady: No, that’s what I’m saying. There’s aliens in Indiana Jones? I’ve never seen the movies.

Garrett: Yeah. There are aliens in Indiana Jones-

Brady: Someone got mad at me this week about that.

Garrett: Really?

Brady: I’ve never seen Indiana Jones.

Garrett: Those are great movies.

Brady: Never seen Star Wars.

Garrett: Why are you at Disney… From Disney, what are you then within Disney? Because isn’t that kind of?

Brady: I mean, Star Wars is recent.

Garrett: No dude, we grew up with Star Wars. What are you talking about.

Brady: No, I’m saying the Disney acquisition of Star Wars. Isn’t that more recent? Like, Space Mountain wasn’t Star Wars.

Garrett: Is that true?

Brady: And Star Tours wasn’t Star Wars maybe.

Garrett: Oh, I have to get another clip right now.

Brady: I’m pretty sure Disney acquired Lucas Films in the past decade.

Garrett: I always know now when the producers are going to make us look stupid. You know what I mean? This is that exact moment.

Brady: No, I should say Disney did acquire Lucas Films in the past decade. And Space Mountain is not based on Star Wars. That is a fact. They’re going to… Oh, yeah. This is good. Good for the brand.

Garrett: I don’t know. All I know is I thought that was two of the main reasons why people go to Disneyland, is for Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

Brady: I mean, Star Wars land even got-

Garrett: What got you? Bug’s Life?

Brady: Bug’s Life was awesome. Except for that stinger. You remember the show, the 3D show, and then they actually stung you in the back with a little thing.

Garrett: What?

Brady: I’ve never liked that. Yeah, the chairs had this little thing.

Garrett: So, they tried to create an immersive experience and they stung you?

Brady: I mean, it just pokes you. It’s not like you’re bleeding after. But there was a little stinger in the chair and I hated that as a kid. And then they had the stink bug smell.

Garrett: There was a ride that had orange.

Brady: I’m pretty sure.

Garrett: There’s a smell of oranges.

Brady: Soaring over California. It’s closed right now, but it’s opening up soon I think. I saw it on Instagram. I don’t know.

Garrett: See, how do we beat these guys? Right? They have so much emotional connection to our childhood.

Brady: Yeah. But the thing is, I went to Knott’s as a kid and my memories-

Garrett: Did you go to a corporate event?

Brady: No, I didn’t go-

Garrett: Why didn’t you go to the corporate event?

Brady: I was probably on vacation. It was probably a little last minute. I don’t know.

Garrett: Exactly.

Brady: I don’t know why I missed it. Probably vacation. But Knott’s Berry Farm, I have memories. They had a geode place. So, a geode is a round rock where you cut it in half and there’s crystals inside.

Garrett: Cool.

Brady: And so you wouldn’t know what’s inside but you pick it and you buy it first. And then the guy has the wet saw. He cuts it in half, opens it up, and then he’ll tell you all of the stuff inside, all the different crystals, and if it’s rare or not.

Garrett: Now, I want to point something out to you though. And this is what I think is the difference between Disneyland and all its competitors. That was only a memory you were able to experience one time and at the theme park, not preempting it.

Brady: Yeah. I mean, I got multiple geodes but I do think-

Garrett: You get where I’m going with this though, right?

Brady: …That’s a childhood memory. I don’t need to go back and get a geode.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: As a 31 year old.

Garrett: Now, but how many times have you been back to Knott’s Berry Farm since getting the geode?

Brady: I did Knott’s Scary Farm.

Garrett: No. No. Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park. Went to go to the amusement park like you would go to Disneyland.

Brady: Probably middle school.

Garrett: But so never though out of your own… Since now, you haven’t thought I want to re- evoke those childhood emotions and memories and I want to go back to Knott’s Berry Farm.

Brady: Nope. It’s not there.

Garrett: It’s not there.

Brady: But I mean, even Pixar, right? Inside Out is my favorite movie.

Garrett: I haven’t seen that one.

