116 - A conversation with Firestone Walker

0:00Firestone Walker: Beer brands come and go, but beer is forever. And I think we're, you know, when you look at this moment in time, I think we're incredibly lucky to be able to steward these brands and try to solve the riddle of today.

0:24Justin, good morning. Isaac, good morning. I don't think anyone listening to the show needs an introduction to Firestone Walker. However, let's start there just in case. Please give us a quick overview of the brewery and then tell us about your background and what you do there.

0:39Firestone Walker: Yeah, Firestone Walker. I'm really lucky to be able to work with David Walker, Adam Firestone, Nick Firestone and the team there. It's our 30th anniversary this year. is one of the OG craft brewers, Central Crest of California, founded in 1996 by two brothers-in-law, David Walker and Adam Firestone. And 30 years later, we're still kicking. They're still running around the brewery, second-generation brewery, now run by Nick Firestone, who's doing an awesome job and probably best known for 805 in sort of the mass circles. But any craft head would probably talk to you about DBA, Union Jack, Pell 31, Pivo Pills, you know, a lot of the beers that, that, you know, tug at the heartstrings of beer lovers.

1:27Firestone Walker: And we've got a pretty great portfolio and we probably make close, I think last year we made close to 90 beers. So we make a lot of beers that, that keep our brewers and beer lovers smiling. And then we, we have some really great, you know, cultural weapons that allow us to do some really interesting work. We're going to dive into your beer in detail here in a moment, But tell me about your what do you do at Firestone? Let's start there. I head up the marketing department. I mean, technically chief marketing officer, but realistically, you know, I'm the brand steward, always thinking about all of the nooks and crannies of the brewery, how we tell all the stories properly, how we work as a really smart commercial organization, working really closely with our sales teams to make sure that we're developing products, supporting products, building brands, telling stories and connecting with consumers.

2:20Firestone Walker: It's when you tell people you work in marketing, they're usually like, oh, you make commercials or you get to make pretty pictures. And there is an element of that in there. But for the most part, there is a lot of, you know, strategy and thoughtfulness and problem solving that goes into, you know, the beer business. And, you know, it's quite different than, you know, my first 25 years in the workforce where I spent that in the music business. And I think you asked earlier, you know, how did I, what was my background is I got started in the music business, a guitar center when I was about 17. Got my first guitar when I was a kid, kind of changed the trajectory of my life, what I wanted to do.

3:01Firestone Walker: And I was lucky enough to get like an intern summer job in the mailroom at the corporate office and out in Los Angeles. And I did that age old work my way up the ladder, get into marketing, you know, kind of work my way to the top, get to do some incredible things. And that kind of found me in another music company called Ernie Ball that I idolized when I was a kid. Guitar string and guitar company that when I was 15 years old and I had that pack of strings and you'd look at the back of it. It had all the bands that I loved that played their strings and that I wanted to play. And then I met Sterling Ball, who was Ernie Ball's son in the CEO.

3:38Firestone Walker: And the next thing I know, after 20 years at Guitar Center, I ended up on the central coast of California at Ernie Ball for about five years, kind of running the global brand and sales with one of my best friends, Brian Ball. And then through happenstance, I bumped into David Walker. And next thing, he's tall, he's handsome, he's got a velvety British voice, and he convinced me to get into the beer business. Smooth bastard. Yeah. Yeah. The rest is seven years later. I'm still, you know, I'm still figuring out how to, you know, kind of make beer famous and, and work the network to, to make sure that that little lemonade stand keeps pumping.

4:16We have had a little glimpse behind the scenes at your team. You have a very, very impressive in-house team. Tell us about your internal creative and marketing group. Like how's, how many folks, how's it structured?

4:27Firestone Walker: I'm a big believer in a strong in-house team you know I'm not a huge fan of big agencies and and that's easy to say when you're not you know Constellation or Molson Coors or Anheuser-Busch you know when you're you know 50 billion dollar company and you need agencies that big just because it's impossible to scale but you know even though when I was a guitar center and we were two and a half billion at the, at the peak. Um, we still, I was still, that's when I really cut my teeth on in-house teams. We had some agencies and when I took over, we, we dissolved our agency partnerships and I brought it all in-house.

