bonus
Strange(r) Coordinates: Maureen Golga
’Tis the season for… brand activations? PR is all about creating a moment that grabs attention — and few moments hold our collective attention like the holidays. On our latest Strange(r) Coordinates, we talk to Maureen Golga of Weber Shandwick about how some brands are able to cut through the noise in the hectic final stretch of the year.
More info on the answers to the “Off Brand” quiz:
“When Christmas Started Creeping”, Contingent Magazine
“Christmas Season Starts Earlier Every Year!”, Slate
“Consumer Spending Trends: How Much Will Holiday Shoppers Spend This Year?”, Salsify
-
territorial is an advertising agency that helps brands find their place in the world. To see our work and learn more about what we do, visit weareterritorial.com and follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/weareterritorial
-
Show art & design by Chris Allen
Editing by Steph George
Marketing by Billy Silverman
Episode music by Blue Dot Sessions
-
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Strange
Speaker:Coordinates, a show where we use brands as compass points to lead us
Speaker:stories.
Speaker:I'm
Speaker:Topher Burns.
Speaker:Hey, and I'm Robert
Speaker:Balogh.
Speaker:Uh, Topher
Speaker:and I founded an ad
Speaker:agency called Territorial, where we help brands find their
Speaker:place in the world, but we're not the only people who love brands, shock as that
Speaker:may be.
Speaker:Uh, on stranger coordinates, wordplay, we focus on a specific
Speaker:theme and we bring a traveling
Speaker:companion along with us on the journey.
Speaker:So
Speaker:theme for our
Speaker:today is
Speaker:actually inspired by the season.
Speaker:Sometimes we riff off
Speaker:previous podcast
Speaker:episodes
Speaker:in this one, you know, we're
Speaker:getting inspired
Speaker:by
Speaker:the days getting cooler, the scent of PSLs.
Speaker:Uh, And so, you know, things that
Speaker:made us think about is
Speaker:that people
Speaker:outside of our
Speaker:industry don't that the holiday
Speaker:season is basically the
Speaker:marketing Superbowl, which a phrase actually, once I like wrote that
Speaker:phrase out, I was like, well, the Superbowl is also our Superbowl.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:but this
Speaker:is definitely a big
Speaker:time too.
Speaker:Uh, and so we thought it'd be get an inside
Speaker:look at what holiday
Speaker:marketing
Speaker:like is
Speaker:like rather for
Speaker:brands.
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:Um, and as we said, we're not going to explore this idea
Speaker:alone.
Speaker:Joining us on today's expedition is a 20 year veteran of the marketing and
Speaker:communications She's worked with globally known brands across dozens of sectors,
Speaker:including finance, uh, wine and spirits, travel and tourism, higher education.
Speaker:And nonprofit and issue advocacy.
Speaker:She is an executive vice president at Weber Shanwick and specializes in
Speaker:helping clients find the right balance between brand promotion and brand
Speaker:protection.
Speaker:Everyone, please
Speaker:welcome dear friend of the agency, Maureen Golga.
Speaker:Hi everyone!
Speaker:put a loud audience
Speaker:audience sound there.
Speaker:Uh,
Speaker:exactly.
Speaker:really
Speaker:So Maureen,
Speaker:know.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:I know it is.
Speaker:It's so much fun to have you.
Speaker:It's also like perversely ironic that we're discussing the
Speaker:holidays on a day when it is
Speaker:82 degrees in New York.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:Same here in DC?
Speaker:yeah, so, uh, really well chosen, but when this episode airs, we'll
Speaker:definitely be more in the thick of it.
Speaker:So appropriate nonetheless.
Speaker:Um, it's actually in some ways really appropriate that we're
Speaker:talking about the holidays on a
Speaker:very hot day, because actually, okay.
Speaker:Most brands probably start preparing for a holiday
Speaker:season in the throes of summer, if
Speaker:not before.
Speaker:Um, so I am familiar from the agency side and the advertising side about
Speaker:what goes on, in prep for holidays.
Speaker:I'm wondering if you could just kind of talk to us a little bit about
Speaker:what are the kind of big items for PR
Speaker:professionals around a holiday season?