Brady: And I don’t even go on the ride at California. It’s all human growth and development and it’s pretty cool. Good neuroscience in there. And they have a ride at California Adventure. I don’t go on it. It’s a just little kid spinning.

Garrett: Well, you’re a 31- year- old man.

Brady: Yeah, no. I do Toy Story Mania. Come on.

Garrett: But you definitely would’ve gone on that ride as a child.

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: So, the reason I’m bringing this all up is it’s not the rides that make you love Disneyland, is it? Because I would argue they have the worst rides.

Brady: Toy Story Mania is very cool.

Garrett: Okay. I haven’t been to this.

Brady: As a video game person, you sit in a cart and it’s 3D and you pull this string and it shoots out projectiles depending on the theme. And you get points. So, you get a score on your card.

Garrett: And you’re pretty competitive.

Brady: And you get to see if you beat the… Yeah.

Garrett: Okay. So, that’s a cool ride.

Brady: That’s a good ride.

Garrett: But it’s not Superman at Six Flags or the Riddler or-

Brady: No, I mean, we used to go after work just for dinner. We’d do two rides and dinner back when my wife lived right by the theme park and I was in Cosa Mesa.

Garrett: People do that?

Brady: Yeah, when you have passes, you do it.

Garrett: Okay. My wife has had passes forever and I just refuse.

Brady: I know.

Garrett: Because I’m a grumpy old soul, I guess. But essentially, you go for the emotion, you go for the experience, you go for the feeling, the magic, right? Is that what they call it? The magic?

Brady: Yeah, it’s a fun date.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: Right? On steroids, I guess.

Garrett: And you experienced it not as a date though. You’ve experienced it as a family, probably, traditionally as a child, right?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, you have these kind of… And then in your head, right, you’re trying to take something that’s a bit of a fantasy, because Disney to you before attending a theme park is you’re a fan of their movies.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: You’re a fan of maybe their cartoons, their channel, right? Because they had the Disney Channel growing up, right?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, they’re kind of in your life already. And then going to the theme park is the physical manifestation of your love for Disneyland to a certain extent.

Brady: Yeah. There’s hidden Mickeys everywhere. So, you get to know where the hidden Mickeys are.

Garrett: Right. As a consulting firm, we have these clients, we meet with them on Zoom all the time. They know us, we know them. But then there’s this special thing that happens and the data backs it when it comes to retention or growing accounts, that when you fly out to a client and you share a meal with them, you connect with them physically, just shaking their hand, give them a hug, whatever it is. It becomes a bond. So, it seems to me, if I was Disneyland, that the theme park is the physical bond of the emotion that the brand evokes. See what I’m saying?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, how the heck do you compete with that? Because that’s what this show’s about right now, right? We spent 10 minutes talking about Disneyland. I think that’s a good summation of what Disneyland does with their theme parks, is it’s a lynch pin to the essentially massively scaling the LTV of their customers. Right? The lifetime value of a customer at Disneyland gets massively accelerated or amplified through the physical experience you get by visiting one of their amusement parks. Now they also have a global presence, I believe. Correct? So, they are in-

Brady: Yeah, I’ve been to Tokyo a couple times.

Garrett: Tokyo. They’re in Japan.

Brady: China.

Garrett: China.

Brady: And Paris.

Garrett: Paris?

Brady: Or France, I don’t know if it’s not in the city.

Garrett: So, we have presence in AMEA, APAC, and North America. But you’ll have Orlando, right?

Brady: Yep.

Garrett: Disney World and Disneyland. East coast, west coast. Okay. We’re Knott’s Berry Farm. Are there multiple Knott’s Berry Farms?

Brady: I do not know.

Garrett: Can you look that up for us, Scarlet?

Brady: But I do know in terms of the TV shows, isn’t it Snoopy? Isn’t that their-

Garrett: I mean, let’s not bank on that one being great.

Brady: But I think that’s it. The little kids area is all Snoopy’s world.

Garrett: No, it looks like Knott’s Berry Farm only has one location.