5:05Firestone Walker: And the reason is, is I don't think anybody ever understands your brand as well as you do. So the way that we're set up is we have brand directors for every brand. So ahead of 805, ahead of, um, Cali Squeeze Firestone and Mindhaze. We sort of combined those. She's awesome. Hannah Barnett, she comes from, you know, she spent her whole career in beer. She was at 10 Barrel and then she went to Anheuser Bush. And then when we acquired Cali Squeeze and we had a fruit for a beer, I was like, I need to find, you know, I was just like, who runs Mango Cart? And I just called her and I said, how would you like to, how'd you like to come to Firestone Walker?

5:36Firestone Walker: And she was, she actually was just like, I want to get back to, you know, to craft-ish, you know, and, um, you know, Nate runs 805. He's born and bred at Firestone and lives on the Central Coast and understands the brand better than almost anybody. So I've got a head of 805, a head of Cali, Firestone, Mindhaze, now a head of Trumer and a head of Stone. So we've brought the Stone team along. We retained about 50 plus years of experience with the Stone acquisition. And then I've got a bunch of division heads that are enterprise. So you have a head of trade. Our culture marketing team is amazing.

6:12Firestone Walker: there's not a lot of those left in the beer business. You know, those are kind of the first thing to go when times get tough, but we double down on that because we think that's the difference maker. And then, of course, there's a few other divisions, apparel, et cetera, and then, of course, creative. And the creative team, each, there's an art director for every brand. And so we basically have brand teams, digital, brand, creative, that are sort of dedicated to brands. And that way I can make sure that there's people that are just losing sleep over their brands, like I lose sleep over all the brands.

6:43Firestone Walker: And it's just like you're constantly thinking about it. And so that's how we're set up. There's obviously a lot of cross-functionality, make everybody work together because I'm a big believer in wisdom in the masses, sharing of ideas, like the digital teams for all the brands talk, the creatives all talk, the brand directors all talk. And that's allowed us to have a really potent understanding of the identity and where we want to go. And then from there, we do work with cool boutique partners that can do certain things we want to do. We want to film a TV commercial. I don't hire an agency to make a TV commercial.

7:15Firestone Walker: I call a filmmaker and a director and the people that we know. So we kind of function like an in-house agency, much like you would. Or if you need to scale up, you know who to call. Hey, I want it to look like this. I'm going to call this director. Or I need a cool illustration for something. I'm going to call these illustrators. And so we have an awesome team with a nice extended network. I mean, easily 50 people between photography, videography, directors, illustrators, UI, UX. There's people that we go to on a regular basis for all the things that we want. So nice potent in-house team with a healthy budget to go after and knock things down.

7:58Firestone Walker: And it's my job on a regular basis to sit in front of a CEO, a CFO on a board and make the case for why high quality creative matters and how we can weaponize that and turn that into a return on investment. How do you convince the board? Let's say, I mean, what was it like? You saw crazy success and then got money to reinvest in everything. like because you guys have been i mean i think of you almost as a media company as much as a beer company i don't mean that as a slight i mean that as a compliment uh like how much convincing do you have to do now versus in the early days and i know the the economy didn't help anything but well early days i mean and with any founder-led organization i think there's i've worked for public companies that were on wall street where that's the pressure is immense on the financials And they're for a different reason, right?

8:53Firestone Walker: Because you've got to provide stockholder value. You've got to, you know, you've got to drive double digit comp growth. I mean, that was what we were up against in the, you know, the early aughts, you know. And then when you work for founders, there's also a real discipline, but it's for, you know, it's for a different reason. It's because they know that they're mortal. And like, if we make a bad decision, we might have to, you know, maybe we have to lay people off or something negative. So there's different, you know, I've never worked in an, when I worked at big corporations, it was never like, oh, we're going to worry about laying people off.