Speaker:Well, about uh, from a brand and product always gift Like
Speaker:focused on.
Speaker:you need to clients in those gift guides starts at the end of the summer, right?
Speaker:No one is waiting until
Speaker:create and in advance.
Speaker:So
Speaker:Nobody catches Oprah sleeping.
Speaker:She's on that.
Speaker:She's like, I got to know what I'm recommending
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:right?
Speaker:segment
Speaker:Show.
Speaker:were to get guide from the strategist or from Wirecutter, I mean,
Speaker:that's, what every product, person see their
Speaker:there's
Speaker:you know, those You want to be in the recipe list.
Speaker:You want to be in the drink list, right?
Speaker:So all of that stuff
Speaker:so many
Speaker:starting
Speaker:They're creating a lot of
Speaker:suggestions
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:is, is the gift guide thing and a relatively new phenomenon in PR.
Speaker:Like I can't, and maybe I'm just not a charitable person, but I
Speaker:don't remember being attuned to gift guides in earlier parts of my life.
Speaker:Is that a, a recent thing?
Speaker:think it's just because there's the exponentially more gift guides
Speaker:few
Speaker:going onto chat saying, what's
Speaker:of person.
Speaker:you can of gift actual.
Speaker:content creators.
Speaker:Um, they're, you know,
Speaker:has proliferated exponentially larger.
Speaker:So has that market for gift guides.
Speaker:It's interesting you mentioned chat, GBT, because, you know,
Speaker:previously, before AI started to
Speaker:take
Speaker:nibbles outta search,
Speaker:um,
Speaker:you and
Speaker:SEM, um, the
Speaker:way that you could
Speaker:get your, you know, pay
Speaker:for your content to be surfaced in
Speaker:searches
Speaker:was kind
Speaker:of the, the.
Speaker:North star for being able
Speaker:to like really connect your product to the people who wanted to find it.
Speaker:But with AI being a place
Speaker:that people are going to, that really puts things like
Speaker:PR back in the driver's seat.
Speaker:differently how you get, The, you know, people online
Speaker:talking about products or how you just
Speaker:get sort of
Speaker:content in the
Speaker:ecosystem
Speaker:that AI starts scraping that differently?
Speaker:Yeah, definitely and I think there's a couple different ways to think about it.
Speaker:starting with your point that you know, SEO is not what it use to be right And and
Speaker:so we are helping clients think about like not just what happens when you search but
Speaker:what happens when you're searched for in.
Speaker:chat
Speaker:GPT In an AI search application right You want to make sure that that content
Speaker:is just as good as what you would find on Google Or how do you how do you start
Speaker:to make sure that you're popping up in the right types of stories or the right
Speaker:types of searches So that's one thing from a PR perspective that's just completely
Speaker:shifted in the past two years that we've focused on but to your broader question
Speaker:of, Is there just, is, PR more important or how are we thinking about it You
Speaker:know, it's, you need to do more to break through today So you need to have it
Speaker:needs to be more of an experience No one is getting coverage by sending a press
Speaker:release to a reporter right No one cares.
Speaker:get millions of them.
Speaker:No one reads them.
Speaker:That's not how you get coverage and just not even having a new product
Speaker:or a new offering that's not enough either So how we're thinking about
Speaker:it is how do we create a moment How do we create a story How do we create
Speaker:some some talk value in order to promote our product and one, example
Speaker:of something that we did last year.
Speaker:A client of mine, um, that, and, and did for the past couple of
Speaker:for Pernod Ricard here in North
Speaker:and Kalua of their brands.
Speaker:Obviously they want coverage
Speaker:Mm
Speaker:They want people buying their products They especially want people
Speaker:thinking about espresso martinis.
Speaker:Those two things go hand in hand.
Speaker:Absolut and Kahlua right So we can't just reach out to spirits reporters and food
Speaker:and bev reporters and say, Hey, don't you want to write about espresso martinis?
Speaker:Like they're already doing it right People love espresso martinis, but
Speaker:how do you do something different So two years ago we created an espresso.
