Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:00
We are in Episode 94. We’re back, Rob.
Rob Broadfoot 0:23
Welcome back.
Don Mock 0:24
I wasn’t expecting to hear that. Yeah. All right, Episode 94 creeping towards 100.
Rob Broadfoot 0:31
We’re getting there. We’re getting there.
Don Mock 0:33
All right, What we want to talk about today, what’s on the list?
Rob Broadfoot 0:37
I thought it would be fun to maybe moving forward. Introduce, call it a series but kind of, since we are headquartered, globally, headquartered here in Atlanta to do some ideas and podcasts and conversations around all things Atlanta.
Don Mock 0:56
Yeah, totally. Love that idea.
Rob Broadfoot 0:57
So well, you know, moving forward, we can talk about restaurants and venues and all the wonderful things about Atlanta. So I thought maybe for the first inaugural Atlanta podcast, we can talk about Atlanta brands and Atlanta companies. And beloved, hated, admired, despised.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, Atlanta has a lot. A lot of great history.
Yeah, I think I consider myself a native. I was in Chicago for a couple months. And then it was here.
Don Mock 1:29
Yeah. You’re a native
Rob Broadfoot 1:31
You’ve been here for how long?
Don Mock 1:33
I’ve been here since 97. Yeah. And I draw pictures for a living. So I’m not going to do the math on a podcast.
Rob Broadfoot 1:38
Right. But a lot of years.
Don Mock 1:39
Yeah. Several. Yeah. I’ve been here over 25 years. And yeah, I mean, I still hold it’s hard to break a little bit of the sports love from where you grew up. Right. So I still have my sports allegiances. But my kids are Atlantans. And I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, you know, so I mean, this is definitely home. And I think forever, I’ll always have a presence in Atlanta. I love Atlanta.
Rob Broadfoot 2:01
was the strength of the Atlanta Olympics? What’s it character brand that brought you that drew you here? The power of that creature?
Don Mock 2:12
if we want to specifically tie into today’s topic of great Atlanta companies, right, I came for one of those great Atlanta companies, which was Turner Broadcasting. Right. So that is What drew me to Atlanta. I would say coincidentally, it happened to be after the Olympics. I wasn’t part of the post Olympic boom, in terms of like, hey, I want to leave. Because I know there was a big, not big, but there was a migration from the northeast, especially in the financial sector of people that were like, Hey, I don’t want to live in New York anymore. I want to live in the south. And it was and there’s a lot of Atlanta versus Charlotte in regards to that. Right. And a lot of people chose Atlanta. So it didn’t come for that reason, or whatever. Part of the economic boom, or What it just coincidentally happened that one of the first gigs out of college. Turner is What brought me here.
Rob Broadfoot 3:00
Well, you know, in Atlanta, looking back,
Don Mock 3:03
it’s changed a lot.
Rob Broadfoot 3:03
It’s changed a lot, you know, growing up here. I mean, it was, you know, everyone says this, but it was, it was a little city. Yeah, it was a quaint little town.
Don Mock 3:13
Yeah. Yeah. I imagine What like Indianapolis, it would be, you know, things and things like that, right. Like, you’ve got all the pro sports teams, and you are the big city in the state. But it still is quaint.
Rob Broadfoot 3:25
Right. No, it’s true. But then you had, you know, I mean, you had Delta, right. You have Delta here. And you have Coca Cola. It’s been here forever. So you had these anchor, you know, ginormous business, that obviously drew in, you know, the economics and the jobs and all the things and then you started to get over time the UPS is and some of the other large companies that that now call, call Atlanta home. Yeah,
Don Mock 3:53
I mean, I’m not an Atlanta historian by any stretch. But I do think that the investment in the airport, was definitely one of the one of you know, an anchor point in terms of the growth of Atlanta from a commercial perspective, not necessarily from residential or just, you know, quality of life, but just transport and business perspective.
Rob Broadfoot 4:14
Absolutely. The world’s busiest airport.
Don Mock 4:16
Yeah, it’s, it’s legit, man. I mean, it’s a legit airport. And you and I both flown all over the place. So I mean, yeah, it’s got its problems. I mean, because of how big it is. Right. and the frequency, but I gotta tell you, it’s pretty good airport.
