Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:21
Right episode 114 We’re back Rob.
Rob Broadfoot 0:24
We’re back. We’re back.
Don Mock 0:26
Hooray. You’re feverishly writing down notes
Rob Broadfoot 0:29
Yes, pre show notes.
Don Mock 0:31
pre show notes. But the show has just started. That’s What I love about it. Nothing like being super super prepared.
Rob Broadfoot 0:37
Also nothing like being a lefty with a graphite pencil.
Don Mock 0:41
Yeah, What where did that pencil come from?
Rob Broadfoot 0:43
Yes. This pencil. I don’t know where it came from. But I love it.
Don Mock 0:48
Do you refill the lead on that thing?
Rob Broadfoot 0:49
I haven’t had to yet I’m scared to open it and see how much
Don Mock 0:52
you know the old school like the super thin and it would constantly snap.
Rob Broadfoot 0:57
Yeah. And you would buy the separate little plastic. And it was often like triangular shaped or like rhombus.
Don Mock 1:03
some strange parallelogram thing going on? I don’t know. Yeah, yeah, that was a weird universal truth at the office supply store.
Rob Broadfoot 1:09
Well, as kids we used to call them lead pencils.
Don Mock 1:13
Yes, but it’s actually
Rob Broadfoot 1:16
Graphite it’s graphite. we called them as mechanical
Don Mock 1:20
Why did we call them lead?
Rob Broadfoot 1:23
don’t know. It just stuck.
Don Mock 1:24
it’s kind of one of those things. Yeah, I haven’t thought about that in forever.
Rob Broadfoot 1:28
We should call it a mechanical pencil.
Don Mock 1:29
Do you prefer a pencil over a pen? Or What do you prefer?
Rob Broadfoot 1:32
Depends on the pencil and it depends on the pen.
Don Mock 1:35
Okay, in a perfect world,
Rob Broadfoot 1:37
I mean, you hit me with a barrel Murata number two, I’m writing pencil all day long
Don Mock 1:41
that is very specific. But I’m here for it. But okay, so that’s what I’m going to talk about, my Uniball kind of you know, it smears a little bit if you notice it’s
Rob Broadfoot 1:51
Uniball You can get a bad batch.
Don Mock 1:53
Well, it kind of blots at the end or whatever. Alright, so but your best favorite pen versus your favorite pencil, you know, like no technological. Which one you pick
Rob Broadfoot 2:03
pencil
Don Mock 2:04
pencil you going with pencil
Rob Broadfoot 2:05
just kind of better. Just got a better feeling to it
Don Mock 2:08
Okay. All right.
Rob Broadfoot 2:09
It’s like this. It’s like this. It’s like, you know, you remember we’re roughly the same age, you’re a little bit younger but you’re old enough to remember the like late 70s cars like the big old Buicks and Oldsmobiles remember how the ride of this was just like a like then you hit a pothole and you didn’t even feel it.
Don Mock 2:33
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 2:34
That’s What a good pencil feels like to me across the page versus a pen sometimes. I mean, I like a good pen don’t get me wrong but you asked me to choose
Don Mock 2:43
I’m a pen guy all the way. Nobody’s asking me but Yeah, I am a you know, I’m the Sharpie ultra fine point. You know, those crazy, super thin, almost, they’re bigger than microns. But you know, getting down to that micron level You know, like the super thin permanent line. I don’t know writes on anything, you know, so, but I’m not anti pencil. Don’t get me wrong. I do love myself a pencil,
Rob Broadfoot 3:07
Some out there, you know, if you’re talking about a traditional pencil, like some hold their point better than others. And the pencil sharpener that we’ve failed in. Advancing pencil sharpening technology.
Don Mock 3:21
It hasn’t changed in forever.
Rob Broadfoot 3:22
That’s right. It stopped. I mean, at least we don’t have the hand crank.
Don Mock 3:24
I still Yeah I had one of those in my house on the door. That was like a universal American thing too
Rob Broadfoot 3:30
that’s like, the rotary phone.