Speaker:It's called an espresso martini handbag, you know,
Speaker:Like two
Speaker:years ago it was
Speaker:all the rage to have those handbags that were shaped like
Speaker:animals or different objects We created an espresso martini handbag,
Speaker:it was fun, but it was high end.
Speaker:martini
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:show picked up and they were like, yeah, come on.
Speaker:We want to talk about it.
Speaker:We want to smell it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But it's, and to create we're doing something to create
Speaker:martini?
Speaker:How do you talk and stop and pay have to do
Speaker:to write about it.
Speaker:That's just not the case anymore.
Speaker:so
Speaker:we're warmed up right now.
Speaker:We're in this
Speaker:of like
Speaker:brand space.
Speaker:Um, we're gonna, Move on
Speaker:to the second component of, our stranger
Speaker:coordinates episodes.
Speaker:Uh, it's a
Speaker:segment we call off brand.
Speaker:I'm going
Speaker:to give you three
Speaker:Like brand related
Speaker:questions
Speaker:that are connected to our theme.
Speaker:so these are all some trivia questions.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:Robert always
Speaker:hastens to make sure that people know
Speaker:there's no prizes.
Speaker:There's no judgment.
Speaker:was just going to do
Speaker:he
Speaker:takes
Speaker:He, takes,
Speaker:testing very seriously and
Speaker:it very seriously.
Speaker:to show up as their best.
Speaker:I'm getting a little stressed and I don't want, I don't want, anybody
Speaker:else to be stressed about this.
Speaker:So there's nothing on the line here.
Speaker:It's
Speaker:just fun.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:we'll start with one that's
Speaker:just.
Speaker:establishing
Speaker:a
Speaker:baseline.
Speaker:Um, how
Speaker:much globally in dollars
Speaker:is expected to
Speaker:be spent
Speaker:on holiday shopping in
Speaker:2024, and you get three
Speaker:choices.
Speaker:1.3 million
Speaker:1.
Speaker:3 billion dollars, or 1.
Speaker:3 trillion dollars.
Speaker:maybe we'll go trillion.
Speaker:1.3 billion
Speaker:final.
Speaker:It
Speaker:was true.
Speaker:It was.
Speaker:You can do it again.
Speaker:You
Speaker:meant trillion, right?
Speaker:need to,
Speaker:meant 1000 trillion,
Speaker:Yeah, there was a glitch there.
Speaker:I heard 1000 billion,
Speaker:came out as true.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You were right.
Speaker:It was at 1.
Speaker:3 trillion
Speaker:dollars.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:and I, I actually found
Speaker:myself seriously 1.
Speaker:3 trillion.
Speaker:It's wild.
Speaker:And I actually found myself Googling how many billions
Speaker:in a trillion
Speaker:that.
Speaker:'cause I was like, wait,
Speaker:how many billions are
Speaker:there?
Speaker:It's a thousand
Speaker:billion.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So
Speaker:this is a lot of money.
Speaker:That's a lot.
Speaker:That's a lot of money.
Speaker:Okay, so There's a lot on the table
Speaker:here.
Speaker:Most of it is being spent on my niece and nephew.
Speaker:But, there's still a couple trillion, or
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, probably for the
Speaker:dogs and cats in the family.
Speaker:right, question number two.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:The
Speaker:behind the term Black Friday
Speaker:is generally accepted year when stores stop
Speaker:operating at a loss,
Speaker:like in the red, and become
Speaker:profitable in
Speaker:the black.
Speaker:But, there are
Speaker:previously recorded uses of the term
Speaker:Black Friday
Speaker:in
Speaker:America.
Speaker:Um, I'm
Speaker:going to read you three.
Speaker:Your job is
Speaker:to pick which of these three is not one that has actually been
Speaker:previously recorded as a use of the
Speaker:term
Speaker:Black Friday in America.
Speaker:This is
Speaker:This is exciting.
Speaker:A, B,
Speaker:and a
Speaker:C.