Rob Broadfoot 4:33
I’ve learned to navigate it over the years and I think it’s great. And but it’s, you know, growing up with delta as the hub. You take it for granted. The fact that you go from here Almost anywhere in the world if there’s enough fuel on the on the plane, I mean, and I forget about that. And then if I’m somewhere traveling or whatever, you know, and somebody’s coming in from Columbia, South Carolina, or whatever. It’s, oh, no, I had to fly down to Atlanta and then over to the Yeah
Don Mock 5:01
or that I couldn’t fly direct to Orlando I had to stop at Atlanta you know those types things, even traditional like tradeshow cities like, Oh, I couldn’t get straight to Vegas. I had to you know, it’s like What, but like, Dude, I haven’t connected anywhere ever in 25 years, you know that type of thing, right like so. Yeah, the airport is is legit and definitely helped with a lot of the commercialization. But Yeah, Coca Cola you mentioned Delta humongous
Rob Broadfoot 5:01
Home Depot.
Don Mock 5:13
Home Depot. Yeah. Arthur Blank
Rob Broadfoot 5:34
Uncle Arthur
Don Mock 5:34
Uncle Arthur, who’s gone on to obviously own the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United and he’s got What is it Arthur Blank Foundation. What’s the name
Rob Broadfoot 5:42
The Blank Foundation
Don Mock 5:44
That’s What it is. Yeah. And they’ve done a tremendous amount of charity work and all sorts of good things in the community. Everybody loves Uncle Arthur.
Rob Broadfoot 5:50
Everybody loves Uncle Arthur. Arthur, who co founded Home Depot. He built the aquarium.
Don Mock 5:55
Yeah. Which is a legit world class aquarium. Absolutely unbelievable
Rob Broadfoot 6:03
it’s beluga whale. So I just think of the beluga whales.
Don Mock 6:06
they’re all about the whale sharks there. I
Rob Broadfoot 6:07
Because you walk through the tunnel. It’s pretty amazing. If you’ve never seen it and you come to Atlanta, you should absolutely go.It’s worth it’s worth the visit. Who else you got you got Newell Rubbermaid.
Don Mock 6:18
I did write down Newell’s Rubbermaid as well. And Newell, you know, is interesting in that it, it’s a portfolio of brands, right. So it’s, you know, obviously Rubbermaid and whatnot, right, but you’ve got Graco in terms of all the baby lines of equipment and whatnot, you’ve got Sharpie pens. I believe it’s Calphalon pots and pans. I mean, there’s a lot of different brands underneath that Newell umbrella. And yeah, they’ve been here for quite a long time. I feel like and we’ve done a little bit of work. You know, Goody. I think we did a bunch of stuff with Goody like the hair, the haircare products and things right, brushes and scrunchies and hair ties, and we just did packaging work for those guys way, way, way back in the day. But
then you’ve got like, you know, CNN headquartered here.
New York. It’s all the pub. But really they started here and everything correct?
Rob Broadfoot 7:09
Correct.
Don Mock 7:09
I think that was Turner.
Rob Broadfoot 7:10
Turner was the 24 hour news. That was his whole breakthrough.
Don Mock 7:14
Yeah, yeah. And they still have all the networks and all the stuff here. Turner studios and whatnot. Everything you know, Cartoon Network. TNT, TBS,
TMC. No TCM, yeah, classic movies.
Yeah. Which as we’re getting older, those classic movies are getting more and more current, you know,
Rob Broadfoot 7:34
I know. Yeah. Coming back around.
Don Mock 7:35
Yeah, it’s pretty funny.
Rob Broadfoot 7:36
But then you also got those like, I don’t want to say tier two. I don’t mean that in a negative way. But but you’ve got the tier two sort of companies that are here. They like and new ones like you’ve got like, like, like Spanx. You know? Carter’s, which is the baby sort of focused company. Orkin is headquartered here.
Don Mock 7:59
Yes, I think about I think about that big rollin sign on Piedmont right. Yeah, but is that is that all under?
Rob Broadfoot 8:06
That is all Orkin, so Rollins is like truck they have trucking. All those kinds of things Orkin is one of the Rollins brands.
Don Mock 8:13
Okay, got it. Got it.