9:24Firestone Walker: It was like, we got to provide shareholder value. And when you work for, you know, Ernie Ball or definitely a Firestone Walker, I mean, they're incredibly, incredibly people first. And so it's like, hey, let's not, you know, David will say it all the time. Hey, don't forget we're mortal. And, you know, we've got to make the right decisions. And we've run seven years in. And look, early days, we would do stuff and, you know, we'd spend 10 bucks on something. And David would be like, how much did that cost? And he'd be like,$10. You spent$10. And he's like, oh boy. And then, you know, as we went on and like proved success and he got comfortable with me because he's a huge believer in brand.

10:04Firestone Walker: David loves brands. He's obsessed with brands. You know, that's a lot of what we talk about. You know, I don't have a lot of financial conversations with David. He obviously is very astute. And, you know, Nick is, you know, as sharp as they come. And Nick is like a perfect balance of, you know, David and Adam. Loves brands. You know, obviously he's the, he was the, you know, the kind of the brain behind Cali Squeeze and some of these things with trimmer and stone. And then, you know, obviously really smart about financial. So I think that as we've grown and I've made the case and, you know, there's always a leap of faith.

10:38Firestone Walker: Because it's when people say, what came first, the chicken or the egg? It's the chicken. Like I've got a chicken. It's like, we've got to feed that chicken. We've got to do what we can. And I got to prove it on a regular basis of how marketing drives sales. And it's really challenging in the beer business because in almost every other industry, you can look at direct attribution. and you know i spent x and i saw these type of sales and my engagement rate you know all the acronyms you can think of rois and such beer it's a little more challenging because of the three-tier network right you don't sell beer direct and the places that you do sell direct like if you you can look at this stuff like instacart and go puff and but it's it's such a small fragmented piece of the business it's like one percent of the business even if you look at the rose there it's not giving you an accurate read.

11:27Firestone Walker: So when you're looking at like, well, how do I measure TV out of home, digital? It's a combination of, and I just met their head of our agency yesterday and we were talking about this. To me, it's a mix of controlled versus exposed where you have to look at those metrics, but also all the brand health, the consumer data. And you try to triangulate a hypothesis of how do I feel like the business and marketing is impacting our business. Top of the funnel and then bottom of the funnel. The other thing too is marketing isn't just, you know, TV spots and digital and billboards. And it's, you know, it's all the way down the chain, national account promotion, trademarking, point of sale.

12:08Firestone Walker: All of those things have to work together and they have to work together with, as you weaponize your relationship with your wholesalers and your retailers to make sure the beer's on the floor. Cause I mean, 30 to 40 % of consumers purchase with what's on ad and what's on the floor. So there's not as much brand loyalty in beer as I think people think there is. There is for, look, there's our beer club members, there's people that will, you know, they're ride or die and they're ride or die for Coors Light, they're ride or die for Modelo. But a large swath of the consumer is incredibly price sensitive and and, you know, they mix in a lot of beers.

12:47Firestone Walker: And, you know, we like to say there's only, your consumer is only as loyal as your distribution. I mean, think about it. When's the last time you went to, you know, you went to the movies and you're like, you know, you went to get a Coke and it's like, it's Pepsi or Coke. You know, you're, you're choosing whatever is available. So I think to a lot of degree, consumers are only as loyal as your distribution. So while tangent, to get back to your question, it's a lot easier today than it was seven years ago to invest in marketing, but there is still an incredibly high bar and expectation to prove investments.

13:21Firestone Walker: And it is not easy. Every quarter, I have to go through it. Every month, I have to go through it. And luckily, if you have a really good team and you're together a really long time, our team, our leadership team is incredibly strong. Every close, everyone gets along really well. There's a lot of sharing of mind meld. And I think that when you have that, it's really easy to constantly calibrate. You know, I work really closely with our sales team and our head of sales, Tony Amaral, who's been in the business, you know, almost as long as I've been alive. And I work really closely with him. And, you know, it's like, hey, how do we build this mousetrap so that it works for you and it works for this?