Don Mock 3:33
Yeah, absolutely. Where was I was just watching something. I was I was just watching something with with Rachel. And we both immediately was only on screen for like two seconds. And we both just hysterically started cracking up. Because it was an older style house, right? It’s part of the show or whatever. And it had the TV on top of the TV. So it was the modern flat screen TV sitting on top of the TV that they built in the wood cabinet or whatever we were like OMG, you know, totally reminded that. I mean, that was my grandpa right at the end there. You know What I mean? It’s like big old TV. I mean, those TVs were like giant.
Rob Broadfoot 4:08
Oh my god, so heavy too
Don Mock 4:10
ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, you weren’t you weren’t moving that thing at all. So funny. Yeah, pens, pencils, old school stuff, bouncy shocks, all that good stuff, you know? Good. So I don’t know how to transition. I’m not being a good radio host here. How do we transition from that to today’s topic?
Rob Broadfoot 4:29
I think we just hard left. Okay, we weren’t gonna talk about pens and pencils. But now that we’ve done that, we’re gonna move on to our next subject, which was the idea for the podcast, which was really to just talk about Atlanta companies. And we’ve sort of done some Atlanta things before. Um, but we thought maybe we just have a conversation about Atlanta. Companies in general. You know, and I think of, I guess, just to set up, I’m a native to Atlanta. Whoo. Um, and
Don Mock 5:01
somebody hit the sound button. Oh, that was a good sound Yeah. Okay.
Rob Broadfoot 5:07
I think of Atlanta still in my mind growing up as this small little town. And and, of course you had Coca Cola. And you had you know, TBS the superstation, you had some businesses that were large you had UPS was kind of in its groundling stage. I suppose. But it wasn’t the booming metropolis of international corporations that it is now. It’s it’s a it’s a global player, I would say
Don Mock 5:34
for sure. But we but you also had fly Delta jets, right. I mean, that’s also kind of synonymous with with travel. So yep.
Rob Broadfoot 5:41
And now we’re now we’re in the big boys. We made it to the bigs and we got all kinds of crazy companies that we would just talk about, sort of those those companies and favorite companies and thoughts and things like that
Don Mock 5:53
of the old trusty dusty This sort of the original foundation building blocks of Atlanta companies? Do you have one that you kind of favor more than others, you know, either from a nostalgic perspective, or an advertising marketing perspective? Or, you know, I mean, obviously, it’s easiest to pick on Coke, but like,
Rob Broadfoot 6:11
I would say, coke But Here’s why. Well, I have two answers. My first answer would be Coca Cola. And I think it’s primarily one of the, if not the greatest example of a, you know, the world’s arguably one of the world’s largest companies built on one of the simplest products.
Don Mock 6:34
Okay, interesting,
Rob Broadfoot 6:35
right? I mean, if you boil it down, it’s sugar, sugar water. And it was, you know, there’s there was a medicinal component to all of these things back in the day, but, but really, it’s something that hasn’t changed. And when they did try and change it, that was a monster f up as we know, in the 80’s, New Coke. But it stayed the same. And it has continued to grow and grow and grow and how it can keep growing. I don’t know, to What corner of the earth that has not infiltrated. But it keeps growing. And I think here in Atlanta, you know, from just from, from a size of a company that big, I think they do a really good job of maintaining the love for the hometown. I think from a philanthropic level, they do a lot of amazing things. And they just they just, they’re one of those companies that rarely, if ever, is tainted by negative
Don Mock 7:33
controversy.
Rob Broadfoot 7:34
Controversy. That’s right. Or negative Public Relations? Or anything like that?