Rob Broadfoot 8:14
So you’ve got all those other just sort of Chick fil A world’s great chicken sandwich.
Don Mock 8:21
Yeah, somebody’s gonna be left off this list. And by somebody I mean, probably lots of people.
Rob Broadfoot 8:24
Lots of people. Point being Atlanta is like a real player in the global economy. And if you think about it, from a brand perspective, you could argue that Coca Cola is the world’s most recognizable brand. I think it is absolutely in the conversation.
Don Mock 8:41
I think year after year, it’s almost always in the top. It has to be number one, you know, it is such a unique product in its ubiquitous nature that you get it at the finest six star six Diamond Resorts Michelin anywhere in the world, right. But think of the grossest, most disgusting service station, somewhere off in the world marooned out in the middle of nowhere. They’ve got Coca Cola there, you know, like so. I mean, it is. It is everywhere, you know, I mean, it is such a unique product in that respect, you know, yeah, I mean, it’s the, you know, Joe’s truckstop, but also the the Ritz, you know, four seasons, you know, that type of thing. So it’s, yeah, I think year after year, it’s kind of duking out McDonald’s, and Coke, but they are absolutely tied at the hip. I mean, they make each other if that makes any sense, like, McDonald’s is Coca Cola is number one client globally, for sure.
Rob Broadfoot 9:36
I mean, who they battling Burger King and Pepsi.
Don Mock 9:40
Well, yeah, I mean, the question is, would would McDonald’s ever serve Pepsi? And the answer’s no, yeah. Because Pepsi also has competitive set restaurants now.
Rob Broadfoot 9:48
Burger King would never serve coke. I don’t think
Don Mock 9:51
Burger King serves coke.
Rob Broadfoot 9:52
They do? Why did I think they were all Pepsi. I think they were all Pepsi. Maybe it’s Taco Bell what I’m thinking
Don Mock 9:58
Taco Bell is PepsiCo because that’s part of young brands with the other restaurants they’ve got.
Rob Broadfoot 10:03
But it’s interesting too, if you think about Coca Cola as as being one of the one of the, you know, the most recognizable or if not the most recognizable brand in the world, you and I have had a lot of experience working on that I think everyone in Atlanta has had experience in this industry working on the brand and just, you kind of get a little bit of a hint of just the scale of the operation, working on a client like that. In terms of I think about color matching, right, and Coca Cola red. And just the idea that like, I think people kind of take for granted Coca Cola red, and we’re not going to get down in the weeds of printing and substrates and things like that. But the team and the mission to keep Coca Cola red consistent across the globe,
Don Mock 10:53
It’s incredible
Rob Broadfoot 10:54
Is a pretty is a pretty incredible task.
Don Mock 10:57
Yeah. And for those listening at home, really What we’re talking about is red is red is red until you print red on aluminum, cardboard, plastic, yeah, all the different things and then all of a sudden, those things start to shift, right? And so you have to kind of preemptively adjust your red to make sure that you know, on shelf all the Reds line up properly. So I mean, there is definitely an artwork to that brand. I mean, think about Coca Cola hasn’t really changed their logo really, right? Ever. All right? I mean, they’ve cleaned and modernized and whatnot, right? But from a brand perspective, it’s been pretty consistent but keeping that consistency it can be a Herculean effort, you know, now almost religiously every two years they do change their packaging I mean that, ever since New Coke they don’t change the formulation.
Rob Broadfoot 11:43
I was gonna say we’d miss
Don Mock 11:45
because we don’t want well but we don’t want to change our Coke like we want our Coke the way we want our Coke.
Rob Broadfoot 11:49
Don’t mess with perfection.
Don Mock 11:50
Yeah, so you know they you know you need a reason to advertise you need a reason to chest beat you need a reason you know so it’s it’s how do you want your coke? Do you want a gigantic jug? Do you want an A little pocket mini Do you want it you know in a bottle and a can, you know it’s really more of the vehicle delivery than it is the product change
Rob Broadfoot 12:07
What is your favorite Coca Cola vehicle?
How do you like your Coke?