Brady: Okay. They are known for the boys and boysenberry, for you wondering why it’s Berry Farm?

Garrett: I don’t know if-

Brady: They have a great boysenberry lemonade, I think.

Garrett: I don’t know if… They’ve got great funnel cake, but I don’t know if any of these things are going to really help us here. Okay. So, let’s think through. What do we do? We have now acquired the Knott’s Berry Farm brand. Congratulations, Brady. You and I own 57 acres in Buena Park.

Brady: Nice.

Garrett: Right? It’s the 12th most visited theme park in North America, averaging approximately four million visitors per year.

Brady: Not bad.

Garrett: And we need to do a lot more than that. Okay? We need to grow. I would say focusing on the theme park would probably be a mistake.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: What if we were to acquire MTV?

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: Or something like that.

Brady: I was thinking like Coco Melon or Bluey.

Garrett: Or Blippy?

Brady: Who’s Blippy?

Garrett: Blippy’s the goat, bro.

Brady: I thought Bluey was the goat.

Garrett: No, no Blippy’s the goat.

Brady: Is Bluey the dog?

Garrett: Let’s do a subscriber off. Let’s go YouTube. Let’s see who’s doing better. Bluey or Blippy.

Brady: I mean, I don’t have kids yet, but I was golfing with these two dads and they just couldn’t stop talking about Bluey.

Garrett: Oh, I don’t know about Bluey. I know about Blippy. Let’s see who’s got more subscribers? Blippy. Okay, what do we got here? I mean, he’s got his own products and brands. I’m sure the other guy does too. 16.8 million. All right, let’s see who does Bluey got?

Brady: Well, Bluey is like a show.

Garrett: So was this.

Brady: Yeah, but is he on Netflix or anything?

Garrett: No, bro. Power to the people. What’s that? Blue Blue. What’s that? Blue boy? Let’s see what he’s got.

Brady: Yeah, it’s Bluey official channel is the channel.

Garrett: Where is that? I don’t know how you get to the subs.

Brady: That’s the season.

Garrett: No, no. We got to go to a-

Brady: See how it says Bluey official channel under that first video down? Right.

Garrett: Just click on that. Yeah. 1.6 million. Bluey ain’t got nothing on my boy. Blippy.

Brady: You but Blippy is YouTube. Bluey is not a YouTube.

Garrett: All right, all right, all right.

Brady: I don’t think.

Garrett: So, Bluey is some official show who also has a YouTube channel. My boy Blippy is just king of YouTube. Okay? But let’s say we were to… So, you want to start with the kids?

Brady: Well, maybe-

Garrett: Because I don’t if we can beat them playing the same game. It’s hard to beat-

Brady: Well, maybe that’s not the… Just for the kids area, I think updating from Snoopy, who I don’t know how many kids are following Snoopy these days.

Garrett: Well, here’s my point. When I want to go after a behemoth, when I want to go after a monster, I don’t usually try to take their playbook and try to beat them at it by being better than them. What do I always say? It’s better to be different than it is to be better.

Brady: Yeah. Yeah. I’m curious to hear the MTV angle, because my mind did not go there.

Garrett: Okay, so I would argue that Knott’s Berry Farm has a good kind of adult vibe to it. You’ve got a place where you can buy drinks and it’s not just California Adventure or whatever. And you can kind of walk around the park with drinks and you can kind of do, I would say, this kind of mid teen… You can have more of a teenage to adult vibe at Knott’s Berry Farm.

Brady: There’s drinks at Disney now too.

Garrett: I can’t compete with these guys.

Brady: You can’t do it.

Garrett: I know, they’re dynamic. But to me, I think you could build a counterculture theme park potentially. And I think MTV could be that. In other words, to me, Disney’s a little soft. Disney’s Disney. It feels like you have to… When you become an adult, you have to grow up past Disney. Now there’s some people who-

Brady: No, you don’t.

Garrett: Yeah, there’s some people-

Brady: I disagree.