13:57Firestone Walker: And we work together and, you know, work closely with the CFO. And then, you know, we make our case on a regular basis to the board. And, you know, they either, you know, give you a thumbs up or ask you for changes. And then you do everything you have to do to make sure it works. and you have to train your teams up for that too. You know, I'm a big believer. And, you know, I started in marketing kind of more on the creative side, you know, promotions and ideas. And, you know, it wasn't until you get a little older and you have to start paying the bills that you get all the responsibility, right?

14:28Firestone Walker: Where, you know, when you're a kid, you just leave the air conditioner on all day. You go in and out, you leave the door open. And as you get a little older, you're like, you're turning the air conditioner off when you leave for the day because you realize that the electric bill is going to be triple than what it should be. So as you get a little bit older, more mature, and you realize the responsibility that you have to the business and the livelihoods of everybody in it, you start to be a little bit more judicious and disciplined with the decisions that you make. And you realize that you have to coach and educate the people around you of how important it is.

14:56Firestone Walker: So I like to say to the team all the time, like, hey, we don't have designers. We don't have social media managers or trade marketing managers. You're all marketers. And your job is to drive commerce. and advertising is the art of selling. And, you know, we're not here just to make cool stuff. I mean, obviously everything we do, I want to be beautiful and great and award-winning in it for it to inspire people. But at the same time, it has to be effective. And if it's not effective, you know, it's like being in a band that can't sell tickets. And at the end of the day, if you want to pay the bills, you got to sell, so you got to put butts in seats and we've got to get people to, you know, put beer in their carts.

15:33Firestone Walker: And that's the endless mission. And that's the riddle to solve every day. And, you know, for the last seven years, I've, you know, I've really enjoyed trying to figure out how to do it in the career business. We're going to get into your portfolio in detail, but I guess it's a way to start that. Your flagships, what role do they play in your business today? As an outsider, it seems like maybe far less than the other stuff, but I think that kind of depends on how you define a flagship too. So tell us about your portfolio. So when I joined in seven years ago, they had a really robust portfolio, but 805 was a big driver.

16:12Firestone Walker: Mindhaze had just sort of come out, and then they had an awesome lineup of all these craft beers. And what I kind of saw right away, it was interesting. I remember seeing the day, because I didn't know a lot about beer. I mean, I'll give the guys a lot of credit. I don't know why they hired me. like it's just they're like i remember seeing to david like well i don't know why you like a guy like me like i don't you know i see your billboards you know i don't drink a ton of beer i mean you know obviously i i like beer and but um i'm not a craft beer head and hey he said look i got a lot i got a lot of beer people i need some you know i need some like lifestyle culture storytellers that can i believe i've got great brands and i need people that helps shepherd them so one of the first things that i i said to him was like learning about you know the guy gave me like five books he's like read these books and it was like the you know history of beer was like the art of war it was like this book it's like this fat and i made me i read all the books i watched all the videos and i learned as much as i could and i remember saying really early on like why do you call yourself a craft beer company like why limit it like beer is so much bigger than craft like why not just be like a california beer company and he was just like oh you know we talked about it and And then we put that on the logo.

17:23Firestone Walker: And as we did the, you know, I was lucky enough early on to come in around the 25th anniversary. And we did a lot of legacy work. And so we, you know, technically, sure, yes, we're a craft brewer. You know, that's how it shows up in the Nielsen reports. But, you know, I think, you know, I think you'd ask anybody in the brewery, they're just brewers. And we just happened to be classified as a craft brewer and grew up in that era. But I looked at us as and I proposed that, hey, why don't we just be a California beer company? Let's just try to sell the best quality, high quality beer we possibly can to his people as far as the trucks will go and keep the beer cold.

18:02Firestone Walker: Right. And so what that allowed us to do. And I said, you know, we also had to make a decision early on. Hey, are you a branded house or a house of brands? It was very clear my first day that it was a house of brands. I mean, it was 805. There was Mindhaze. There was, you know, things like Rosalie. There was, it was already set up that way. So it's not like I came in and it was like, oh, let's do a house of brands. It was, the guy said, you know, 805 was already a rocket ship. You know, I just grabbed on as it was going by. And so it was already a house of brands. And I think we just decided to lean into that.