Speaker:a
Speaker:Settlers in the British colonies, referring to the day each year
Speaker:when they would clean out their chimneys in preparation for
Speaker:the winter
Speaker:season.
Speaker:And that's, that's believable.
Speaker:B A
Speaker:day when two
Speaker:Wall Street financiers colluded to drive up the price of gold
Speaker:but instead crashed the market.
Speaker:C.
Speaker:A term
Speaker:Philadelphia cops used in the 1950s to describe the crowded and stressful shifts
Speaker:in the shopping districts the day after
Speaker:Thanksgiving.
Speaker:Well, it's unlikely that, that anyone on wall street would collusion of any kind.
Speaker:So we, I think we have to rule that
Speaker:one out
Speaker:But
Speaker:we do have a Black Monday and a Black Tuesday.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:So that could be it.
Speaker:Wait, so I have to
Speaker:the one that it
Speaker:is not, has not been used for.
Speaker:I'm gonna go with, with the settlers and the chimneys.
Speaker:You
Speaker:are correct!
Speaker:Ding, ding, Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,
Speaker:ding, ding,
Speaker:ding!
Speaker:ding,
Speaker:I
Speaker:thought it was pretty believable, honestly.
Speaker:Yeah, you know, I've been in a chim chimney,
Speaker:chim chim teroo type of,
Speaker:uh, I don't know why, but I got
Speaker:just like Mary Poppins chimney sweeps on the brain.
Speaker:I've been
Speaker:using it as a reaction
Speaker:gif, uh, on some text threads, so that's I think what was
Speaker:coming coming through there.
Speaker:But, little bit of, Background on choices B and C that you correctly
Speaker:identified as the real ones.
Speaker:B J
Speaker:Gould and Jim Fiske
Speaker:worked
Speaker:to buy up as much of the nation's
Speaker:gold
Speaker:as they could in an effort to drive up the
Speaker:price and
Speaker:make profits.
Speaker:But
Speaker:on Friday, September
Speaker:24th in 1869,
Speaker:their
Speaker:plan failed,
Speaker:obliterating the market
Speaker:bankrupting Oh great.
Speaker:Thanks guys.
Speaker:So that did that
Speaker:did
Speaker:happen.
Speaker:Uh, and then
Speaker:C, Philadelphia merchants, so the, the
Speaker:cops
Speaker:did
Speaker:actually call
Speaker:Friday sort of the,
Speaker:shifts that nobody wanted to take in the 50s.
Speaker:And
Speaker:Philly merchants worried that the negative connotations
Speaker:the
Speaker:phrase would
Speaker:prevent people
Speaker:from shopping.
Speaker:So
Speaker:they actually
Speaker:tried to rebrand it as Big Friday
Speaker:rather than Black Friday
Speaker:But the Black Friday term remained and
Speaker:reached widespread use in the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:by the 80s.
Speaker:Um, bringing up black Friday is just a really great time.
Speaker:I think to once again, call back and celebrate a small business Saturday
Speaker:and how, what an amazing, um, PR related idea that was and how,
Speaker:Just like phenomenal.
Speaker:Oh, I was at Ogilvy when, kind of around the time when it happened and Ogilvy
Speaker:liked to take credit for it because we had American express at the time.
Speaker:but it was such as like a partnership between, uh, Ogilvy, the PR
Speaker:partner, the Amex in house people.
Speaker:And it was just like, what a revolutionary idea.
Speaker:Like the perfect idea that yielded advertising, yielded stories,
Speaker:yielded commercial opportunities.
Speaker:It's just phenomenal.
Speaker:And that's become
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:15, years
Speaker:now?
Speaker:Maybe even more?
Speaker:probably so many people that don't even, Express, but they
Speaker:know that it exists, right?
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:amazing.
Speaker:rarely score a home run like that.
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:it's I love what you guys are talking about
Speaker:too, because
Speaker:I think a lot of times
Speaker:think holidays
Speaker:and you think sort of
Speaker:the iconic spots of like, that get used again and again,
Speaker:like the Hershey's kiss, uh,
Speaker:you know.