Garrett: … Whowill never shed their Disney skin. And there’s other people like me who are like, what’s the point of cartoons? Let’s watch Sports Center. And I think that there could be a counterculture of people who would pay a lot of money. And I don’t think we can make Knott’s Berry Farm cheap. I think what everybody’s done to compete with Disneyland is be like, here’s a cheaper alternative. Is it as good? No. Are we going to be dynamic in our strategy? Nope. Are we going to do anything other than lower our prices to try to compete with Disneyland? No. All right, let’s just lower the prices. To me, I think we have to get plugged back into culture, back into society and be a byproduct of the day- to- day life of the people who we want to attend our amusement park. So, to me, buying an asset that is no longer valuable but has strong historical resonance, like MTV, for counterculture that you could, I think, get for a cheaper price, could start to position us in a way to essentially launch new shows on the network, build rides, update our current. In other words, I don’t want to redesign the amusement park without a psychological anchor for each ride that’s being redesigned. So, when Disneyland re- does a ride and when they update their park, it’s in reflection of their content calendar. In other words, if you think about our content calendar, it’s like writing a blog post. Disneyland’s content calendar is a new series, a new movie, a new show. And then they create essentially a physical manifestation of the digital world. I mean, they’re the metaverse and they’ve been it forever and no one really realizes it. You’re all in this digital fake world, this make- believe magical land that they’ve created. And then for you to finally become a Disney- ite, or whatever the hell they call you.

Brady: I don’t know.

Garrett: You have to go to the park, and it almost cements that connection of your childhood and those memories and those emotions. I think if Knott’s Berry Farm and we acquired MTV, we could start to do live shows at the park. We could start to have concerts at the park. We could start to create a manifestation of your digital life into the real life and be an entertainment hub for counterculture and charge a premium. It’d still be cheaper than Disneyland, but it shouldn’t be cheap. We should only exist to the point that you thought the value you got from attending our amusement park was more so than the price of the ticket.

Brady: Yeah. People want to go. Not just like, well, it’s what we can afford, so let’s do Knott’s even though I feel like we all want to do Disney.

Garrett: Correct. People right now. Get a group of eight together that’s broke and you’re all like 23, 24, whatever you are. 22, 18, 19, middle school, high school, parents drop you off. You go to Knott’s Berry Farm because you can afford it. Disney, you can’t afford. There’s long lines. You’re like, I’ll just go to Knott’s. I don’t want people to go to Knots because they couldn’t afford Disneyland. I want them to go to Knott’s because they feel an affinity towards it.

Brady: Yeah. I think you know how I’m sure Knott’s has this to some extent, that Disneyland has Tomorrow Land and Adventure Land, Toon Town, things like that. I feel like eras of music, going on the MTV theme. And then you can have music on the roller coasters and all the rides.

Garrett: Oh, there we go.

Brady: Because that was a cool thing about California Screaming, the rollercoaster at California Adventure, is they put in these really nice speakers and they redid Space Mountain and they did the same to where music is playing during the roller coaster. But if you have certain areas of the park, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, ’60s,’70s rock, you could then have that music playing on the rides. And I feel like you could theme the rides based on a song or something. Like you could-

Garrett: I think we do partnerships. So, I’ll one up you. We call it the Rolling Stones ride.

Brady: Yeah. That’s what-

Garrett: We bring Rolling Stones in.

Brady: You’d have to get the rights and stuff.

Garrett: But they partner with us as the artist and they’re involved in the design of the music, the theatrics. And we turn it more into a show, which is what Disneyland is. It’s not about the ride, it’s about the experience of each ride. And what if we created an experience but it was more of a counterculture experience. I think you could actually compete with them. You could create something. I don’t know who travels to go to Knott’s Berry Farm, but imagine the advertising we could do. We could launch a new ride with Rolling Stones, target everyone who follows Rolling Stones on Meta, and then advertise to all those people. And I think if we did a big launch event and Rolling Stones was there and we turned it all into content, people would fly from all around the world to go to this new and improved Knott’s Berry Farm because they’re huge fans of Rolling Stones or AC/ DC or Guns N’ Roses or whoever that is. And then eventually, we get a modern artist like Drake. Drake has never designed a roller coaster ride before in his life. But imagine the OVO brand doing a whole roller coaster with all of his top songs, performances integrated on the inside of the ride, and it became a theatrical experience. Plus, it was a dope rollercoaster. I actually think we could have something there.