Don Mock 7:40
Yeah. I mean, it only creeps in a little bit with environmental aspects of plastics, and you know, recycling and things like that, but to your, to your point, I mean, they do kind of stay above the fray. And then from a marketing perspective, you know, it’s very rare for them to put all their eggs into anyone basket. So like, meaning What they they’re never the title sponsor of anything. I mean, they are one of the preeminent sponsors, generally of like, you know, the Olympics and events and things like that, right. But they don’t put their weight behind any one specific individual, or they spread the wealth like so like when NASCAR was really, really big. You know, they were never the title sponsor of any one driver, but they had the Coca Cola racing family, which they had like 15 drivers, you know What I mean? So it insulates them from you know, and they still do that, you know, they’re not the title sponsor of any specific soccer team. But they probably sponsor half of Liga , you know, stuff like that. Right? So it’s interesting how they spread the wealth around with with which I think kind of does insulate them from any, you know, bad PR shape any one individual, you know,
Rob Broadfoot 8:47
and they also don’t really take very many risks at all, at least in their marketing. Like they never lean into controversial, another word too edgy stuff or polarizing
Don Mock 9:01
Enjoy life
Rob Broadfoot 9:02
Coke, Yeah. Whoo. We both did it. Yeah.
Don Mock 9:06
I mean, but but I think that goes to your earlier point of they are so ubiquitous, and probably the number one recalled brand globally. And they are everywhere. I mean, they’re in like, the worst grossest gas station anywhere in the world. And they’re in the best five star restaurant anywhere in the world, right? I mean, they’re everywhere. And you don’t have to explain to anyone What Coke is. Everyone knows exactly What it is. And they know What it tastes like. And then, you know, so they can just get it they can get away with that sort of generalized messaging that has nothing to do with their actual product.
They don’t ever have to.
Unless they’re introducing flavors. Yeah, they don’t have to explain Hey, this is a carbonated soft drink so it’s always kind of a lifestyle approach and they can lean in and on that positivity
Rob Broadfoot 9:55
I mean, look, we all you know, it was the 80s and the 70s. We all grew up drinking Coca Cola all the time
Don Mock 10:01
Yeah, I mean, I guess they’re worse but you know tab right when tab. Why don’t you know What ingredient base stuff might be some of the you know, aspartame and you know some of that.
Rob Broadfoot 10:09
Yeah, I mean ingredient. I mean it all Yeah, right, right. I mean marketing wise, I guess they’re obviously their most ginormous blunder was changing the formula. Which was bad idea.
Don Mock 10:20
horrible horrible idea. Yeah, horrible horrible. But you know What, they turned it around and it all worked out
Rob Broadfoot 10:24
That’s right. but also if you think about it, and we don’t need to get down in the weeds, but you know, if you think about just the consistency of of their presentation everywhere. From a production standpoint, I mean, coke, red. Yes, Coke Red
Don Mock 10:46
Yeah. And we use that example with clients all the time explaining how that works.
Rob Broadfoot 10:49
Yeah and for those who don’t know, the challenge of getting Coke red to look like Coke red from a billboard, to a can to a cardboard box on a television is a massive, massive, massive science that’s undertaking
Don Mock 11:05
it’s a Herculean effort.
Rob Broadfoot 11:06
Yeah, it really is. And a lot of companies do that. But but they’re probably the biggest.
Don Mock 11:11
I mean, well, they’ve they’ve got three, maybe four giant brand assets. That’s it? They got the color, they’ve got the Contour Bottle, they’ve got the script, and then they have what’s called the dynamic ribbon which is that little thing, which they don’t use as much anymore, right?
Rob Broadfoot 11:25
Somebody sent me the other day, and I’ll forward it to you. But it’s a Coca Cola ad and all it is, is it’s like a billboard. Right. And all it is, is the red background color red. And the only thing on the board is the Coca Cola type from the bottle and it’s set. Exactly in the curvature that is on the bottle,
Don Mock 11:47
that’s cool.
Rob Broadfoot 11:48
And you look at it, and you see a bottle, it is the craziest mind melting. It’s like, oh my god. And that’s how ubiquitous it is. And the shape and all of the assets are that all you have to do is see this slightly curved logo and you picture the actual physical product
Don Mock 12:04
Yeah, it’s interesting, too, because we didn’t really grow up with a Contour Bottle as a graphic asset through the 80s and stuff, you know. And in the 90s, they did all this weird bitmap stuff. They brought in yellows, you know, everybody like multi drop shadow things. And they did all so and now it’s just back to clean nothingness, which I love.