Speaker:Christmas tree bells or the M and M's or you think like all the car
Speaker:commercials with red bows on them, like
Speaker:somebody buys their wife a car for Christmas.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:but you know, I think the ways that like
Speaker:that
Speaker:you
Speaker:guys are talking about that I think is a, is a space that
Speaker:PR
Speaker:pushes brands to Be
Speaker:better in is, of course, you have marketing objectives.
Speaker:but what can you do around the holidays that actually feels authentic when
Speaker:your holidays are time to reconnect?
Speaker:And
Speaker:I
Speaker:think it's a
Speaker:way for
Speaker:us.
Speaker:We think of it culturally is a time to reconnect with the people we
Speaker:care about.
Speaker:And I think that's a good ethos for
Speaker:brands to
Speaker:in
Speaker:mind to is kind of what are the ways that I can show up for people?
Speaker:Um, the people who matter to me in ways that matter to them.
Speaker:And I think the small business Saturday is a great example of that.
Speaker:when brands can really nail
Speaker:that.
Speaker:I mean, it's like one mean, how that happened a client
Speaker:that said, business right?
Speaker:Just like when I started in PR, people were like, how do you get us on Oprah?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Every client had the same thing,
Speaker:but that was one, I don't know how many it was
Speaker:version of it's I mean, then you you get
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:how
Speaker:but when they happen.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:absolutely.
Speaker:Well, all right.
Speaker:So we're, we're talking now about holiday,
Speaker:uh, marketing and that is a connection to our third and final question in
Speaker:off brand third and final question.
Speaker:Christmas creep.
Speaker:Or
Speaker:the practice of extending the holiday shopping season earlier into the year
Speaker:has been documented in the American press starting as early as the
Speaker:1880s.
Speaker:But
Speaker:World War II played an instrumental role in cementing
Speaker:Christmas
Speaker:creep into our economic
Speaker:calendars, when
Speaker:which
Speaker:U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:president
Speaker:moved Thanksgiving Day Later in November, in order to make space
Speaker:for merchants to start marketing
Speaker:holiday shopping earlier in the
Speaker:month.
Speaker:which
Speaker:World War II president moved
Speaker:Thanksgiving?
Speaker:see now ugh There's so many people I know who I'm not going
Speaker:to let watch this podcast.
Speaker:Cause I'm going to get this
Speaker:question
Speaker:no, no.
Speaker:And gonna like how do you not know
Speaker:you got two choices.
Speaker:Also Christmas creep.
Speaker:Sounds like a movie with like Rob Schneider, you
Speaker:know like this is a total, total, like
Speaker:I would yeah
Speaker:100%.
Speaker:And like a precocious kid who just foils him at every turn.
Speaker:you
Speaker:maybe you should reach out to Adam Sandler on that one
Speaker:I think he could make that one happen.
Speaker:hundred percent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay World War II president, often known by his
Speaker:initials
Speaker:Is it FDR?
Speaker:It is FDR.
Speaker:Okay, seriously this is what happens when you overthink.
Speaker:I'm
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:Yeah, totally.
Speaker:percent sure but now I'm like, oh I
Speaker:have to say it out loud so I'm gonna be, I'm gonna get it
Speaker:Well, and
Speaker:people
Speaker:actually called it Franksgiving
Speaker:few years
Speaker:after he moved it not universally
Speaker:popular.
Speaker:There was a lot of, you know, the,
Speaker:uh,
Speaker:people celebrated for a while, quote unquote
Speaker:Republican
Speaker:Thanksgiving on the days
Speaker:previous
Speaker:that
Speaker:had been held before which is
Speaker:originally it was November 20th.
Speaker:it to the
Speaker:24th.
Speaker:Then there
Speaker:was a compromise
Speaker:and
Speaker:and that compromise was to do it as the, uh,
Speaker:Peg
Speaker:it to that fourth
Speaker:Thursday.
Speaker:Um, and
Speaker:so
Speaker:that
Speaker:allows it to kind of float
Speaker:a little bit, but
Speaker:that meant that
Speaker:Thanksgiving was always sitting
Speaker:further
Speaker:down in November.