Brady: Oh, yeah. You know Supreme Scream?

Garrett: inaudible.

Brady: You know that ride?

Garrett: Yep.

Brady: So, it’s like you go up super slow and then it drops.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: So, that could be electronic music. The drop. Yeah.

Garrett: Oh, that’d be sick.

Brady: You know how a song builds up as you’re going up and then the song drops while the ride drops.

Garrett: Yes. Yes. And Diplo’s in charge of that. And then Diplo’s in residency at Knott’s Berry Farm.

Brady: Yeah. Performances could be awesome.

Garrett: Correct. And then Diplo does a performance once a month because he still could be in Vegas, but once a month he flies out private and he does a performance at Knott’s Berry Farm. I’m telling you, you start doing that, we could actually compete with these people. I don’t know. I’m just stewing on this right now.

Brady: Yeah. I like the music.

Garrett: This is how I would go after Disneyland.

Brady: Yeah. Because you could even, targeting wise, people who grew up with’80s music, you can advertise that section of the theme park.

Garrett: Multiple personas, demographics.

Brady: Yeah. The parents from the ’80s and the’90s would be like, I want to go to this for myself, but it’s also a theme park so I know my kids are going to be excited to. And just have that blend.

Garrett: We could do something crazy too at first. FP. You know what FP stands for?

Brady: I watch Bob Does Sports and Fat Perez is one of the members. So, FP stands for Fat Perez.

Garrett: In this case, it stands-

Brady: In my mind. Just wanted to be-

Garrett: Yeah, no, I like that. In this case, free parking.

Brady: Oh.

Garrett: Woohoo! Disney would never.

Brady: Now we’re talking. Our passes, we get half off. So, we’re only paying$ 15 and not 30.

Garrett: Each time?

Brady: Each time.

Garrett: I would argue parking is… And then I heard you have to take a trolley to get into the park at Disneyland. I’m not talking-

Brady: I hope that trolley’s back up and running because we had to walk last time because of COVID.

Garrett: And I heard it’s not a quick easy walk.

Brady: No, it was like a mile long walk because the trams, because of COVID, they didn’t want people on them.

Garrett: I’m telling you, bro, we could crush the ad. It would just be like someone who just walked through the end of the desert who finally gets to the park, but then their past doesn’t work because they haven’t reserved that day, or they’re blacked out. And we could just crush. Because to me, Disneyland is not very customer centric anymore when it comes to actually using Disneyland. Once you get in the theme park, I heard they’re great. But the blackouts, the parking, the trolley, the scheduling, it’s a thing to go to Disneyland.

Brady: Yeah. That’s where influencer marketing would come in, is you sponsor a family, a really popular blogger, Instagramer to go to both theme parks and have them break down all these categories on cost differences between Knott’s and Disneyland, parking, hotel, and then really conclude it. And maybe Disneyland wins on-

Garrett: Well, it’s so different.

Brady: …A few things.

Garrett: Let’s do it different. Let’s take influencers who have built brands around specific parks that we want to evaluate. Each influencer goes deep on one.

Brady: Yeah, like a foodie.

Garrett: Yeah, a foodie does the food, a financial advisor, how- to- save- money person does the cost. Someone who’s totally into cars or parking does the parking. Someone who’s a marathon runner, we could do it funny too, of like, hey, it wasn’t too bad for me, but I run marathons. Right? And I think there’s so many different ways you could tell the story of why you should go to Knott’s. And I think we could actually double that number from four million to eight million with the right positioning pricing and marketing.

Brady: I mean, the food’s a big one.

Garrett: Food’s huge.

Brady: You can take the top food trucks in the US and just have them permanent there and have a cool themed section where it’s permanent food trucks.