Rob Broadfoot 12:20
Nice and clean. And that logo has been that logo for a long, long time
Don Mock 12:23
forever. Yeah, it’s hard to talk about Atlanta brands and Atlanta companies without giving a solid 10 minute shout out to Coca Cola. Yeah, and all that good stuff. I mean, they’re just and to your point, where are they going to grow? I mean, the population is growing. So you got that. I think, you know, juices and waters and non carbonated beverages are obviously on the rise. You know, carbonated soft drinks are probably on the decline right now. But, you know, I don’t know, we got 8 billion people here.
Rob Broadfoot 12:51
I mean, it’s a lot of people who still love Coke.
Don Mock 12:54
Exactly, exactly. All right. Any others off the top of your head from a nostalgia perspective or anything?
Rob Broadfoot 13:00
I mean, Delta obviously because that’s allowed me to go to wonderful places in my life you know
Don Mock 13:09
it’s hard not to love Delta living in Atlanta flying on a Hartsfield.
Rob Broadfoot 13:12
Yeah. You can go anywhere, nonstop. You can literally go anywhere in the world
Don Mock 13:16
everywhere else in the southeast, basically fly to Atlanta first and then flies to wherever. So being here, it’s it’s pretty amazing
Rob Broadfoot 13:23
I mean, I guess as a brand they are fine
Don Mock 13:27
Yeah
Rob Broadfoot 13:28
I don’t have like a lovely feel good about the brand, but I don’t think I’m supposed to and now they have done some funny things along the way. Well, like with their inflight videos were like that they’ve done some really fun stuff. I think along the way. Yeah.
Don Mock 13:42
They’ve tried their best with some. You know, that’s a tough industry, man. I mean, it just is. And every time you turn around, there are nothing but pitfalls from a brand experience. Right? If, if a brand is basically comprised of all of your experiences, right, it’s the internalized summary of your experience and touch points with that with that company, right? Man, there’s a lot of problems with airfare. And half of those have nothing to do with your actual service, right? I mean, think about TSA, the parking, customer service.
Rob Broadfoot 14:19
Everything.
Don Mock 14:20
Weather. I mean, there’s so many things like literally all you do is fly from here to there. So I mean, you can have a perfect on time departure, and have perfect skies and no turbulence and whatever, and still kind of have a bad customer experience. Oh, the guy sat next to was, you know, it was horrible or, you know, I mean, there’s so many pitfalls, right. So that is an incredibly challenging industry, just from a brand maintenance perspective. And yeah, they’ve done as great of a job as they can I think, you know, and I think their product is good. I mean, they always have newer jets. I think, you know, it’s not now you do pay a little bit of a premium
Rob Broadfoot 14:55
but I’m okay with that.
Don Mock 14:56
I’m okay with that, too.
Rob Broadfoot 14:57
I’m okay with that. I think it would be Interesting. I mean, being in Atlanta and living in Atlanta for my entire life, basically. They don’t really have to advertise a lot. They just have to remind you that they’re here, which they do a good job of. It’s all over the place. But I wonder how they market outside of this market?
Don Mock 15:16
Well, I would say it’s the exact opposite for me in terms of thinking about it this way. I grew up all united, united, united, united, united. Right. And when you fly to San Francisco, it’s got the big United hangar just like the delta. And United was just a given. So I would, I would pose this question to you. How does United market here in Atlanta? That’s how that’s how Delta markets basically, in San Francisco.
Rob Broadfoot 15:41
Oddly enough, my answer these days would be like, not a lot, because I can’t think of any messaging or any.
Don Mock 15:48
And again, that industry is so price commodity driven. You’re either brand Allegiant because you have a hub. So oh, I live in Salt Lake City where I live, the different places have the, you know, and it’s a convenience factor of, oh, there are 10 flights a day, or you know, or you’re going totally on price, like I’m going Southwest, I’m going Frontier, I’m doing Spirit. I’m doing some el cheapo just because I got out there.