Don Mock 12:14
I’m a purist and I like it just in a can just give me a 12 ounce can give me 12 ounce can
Rob Broadfoot 12:18
Cans where it’s at. I could argue well, it stays the coldest obviously in the can That’s the best
Don Mock 12:24
there are people that rely because you mentioned Chick fil A I mean, there are people that that absolutely think that like the Diet Coke from McDonald’s fountain, for example is better than you know, like in like, and there’s formulation and I’m like, I don’t know, I have no idea how any of this works. But well are you a can? Do you like the Can?
Rob Broadfoot 12:24
I like the can What I’m going to say is this because I don’t drink a lot of soda. Okay, but when I do yeah, no, I drink Coca Cola. And also Dr. Pepper but I’m because I don’t drink a lot of soda soda like a 12 ounce can of soda is a lot for me. So I kind of like the little eight ounce
Don Mock 12:58
Do you really? You go into the minis.
Rob Broadfoot 13:00
And part of that too is because with kids, and we don’t have a lot of soda in our house. But when we do you can bet they’re not drinking all 12 ounce and I’ll find a half a can here and there. so we have a ban on 12 ounces.
Don Mock 13:14
That’s a waste. Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 13:16
So to me a perfect serving size is the little eight ounce. Yeah.
Don Mock 13:19
Yeah, there’s a lot. Yeah, that’s, I mean, yeah, Coke. I mean, gosh, we could do a whole series of podcasts about coke. So, I mean, and I haven’t been to the New Coke Museum. Shame on me. I went to the old one a million years ago, but which we probably should do a field trip about because it really is just the history of advertising. You know, to be quite honest. I mean, some of them would say on how it all works, right. But, but Atlanta, like What I love most about in terms of businesses and whatnot is, you know, we get the opportunity to partner with a lot of startup. I mean, Atlanta has a lot of startups, and there’s a lot of stuff incubated across the street from Georgia Tech that we’ve had the pleasure of working with, you know, startup companies, you know, hey, we invented this awesome super thing, you know, that helps fix part of your body or does whatever it does, you know, and then it’s, you know, hey, we got to name it. We got to call it something. How do we sell this thing? How do we package it? I mean, that I think is one of the beauties of being in Atlanta to from selfishly from, like a branding and marketing perspective. Right, is there’s a lot of opportunity out there. There’s a lot of imagination. There’s a lot of innovation. There’s a lot of good things.
Rob Broadfoot 14:23
Yeah, I mean, everybody thinks of you know, obviously, California and Palo Alto in that areas go tech hub. Atlanta is you know, with especially with Georgia Tech right there. All the incubation that they do startup incubation. Tech. I mean, now, you’ve got Google’s coming here. I mean, yeah, a lot of big players are sort of coming here
Don Mock 14:41
Microsoft building, Google building. We got a lot of big buildings.
Rob Broadfoot 14:45
We’re not just sugar water.
Don Mock 14:47
Sugar water and building supplies and jets.
Rob Broadfoot 14:51
Yeah, you’ve got Boeing.
Don Mock 14:53
Yeah. Well, you got Lockheed Martin, Lockheed Martin. Yeah, we’ve got the military. We got Dobbins, got Dobbins and all that stuff. Yeah, I mean, again, we’re gonna I forgot 19 September military. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Go ahead.
Rob Broadfoot 15:06
Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know where it’s gonna go from there.
Don Mock 15:08
The other thing I would say this, this may be another podcast, but we mentioned it earlier in terms of Atlanta, you know, we’re getting a lot of good press and whatnot for movies in Hollywood and everything relocating here and whatnot. Right. But I think, you know, in terms of the innovation of Atlanta, you know, the music industry in Atlanta has really, you know, it’s when we were growing up, you know, we’ve done podcasts on bands and whatnot, and it was okay, you’ve got your grunge coming out of Seattle, right? That was a whole thing in the 90s or whatever. Right? But Atlanta definitely has been known for a hip hop community and the invention of trap right, I mean, migos and all sorts of you know, and then even before that, obviously, I was gonna go backwards and say, Outcast, yeah, I mean, we had the classic famous so so def billboard Jermaine Dupri on the on the connector forever forever now. So you know, that’s a great that’s a great industry in Atlanta as well right and
Rob Broadfoot 16:04
And even if you go further before grunge you think about it’s not Atlanta, but it might be perceived to be kind of like Atlanta from the outsiders but Athens back in the 80s Totally. And you had R.E.M and Widespread Panic
Don Mock 16:21
Was Widespread from Athens? I had no idea Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we had there was a weird Wasn’t there a strange like Collective Soul and who were all those other guys that were here to? There was a run of some interesting rock too
Rob Broadfoot 16:35
That was kind of a 90s play. But yeah, I mean, you had Atlanta and the surrounding area it’s always been a great hub.But yeah, I mean, the hip hop scene. I mean, it’s got deep deep roots here. Luda.