Speaker:So you had more
Speaker:space
Speaker:earlier ahead to start marketing.
Speaker:Um, the other
Speaker:way that World War II
Speaker:accelerated Christmas
Speaker:creep
Speaker:was that the Decreed window to send Christmas
Speaker:to
Speaker:soldiers fighting overseas
Speaker:was from
Speaker:October 1st through November 1st, which meant that
Speaker:anybody that wanted to send anything, um, in mail had to often start their
Speaker:shopping
Speaker:in September.
Speaker:So
Speaker:it enforced during that time, a mindset shift where people started
Speaker:thinking much earlier about
Speaker:about holiday
Speaker:I love when the government gets involved and is like, get out there and buy
Speaker:people, drive the economy forward.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:yeah, it's a clear case
Speaker:there.
Speaker:We all suspected it.
Speaker:yeah, that is, that's, that is super interesting.
Speaker:It's also, um,
Speaker:I'm, can I just be like, it's embarrassing to think somewhere in my
Speaker:brain that the date was actually tied to
Speaker:some, something historical, like, an actual that I was like, Oh wait, hold on.
Speaker:Wasn't the, wasn't that related to when they actually sat down?
Speaker:But no, that's idiotic.
Speaker:Robert.
Speaker:Come
Speaker:Well, so I think
Speaker:like Lincoln
Speaker:season, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Seasonal.
Speaker:and then I think like my,
Speaker:this is where, we're not going to send it to my friends.
Speaker:My recollection is that Lincoln is the person who
Speaker:ordained
Speaker:Thanksgiving as like a
Speaker:specific
Speaker:date, um, and
Speaker:then I think it like kind of stuck around, um,
Speaker:as that date
Speaker:until, um, now
Speaker:it gets sort of like it's
Speaker:day of
Speaker:the week ordination because of FDR.
Speaker:Gotcha.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, we'll just edit out the part where I look like a ding dong, right?
Speaker:We all have our
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:Love that.
Speaker:gonna say because I think that.
Speaker:um Because it's harvest, right?
Speaker:But harvest is in right?
Speaker:yeah, I guess you would want to have harvest,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But you know, you don't want those taters to get spoiled.
Speaker:So you gotta, you gotta do it relatively
Speaker:soon.
Speaker:I don't know if that's a
Speaker:a
Speaker:thing.
Speaker:That, I
Speaker:think of all things, the potatoes are the things that
Speaker:said taters, first of all
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:here we are.
Speaker:Uh,
Speaker:so far we've been kind of leading this expedition.
Speaker:Um, but now Maureen, It is your turn,
Speaker:um, to take us on the journey that you want to take us on.
Speaker:So we like to play this, um, uh, segment called omnipotent brand manager.
Speaker:And the premise is that you've been promoted to the most
Speaker:powerful brand manager in history.
Speaker:Do anything you want.
Speaker:There are no bosses.
Speaker:There are no rules.
Speaker:Um, and the question is, you've got a single project to, to,
Speaker:um, to bring change to this brand.
Speaker:What would you do?
Speaker:And what brand would you work
Speaker:with?
Speaker:All right, so I gave this some thought and as long as we're willing
Speaker:suspension of disbelief here, I'd like to travel back in time and,
Speaker:Already there.
Speaker:And most people don't want to travel back in time to 2020,
Speaker:But I really
Speaker:do because
Speaker:I really wish soul Cycle a brand that I absolutely loved.
Speaker:I ridden over 500 classes at Soul Cycle before the
Speaker:pandemic hit I really wish they would have handled the pandemic differently.
Speaker:wow.
Speaker:so
Speaker:happened, they just
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And all these smaller the
Speaker:uh, to their classes, said,
Speaker:Come in and start doing video classes.
Speaker:Mm
Speaker:you know, and, and so window where they could have pivoted and look, our,
Speaker:design of SoulCycle is to come to be part of it.
Speaker:Mm
Speaker:a Peloton home bike at And like.