Rob Broadfoot 16:12
And their biggest marketing now that I started to really think about Delta, right is around the again, around the experience, meaning their loyalty program, Delta SkyMiles, that’s their marketing that and their Delta sky lounges.
Don Mock 16:27
Yeah. And tied to American Express. Right. I mean, that Halo brands,
Rob Broadfoot 16:30
yeah, they’ve got it covered there. So again, they are marketing kind of the experience. But yeah, I mean, it’s a commodity play, although there are you know, there are a few airlines that I’ve flown on that. I will not fly on I don’t care about the prices I will not do, horrible experiences
Don Mock 16:43
I had one of those lashes. I absolutely had to get somewhere like the next day because of an emergency. Like a situation. there was literally only one I was like, I gotta use this that I have to do this. And It was one of those, we’re done. It was horrible experience. Coupled with the fact that you cannot physically unsubscribe from their emails, because their site is broken. this particular airline. Yeah, to the point where it
it’s hooters air
Man, remember when that was a thing?
Why can I unsubscribed from the Hooters eblasts.
No, it’s you go in and you click the unsubscribe thing. And then you just constantly get 404 you know, this account doesn’t exist all that. Oh, my Lord. I blocked
Rob Broadfoot 17:34
Well you know me. I’m convinced the unsubscribe button is a resubscribe.
Don Mock 17:37
Yeah, yeah. They make you type in your email and are like haha sucker.
Rob Broadfoot 17:41
Yeah, we got you.
Don Mock 17:42
That’s funny. That’s funny. All right. Well, let me flip the script real quick. And, you know, let me jump in here with one maybe you thought about maybe you haven’t. But I would say more on the newfangled side instead of historical side of Atlanta, I would say MailChimp. Oh, is that on your list?
Rob Broadfoot 17:57
I have it written here
Don Mock 17:57
Oh, boom, okay, well, hey, great minds think alike. Right? I thought when MailChimp first launched, it was awesome. You know,
Rob Broadfoot 18:04
why did you think it was awesome? From What perspective?
Don Mock 18:08
Well, I would say as a user, because we were using it very early adoption, right.
Rob Broadfoot 18:12
So as an agency sending out email,
Don Mock 18:14
sending out emails, both for ourselves, but then also doing email program or email, you know, blast programs for clients and stuff like that user interface a million times better at the time, at launch. And then I would also say, a brand levity, to try to get the word out and stuff like that, right. It was all about chimpanzees inside the software itself. You had funny little like, chimpanzee you know, you had all sorts of fun, you know, and then there were like, banana icons. I mean, they just kept that theme of, you know, mail, physical mail, electronic mail, and then the universe of both monkeys and apes, right, all sort of in a blender from a brand perspective. So it was a fun and made something that was dreary and obnoxious oh my god, I’ve got this Excel sheet, I have to export a CSV column delineates… You know, and then I have to upload it into this. It made the dreary horrible monotony of drudgery of technology and put a face to it. It made it fun.
Rob Broadfoot 19:21
You know, they from a branding perspective. Yeah, they they are irreverent and super fun. And I remember the one that stands out to me is I think it was right here for a while up the street, but the heavy metal one. Remember, there’s a heavy metal type, like just barely legible, but you got it read MailChimp. So they’ve been around for a long time, I think Yeah. You know, they’re, you’re taking a product that that stepping aside for a minute from the fact that we would use this for our clients, generally speaking, the universe of people, right doesn’t really like E blasts. I’m gonna suggest, receiving them. No one likes that. Right. So they’ve Taking a product.
Don Mock 20:01
Oh look, another email. Oh, wow. Look at that. What is this unsolicited random email? From an airline I don’t want anything to do it.