18:36Firestone Walker: And then when you have a house of brands, the idea, ideally you're creating complimentary, complimentary lanes so that the brands work together really well. And, you know, some of the best, you know, I mean, nobody, as far as a craft brewer, you know, nobody probably does it better than Sam Adams, right? Boston Beer. Those guys do a phenomenal job. I mean, I was like, when you think of their portfolio, like, you know, when they just launched, you know, 15 % light bulb beer a couple of days ago. So the, or not a beer, an RTD. So same, same approach. And so, you know, with with 805 and then Cali Squeeze and Mind Haze and the Firestone lineup of brands, like really, you know, super core dedicated craft beers like and now some of these, you know, these acquisitions that we've made, it's an incredibly complimentary portfolio that really kind of can future proof you and can make sure that you make a beer for all these different individuals, different tastes, different demographics.

19:31Firestone Walker: you know i'm a big believer in you know it's flavor than brand than abv than brand and that's how consumers shop and um so we you know we built it we built the organization to be able to to to have a really strong portfolio and i and i think when you look at most organizations these days that in breweries um that have that type of portfolio i think they have a similar approach i I mean, there's some incredible, you know, I think Branded House is in craft playing nobody better than Sierra Nevada. Yeah. They do an awesome, awesome. Like, it's really impressive, actually, how good they are at making that work.

20:12Firestone Walker: And then, you know, New Belgium went to Branded House of Brands, too, you know, with Voodoo taking off and they still have that tire. And so, yeah, that's how it's set up. And that's the vision. And, you know, we get up every day to make that work. And I think there's pros and cons to it. But, you know, it seems I think I think we've got the we've got the right sauce. And that's a look at how we approach things. How do you define lifestyle brand? This is something that we've spent a lot of time thinking about. And you're probably the best person on earth. And I'm curious if you actually have like a good like in the can answer for me.

20:47Oh yeah.

20:49Firestone Walker: Um, I wouldn't say I have a, in the can answer, but we, we think about it a lot. And, um, look, uh, what you, and it's, it's a bit, it's a debate I've had with endless wholesalers, retailers, uh, founders, other, other partners, colleagues, you know, we were just talking earlier, right? You bought your, your daughter, uh, a Telecaster, right? Why'd you buy your daughter a Telecaster and not a Les Paul? Smaller and she's into country music. So I guess those right so i think when you think about the brands that especially in cpg right because with music and um in a lot of those other lanes there there's a difference in tonality and things like that but when you think about beer toothpaste um i hate to compare beer to toothpaste sneakers like you know think about you know how much difference is there between you know um a nike and, you know, an Adidas, you know, how much real difference is there between, you know, some of these brands.

21:46Firestone Walker: And, you know, at the end of the day, that's the differentiator, right? Like there's a lot of people that make really, really, really great beer. And why choose 805 over another product? You know, a Modelo, a Mic Ultra, you know, a Kona. Why choose 805? And I think that, you know, obviously we know the consumers, you know, they're price driven, they're quality driven. But then, you know, brands have something about who you are. And when I think that great brands stand for something clear and enduring. And, you know, I think we've done an awesome job of, you know, with 805 and what we're working on with Cali Squeeze and the endless responsibility of what Firestone Walker stands for with the guys' legacy is I think you have to mean something to people.

22:33Firestone Walker: and how do you connect with them in a psychological way that's far beyond, you know, the entry-level purchase, you know, psychology. And so we spend a lot of time, you know, trying to make these brands stand for something. I'm a big believer in brand. And I think they take decades and generations to build, especially in beer. You know, there's not a lot of overnight successes in beer. You know, the ones that you might list, they've been around for at least five to seven years. I mean, you know, athletic is a what, a 12 or 15-year success story of like athletic. I mean, they popped a couple of years ago, but they've been around as long as 805.