Garrett: Food truck land.

Brady: Yeah. Brewery X has that. I don’t know if you’ve been there.

Garrett: I love that one. I was there this weekend.

Brady: Yeah. So, their food is just food trucks that are permanent. They don’t drive around to other locations. So, if you take the… I’m blanking on any popular food trucks.

Garrett: Did we do this idea for our last one? I feel like food was-

Brady: Food trucks?

Garrett: It wasn’t food trucks but it was-

Brady: Well, no, we talked about food within the cruise ship.

Garrett: Yeah, but same idea. I think food’s huge in any type of entertainment. Yeah. I didn’t realize we did cruise ships and now theme park, whatever. We’re on an entertainment kick right now.

Brady: I mean, we do airplanes, hotels, we do a lot of this travel entertainment.

Garrett: It’s just our crazy minds trying to innovate something.

Brady: That’s relevant. I just bought Disneyland passes. So, for me this is-

Garrett: No, I love it.

Brady: …Top of mind.

Garrett: But it was funny because I mean everything you talked about with buying a Disneyland pass sounds like hell to me. Just horrible. I got to be like, ooh, am I blacked out this day, and now I got to walk to the park, and then I got to pay extra if I want to cut the lines. I thought it used to be like you just like two, three, four bucks for a fast pass.

Brady: No.

Garrett: They don’t call them fast pass anymore either.

Brady: No. It’s the Genie Pass and it’s all done through an app and you pay maybe like a hundred bucks for the day just for that.

Garrett: Wait. Really?

Brady: I don’t know. It’s expensive. I saw people complaining about how the passes didn’t come with that because they’re already… An annual pass isn’t cheap.

Garrett: And if business was good for Knott’s, I think the hotel part helps. I think a lot of people like the entire Disney experience. You can go on a Disney cruise, you can stay at the Disney hotel.

Brady: Yeah. The one in Hawaii is crazy on Oahu. I forget what it’s called.

Garrett: You got downtown Disney for all the restaurants. I like the jazz little spot they have there.

Brady: Yeah, I think they’re opening because Knott’s right now has Portos.

Garrett: Has what?

Brady: Portos Bakery.

Garrett: Oh, yeah. That’s a hot bakery too.

Brady: I want to say downtown Disney’s going to get it soon.

Garrett: They’re going to take it from them?

Brady: No, they’re just opening one there.

Garrett: See and that’s what I’m talking about. We got to be more on the… We got to get our food right, we got to get our drinks right.

Brady: Yeah. I think the food’s a big opportunity because a lot of people post on Instagram, the new churro flavor came out. And so Disney almost has its own brand with food and all the food hacks is, you can go here and order a lobster mac and cheese even though it’s not on the menu.

Garrett: I saw that video too. The influencers are crazy days.

Brady: Yeah. So, it’s all the Disney secrets. But I think Knott’s, we can be aware of that and we can just take the most well- known food trucks in the US and have them have permanent spots there and not try to come up with the Knott’s branded food.

Garrett: And we have a speakeasy bar. I think if we do a speakeasy bar-

Brady: Oh, I like the speakeasy.

Garrett: You know what I’m saying? It’s underneath one of the roller coasters in a spot you’d never guess.

Brady: Yeah, there’s a lot of mining vibes in Knott’s Berry Farms. A mine shaft door or something like that.

Garrett: I like that.

Brady: You take a cart in. Ooh.

Garrett: We just need some stuff that can go viral, some social kind of parts to our theme park. And I think we have something genuinely special here. So, Knott’s, if you’re interested, nominal fee, $ 10 million. And we can give you anything you want, any advice, any insights, any tactics. And we can go take down those evil Disney people.

Brady: Yeah. Don’t take them down though. I own a lot of their stock.

Garrett: Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, that’s market this, and thanks so much for being with us today on the show. As always, like, subscribe, leave a comment, and we’ll see you next week.

Brady: Check out the TikToks and go argue with what we say.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: We love it.