Rob Broadfoot 20:10
Right. So it’s a product that at its core people don’t really like And they made it friendly and approachable and all those things. And I think you could say that not to pick on Constant Contact, but I’m gonna pick on Constant Contact. They’re more the IBM
Don Mock 20:26
salesforce. There’s so big, you know, but you and I probably both remember when MailChimp was like over on Main Street and it was The Little Engine and they, you know, grew up and became this awesome. I mean, they sold it to Intuit, right?
Rob Broadfoot 20:46
Yeah. And maybe they did. Yeah,
Don Mock 20:47
I mean, and good for them hopefully, people made all the monies and good things are happening. But I always thought that was a good. I don’t know if that means they’re still based here or not. But I do think of that as Atlanta sort of origin on the on the new side of life
Rob Broadfoot 21:01
I’m gonna flip the script for a minute, not flip the script, but I’m gonna go in a different direction. So I, a couple of weeks ago, they had the they had the Atlanta Boat Show, which you and I are familiar with. Yeah. And I went down there and walked around on a on a Sunday. And it’s for those that don’t know, the Atlanta Boat Show is one of, if not the largest Boat Shows, think Miami is the other big, really, really big one, but Atlanta is a massive, massive one. And there’s vendor aisles there. There’s two or three aisles of vendors, and it’s all small mom and pop kind of shops, right and businesses.
On the smaller sort of side, there’s a whole section devoted to that
three aisles that are just kind of local businesses and things like that. And so I think, and I happen to run into one shout out to a company called dock blocks dock blocks based in Gainesville, okay, which we’ll consider Atlanta And these guys started this business and it’s accessories for your dock and it’s super cool. And I talked to them for a while at the show and they couldn’t have been nicer introduce me to the product we talked about their business I think they’ve been around for a year maybe two years.
Don Mock 22:13
Okay. So new love it
Rob Broadfoot 22:15
and and they were doing really well at the show and it was just kind of a cool like, hey, local business doing really really well with a unique cool fun product. Support the local guys so so it’s still a great I mean, as every city is because America blah blah land of opportunity. But like those are there’s there’s so many cool just little businesses like that, that you kind of stumble across here and elsewhere.
Don Mock 22:41
Yeah, it’s not always the giants
Rob Broadfoot 22:42
they are awesome. I’ll give you another example. Trees for tuition. Shout out.
Don Mock 22:48
Trees for tuition.
Rob Broadfoot 22:49
Yeah, it’s a couple of guys from, they are UGA grads. Go dogs that started up the Christmas tree business, so we buy our Christmas trees from them every year to support the thing and the tuition and all the good things. And they’ve now grown they’re you know, they’ve got however many Christmas tree lots that they have now.
Don Mock 23:08
Are they still basically only here or is the idea
Rob Broadfoot 23:12
as far as I know. It’s all Atlanta. It’s all around Atlanta as far as I know.
Don Mock 23:15
So they’re going head to head with the big dog. Big John’s
Rob Broadfoot 23:20
big John’s still around?
Don Mock 23:21
I don’t know. I don’t know. We decided to not go with the real trees anymore. I like my LED. It’s just a giant halogen bulb. You know, it’s one giant spotlight. Alright, kids gather around the spotlight.
Rob Broadfoot 23:36
So those are a couple of my just just shout out random little local businesses that I think are cool.
Don Mock 23:41
Yeah, that’s super cool. I didn’t even think I didn’t think about little little guys in this one. I just thought about sort of bigger brands and whatnot. So but we’ve gone on, we can keep going, you know, but we can also just table this and do another one of these things of some of our other favorites. You know.
Rob Broadfoot 23:56
Yeah, well, that’s What I got for today.
Don Mock 23:59
All right, cool. Cool. All right. Well, where can everybody find us?
Rob Broadfoot 24:04
Well, they can find our local Atlanta Business on 14th Street near Silver skillet if you’re curious and hungry. Or you can find us on the interwebs www.mocktheagency.com of course, and on all the socials @mocktheagency and let us know some of your favorite Atlanta businesses. Do it
Don Mock 24:26
Cool Alright, bye. Talk to you next time.
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