23:08Firestone Walker: 805 is only 15 years old. Pacifico was having a moment last year. It's still having a moment. 125 years later. You know, like they've been around for 125 years. Modelo, 100 years. Budweiser, I don't even know, 150. You know, we're part of the Duval family. They're a 150-year-old brewery. And, you know, sometimes when things get difficult, Dave says this all the time and Nick, like, you know, we're working with, you know, when there's some headwinds with gas prices, Duval has been through like two world wars. Yeah. Yeah. Zoom out. Yeah, exactly. So I think that, yeah, you got it. So you got to build brands.

23:47Firestone Walker: You got to make sure that you're around. And a lot of these great brands, I think about it. How many times have they relaunched Twisted Tea? I think if Dima Twisted Tea is 30 years old, I think I was talking to someone from Boston, the other Boston beer a couple of months ago. And they're like, oh, yeah, we re-aunched it seven times. And it wasn't until we did the NASCAR thing and put the camo on it that it popped. And so I think you've got to be really committed to brands. And you have to. And whether you say that it's lifestyle or what your brand represents. I mean, I think the lifestyle term is kind of a throwaway term.

24:16Firestone Walker: But I think it's about what does your brand stand for? And you have to be committed to building brands. Like we live in a world today where social media with like, oh, did you see what so-and-so is doing? Think about it from a brewer perspective, from a salesperson's perspective, from a marketing perspective. You got all of these different teams that are seeing what everybody else is doing and it's FOMO. And everyone, it's like kids soccer. Everybody runs to the soccer ball, not play the position. And I think it takes experience to say and discipline to say, hey, no, we have made bets. We need to build these bets.

24:50Firestone Walker: We need to have a strong innovation strategy as well to grow into it. But you can't throw brands away. You know, the new sales meeting, the new meeting is is can be, you know, dangerous because if you are constantly pursuing new and you take your eye off the legacy and the in the core, you know, you can can devalue and dilute the work that you've done. So it takes it's a really delicate balance of like build brands, believe in what you have, have focus and be able to tell that story to everybody around you of why it's important, because it's really easy to say, hey, I got this new thing. But, you know, it takes decades and decades to build brands and distribution and consumer sentiment.

25:35Firestone Walker: And so I think that's why lifestyle brands matter. And, you know, the probably no better example, the best example I tend to ever give anybody is like Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar, Celsius. Like when you see someone drinking a Monster, you can kind of get an idea of like what their vibe is. If you see someone drinking a Red Bull, there's a difference. And it's the same idea. But, you know, if you see someone drinking a Monster, it's probably because they're passionate about X, Y, and Z. Same with Red Bull. And I think those are the greatest, I mean, those are some of the greatest examples of, you know, brand affinity in beverage because it's those brands mean so much culturally.

26:17Firestone Walker: And both brands have done an absolutely masterful job of creating their lanes. And they exist in a lot of the same places, but they exist in the same places with a completely different brand identity. And I think that's the value of lifestyle branding and marketing. we're going to go from 30 000 feet down to ground level and i'm going to ask a really dumb question you have a handful of line extensions for 805 cerveza chelada uh now 805 so na do you think 805 ever takes a step beyond beer or is that a non-starter probably not beyond beer and if and if it was it would be i mean obviously we've toyed around with some ideas but i think like i said we got to be incredibly disciplined and um you know in building 805 and i still think there's a ton a runway and if anything i think you can overextend a lot of brands um and i think you gotta be really careful not to do that with any of our brands especially 805 so um no i mean there's there's definitely nothing in the cards but you never know the world spins you know um fast and you never know how things go but no i think we have to be super i mean we got a lot of brands you know when i started 75 seven years ago there was one and then now there's one 805 and now there's you know 805 805 cerveza 805 and then 805 chelada um which is a new one we launched about eight months ago and has been testing really well for us so the good news about that is that we understand our consumer really well for 805 and all of those products fit within the consumer profile that we currently have you know like um and so the the goal is you can win a little bit more share of fridge and you know for and try to keep you know you know if 60 of consumers are also drinking imports?