Don Mock 16:49
Oh yeah, for sure.
Rob Broadfoot 16:50
I mean, you got Luda Yeah. So yeah, great, great music town which led me to think about music and like growing up here And brands and where I got my music and how I got my music over the years and you had these classic you know, Atlanta local record stores.
Don Mock 17:09
I think I know What you’re gonna say
Rob Broadfoot 17:10
I’m talking about I’m talking about turtles. So turtles was great because it was now this would have turtles would have been cassettes. This would have been we’re buying cassettes.
Don Mock 17:20
Yeah, now I’ve got some vinyl from a collection that I bought. It’s got the turtles sleeves cuz somebody sold it back or whatever like that. And they received it and it’s got the turtle sleeve on the record, which is which was a great little find I wasn’t here for that.
Rob Broadfoot 17:35
Go to our Instagram page. And there’s a shirt that we did for the band Phish. We didn’t do it for Phish but for a Phish tour. Where we borrow the and sort of played with the old turtles low which is really cool. But that was a great record store. Then you had you had peaches. Oh yeah, well
Don Mock 17:50
and peaches had the peach crates. That’s great.
Rob Broadfoot 17:54
and you can still order those vinyl crates now to store your vinyl
Don Mock 17:57
Oh okay.
Rob Broadfoot 17:58
That was a good spot
Don Mock 17:59
where was peaches
Rob Broadfoot 18:01
I’m trying to remember
Don Mock 18:03
Turtles had a few locations
Rob Broadfoot 18:04
Turtles had a few locations. Everybody had a location on Peachtree yeah and I think peaches was right by the peach tree battle at where the bridges where the school is right I think it was right down there. Okay, I think that’s right. Somebody fact check me on that one but you had a turtles over over there your turtles up Roswell road, but then you also had coconuts?
Don Mock 18:29
Coconuts. I know nothing about coconuts
Rob Broadfoot 18:31
these I think pre dated your arrival but yeah those so funny names turtles peaches and coconuts
Don Mock 18:37
That is so random so now when I did move to Atlanta there was a tower here because tower. It was over by next to where that Kroger was I think or whatever but it was yeah it was up around the corner from Linux I think it might have moved once or twice Yeah. But Tower was the big thing out west we all used to go to Tower because Tower had the ticket master window in the store where you line up to buy tickets Yeah, now we had rainbow records that’s where I bought a lot of cassettes but it was just a small, I mean, there was no ticket master whatever. I mean, if you want the big selection, definitely go to Tower.
yeah, we have fantasy land too, which was a record store up up the road a little. But yeah, yeah. Tower was the first kind of like, I don’t know if they were the first but I think of them as like they were the
The mega store. Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 19:28
They were like these small guys and then all of a sudden tower came along
Don Mock 19:32
And it was like we’ve got 30 copies of every single album by every single band. and you could spend hours and hours
Rob Broadfoot 19:39
look at all the CDs in there extraneous weird packaging.
Don Mock 19:44
That was pretty funny. Yeah. How they elongated the cardboard boxes or whatever it
Rob Broadfoot 19:48
Right, I still am not sure why they did it.
Don Mock 19:51
Number one blockbuster came out with blockbuster music and you could listen to the CD.
Rob Broadfoot 19:54
For free that’s right
Don Mock 19:56
They would cut open right?
Rob Broadfoot 19:58
I do remember that. I hadn’t thought about that in years.
Don Mock 19:59
Shout out to Ben Ben and I used to go up we used to wander on up out of our apartment up to up to Blockbuster. Yeah. And listen to CDs, which like the grossest headphones, greasy, gross headphones that everybody else has listened to, you know, and it was like, Oh, I don’t know if I want to commit my $11 You know, because I’ve only heard one song on this album. Let me sit in the store for 45 minutes hogging this, this gigantic CD player Rob, you know, to listen to this album to just decide I’m not gonna buy this
Rob Broadfoot 20:32
You know I don’t think I want the new space hog CDs afterall.