Speaker:pretty
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:to get people to make that so
Speaker:outdoor
Speaker:summer.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:was doing outdoor
Speaker:a
Speaker:um,
Speaker:was really about
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:have to, like, you have to be in the
Speaker:studio, you have to come
Speaker:it here,
Speaker:And I think if perspective are actually
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:a class.
Speaker:that,
Speaker:studios
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:because
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:closed and never reopened post pandemic.
Speaker:And, I think it was just, uh, so for me, and because much,
Speaker:I love going to classes there.
Speaker:Um, You know, it was, just have been the brand manager
Speaker:if people can't come to us, we're going to go we've got to
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, that sense of exclusivity or, um, kind of like, uh, insider
Speaker:cohesion was, was one of the notable strengths of the brand.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:but in actuality, it was strong, but brittle, you know, the, it was
Speaker:sort of easily breakable somehow.
Speaker:Um, Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker:I remember, um,
Speaker:you know, that there was such a, a,
Speaker:a
Speaker:spectrum of the way in which different brands dealt with the pandemic, especially
Speaker:brands like that were connected to in in person experiences, like, you know,
Speaker:class pass, like was just soaring and then had to rethink its business model.
Speaker:And Topher and I actually got to work on a brand that sort of came out of the
Speaker:pandemic realignment and created, um, A way to connect you to, um, personal
Speaker:trainers throughout the country.
Speaker:Um, virtually a brand called flex it.
Speaker:And, um, it was just really cool to be at the kind of cutting edge of
Speaker:seeing how, how technology was in enabling those things and how, how new
Speaker:brands were coming to the fore just to start to deliver the experience
Speaker:that, that people were expecting, but in ways that were new and novel.
Speaker:We
Speaker:all kind of experienced
Speaker:brands, uh, like there was kind of this, like every brand
Speaker:that relied on being in person
Speaker:versus being, you know, like the brands that relied on being in person.
Speaker:And the brands that like were
Speaker:digital and distributed initially, just like huge
Speaker:split.
Speaker:But
Speaker:then we've kind of seen the
Speaker:swap happen, uh, as, uh, the world
Speaker:has not returned to where it was, but come, you know, to a place of
Speaker:more equilibrium.
Speaker:and most
Speaker:of the ways we recognize living prior, we still do today.
Speaker:So
Speaker:maureen, we're so, so
Speaker:grateful you could take the time to join us.
Speaker:Um, yeah,
Speaker:if, if folks have any questions for,
Speaker:uh, Maureen, we will
Speaker:be
Speaker:making sure to tag her, uh, in our show notes, um, and be
Speaker:tagging her in our,
Speaker:uh, LinkedIn.
Speaker:we would always recommend reaching out
Speaker:to Maureen with questions.
Speaker:she has been a friend of the
Speaker:agency for quite some time and we're, we're so delighted she
Speaker:took the time to
Speaker:join us.
Speaker:So thank you so much, Maureen.
Speaker:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker:Thanks so much, Maureen.
Speaker:And thanks to everyone who is listening.
Speaker:Hope that your holiday season is off to a good start.
Speaker:Um, if you want to
Speaker:learn more about territorial, unfortunately we don't have a gift guide.
Speaker:We should maybe do a gift
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now I'm like,
Speaker:you know what?
Speaker:I guess we have to do a
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Maureen,
Speaker:maybe you can team up
Speaker:with us and we can
Speaker:include that as part of
Speaker:this.
Speaker:We'll put
Speaker:together a little mini gift guide.
Speaker:mini gift guide.
Speaker:So you'll be able to find
Speaker:that on our website.
Speaker:Let's say, let's say in
Speaker:the, uh,
Speaker:on LinkedIn.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:notes and, uh, on LinkedIn,
Speaker:uh,
Speaker:but do visit our website at, uh, www dot we are territorial.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:Follow us on LinkedIn, subscribe to newsletter, like, and subscribe,
Speaker:smash that button, do all
Speaker:those
Speaker:great things.
Speaker:Um, looking forward to being all up in your ears again soon, everyone.
Speaker:Have a great, great holiday season.
Speaker:Thanks
Speaker:So much fun, Maureen.
Speaker:Thank you.