27:58Firestone Walker: How do we make sure we win some of that share? We know that 15 % of beer drinkers drink non-alcs. So how do we defend that share? And then of course, hopefully that is a nice gateway, an entry point to the family. If someone's a non-alc drinker and they have an 805 because they like what 805 stands for, then we're going to bring people into our camp because 95 % of non-alc drinkers also drink beer. So that's kind of our goal. And, and, um, I think we need to, I think we need to stay super focused on, on building what we have with 805 before we decide to add another pitch to our rotation. You touched on this earlier.

28:35I want to come back to it when you, when you bring in, so whether through MNA or, or introduce through your own channels, a Cali squeeze or something like a Trumer or a stone even more recently, how are you guys evaluating fit? Is it filling a hole in your portfolio? Are you buying volume? Are you buying route to market? Is it more fluid than that?

28:58Firestone Walker: You know, when any innovation, whether that would be acquisitions, new product development, market position, partnerships, I mean, innovation isn't just new products. You know, I read some article the other day, like on LinkedIn that said, like, if innovation, if it's not like completely brand new, if it's not a completely brand new, never before seen idea that's not innovation. I disagree. I think innovation is your route to market. Innovation is how you market your products, the stories you tell, the occasions you create. It's not just new idea. It's just not a new product. It's a new idea. And it's a new way to solve a problem and connect with consumers and your network and retailers in a way that is going to allow you to stand out.

29:40Firestone Walker: I think innovation is something that I think is a word that is often poorly defined in our industry. Because it's, you know, I think it's innovation that just product creates a long tail. You know, if you're only doing that. And I think what, I mean, look at Mic Ultra, right? They've done an awesome job of like, when I first joined Beard, Mic Ultra was like, it's kind of the thing. I remember that, you know, seven years ago. And then they got, it was like Budnex and a bunch of other stuff. And then, you know, the whole Bud Light thing happened. And then it was like, hey, let's take, we're calling in Mick Ultra off the bench.

30:15Firestone Walker: Let's go ahead and push that bad boy back to number one. You know, I think we'll probably think of Modelo and Pacifico, right? And it's so many examples of how, you know, you rotate in the brands and, and you make sure that, you know, certain, you can bring brands, you know, back pretty easily, especially when you're one of the big boys where you just have so much distribution power and you can, you can will things to life. um so you know that's what i love about the beer business is and sure is it tough from time to time but some of the like the best marketing in the world and the best ideas come out of the beer business because of the level of competition and the idea to create excitement for a category is um you know it's it's you know in a lot of ways it's a dream come true as a marketer to be able to be in this industry because you, it's true David and Goliath.

31:06Firestone Walker: I mean, there's 9 ,500 breweries in the U S think about that. Every one of them has got a hundred beers, you know, at least it's a lot of beer. That's a lot of social media accounts. That's like, it's a lot of brewers. That's a lot of beers. That's a lot of, you know, that's a lot of noise. And so like, you know, how incredibly lucky are we to have an 805 or a Firestone, you know, I tell the team all the time, like, you know, when, you know, maybe we're putting our heads against the wall over trying to solve a problem. And it's like, Hey, just remember you've got like a one in a hundred job, you know, there's like a hundred great, you know, a hundred incredible, maybe I probably couldn't even name a hundred, but a hundred great breweries and brands that are at that level that have cut through the noise and made that, you know, made it to sort of the near mountaintop.

31:54Firestone Walker: And I think we have to remember how incredibly lucky we are to be in an industry that will exist that existed 8 ,000 years ago and will exist. You know, like David says all the time, you know, beer endures, you know, beer brands come and go, but beer is forever. And I think we're, you know, when you look at this moment in time, I think we're incredibly lucky to be able to, to steward these brands and try to solve the riddle of today. That's beautiful. Dustin, thank you so much. Yeah, you got it, man. I appreciate it, Isaac. Thanks for listening to Beer Branding Trends. If you like what we're doing here, if you find this valuable, please rate and review us over on iTunes and head over to beer branding trends.com to join more than 5 ,000 subscribers who receive our monthly email newsletter covering strategy, currents, and actionable advice from Cotto design, a branding firm on the front lines of beer and beverage branding.

32:43Take care. We'll catch back up with you soon.