Don Mock 20:35
Yeah. Although I do like me some space hog. But yeah, What a weird I mean, interesting idea, horrible business model, right? Because if we’re gonna bring everybody in, you’re gonna sit there for an hour to not make a purchase.
Rob Broadfoot 20:35
I mean, the argument is a gotcha in the store. That you’re in the store.
Don Mock 20:54
That is true.
Rob Broadfoot 20:55
But who knows? I mean, yeah, so long blockbuster.
Don Mock 20:57
Yeah, I can’t remember the name. We had a record store out west. That was, it was a used place that would allow you to do that. So this everything was already open. And it was really more like, Hey, make sure the CDs not scratched. Yeah, because you’re buying it was but everything there was like five bucks, seven bucks. I mean, it wasn’t like, super, it wasn’t like, Oh, my God, you know, this is a massive investment. You know, right. But they did have a little listening station. And so every once in a while be like, I kind of like this band. But let me listen to that. You know, so maybe we got off track on Atlanta brands
Rob Broadfoot 21:24
No, it happens. It happens.
Don Mock 21:26
But yeah, a lot. You know, I think what’s interesting about potentially, sort of thing about wrapping up this conversation is that it really is vertical neutral. And Here’s What I mean by that, like we are all over the place with Atlanta, right. It’s not like, oh, you know, We’re known for
Rob Broadfoot 21:44
We’re all tech.
Don Mock 21:45
Yeah, we’re up in Oregon. And we’re Nike and the city is dominated by, you know, athletic wear, right. Or go,
Rob Broadfoot 21:52
Russell. We got Russell. Yeah, we
Don Mock 21:53
do have Russell. Yeah, yeah. Or, as you mentioned, you know, Silicon Valley and whatnot. Like, oh, we’re only tech right now. That’s What we do. Yeah. We’re like, kind of, by design, just variety all over the place
Rob Broadfoot 22:05
Which is kind of mirrored in our own business
Don Mock 22:08
I knew you were gonna say that. Yeah. I teed that one up pretty well.
Rob Broadfoot 22:11
You did.
Don Mock 22:13
Softball. Let me underhand pitch this one to you.
Rob Broadfoot 22:16
We love working on all different kinds of things. Variety, variety. And and we always talk about with clients about how, because they ask, well, What is your niche? What is your niche? Well, we don’t really have one, we work across a lot of verticals. And we’d like doing that, because we like learning about all kinds of things. And also, it’s really cool to think about, hey, I’m going to take something from this food client and apply some methodology to a orthopedic spine device and sort of mix and match and pull ideas from everywhere. So I do it’s true. Atlanta’s is like that. And we are as well, but I think we’re running out of time. Yeah, we could talk about this for hours.
Don Mock 22:56
Well, inevitably we’re going to hit stop recording and then we’ll think of 20 more companies in Atlanta like oh my god, I can’t believe we forgotten I you know, that’s,
Rob Broadfoot 23:03
And they are going to be like our clients.
Don Mock 23:05
Well, I did wrote down some of our clients but what’s the point you know.
Rob Broadfoot 23:09
Yeah we don’t need to do that.
Don Mock 23:12
right. Well, I think that’s good for today. I like the idea of talking about Atlanta more we should do another one
Rob Broadfoot 23:15
Yeah, this is the first of the Atlanta series so if you have any ideas or doubts on Atlanta, ATLiens
Don Mock 23:22
Yeah, where can they drop us a line
Rob Broadfoot 23:25
on the interwebs www.mocktheagency.com of course, and then on all of the social networks @mocktheagency, including blue sky, now you’re on it.
Don Mock 23:35
I’m on blue sky. We got to get on that I’ve got I’ve got blue sky. It’s a magical place
Rob Broadfoot 23:41
Yeah, I’t’s always sunny
Don Mock 23:43
Yeah, I mean there’s a little bit of clouds but just for shade. Yeah, there’s no threat of rain. Right threat of rain, right? Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 23:49
All right. Anyway, everybody. Good to chat, and we’ll see you next time.
Don Mock 23:54
Thanks everybody.
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