Marcus Johnson (00:05):

Hey, gang. It's Friday, February 27th. Jeremy, Peter, and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, an EMARKETER video podcast. I'm Marcus, and joining me for today's conversation, we have two folks, both of them call New York home, New York City that is. Senior director of content living there, it's Jeremy Goldman.

Jeremy Goldman (00:21):

Happy International Polar Bear Day, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson (00:23):

Of course. Sorry, Peter, I should have warned you. Jeremy does this.

Peter Allen Clark (00:31):

How international can it be? How many nations do polar bears call home?

Marcus Johnson (00:36):

Great question.

Peter Allen Clark (00:38):

Thank you so much.

Jeremy Goldman (00:39):

Oh, that's a fair point. And we'll find-

Peter Allen Clark (00:42):

Also, [inaudible 00:00:42].

Jeremy Goldman (00:42):

... out our next episode.

Marcus Johnson (00:44):

Okay. Probably just one because we ruined the planet. Humans.

(00:50):

All right, thanks for that, Jeremy. And we're also joined by that other voice you heard, senior analyst and editor on the media team also living in New York, as I said, Peter Allen Clark. Welcome to the show.

Peter Allen Clark (01:01):

Thanks so much. Glad to be here. I don't have a special day.

Marcus Johnson (01:04):

Thank God.

Peter Allen Clark (01:05):

Just a cynical reply to every day of the year.

Jeremy Goldman (01:09):

We'll take them.

Marcus Johnson (01:11):

Today's fact.

(01:11):

So when were the first Olympics? So the ancient Olympic Games originated in Olympia in Greece with the first recorded games held in 776 BC, I should say. So, close to 3,000 years ago. Held in honor of Zeus, they originally featured just one event race, just a running race. But then some years later, French educator and historian Baron Pierre de Coubertin is credited with founding the modern games in 1896 again in Athens in Greece. And shortly after in 1913, he designed the world-famous Olympic rings, representing the union of at the time the five continents that, I guess, were recognized. Do we just have five? Where's the six?

Jeremy Goldman (02:07):

We have more than five, no? Don't we?

Marcus Johnson (02:10):

What's he doing there? Should we add a ring?

Peter Allen Clark (02:14):

It's about time we added a ring. We've gotten to the place.

Marcus Johnson (02:17):

It is. Finally, Peter's on board. The first Winter Olympics was held in Chamonix in France 102 years ago, 1924, and that's where the Olympics came from.

Peter Allen Clark (02:29):

Imagine, it's funny to think about the very first foot race Olympics 3,000 years ago and flash forward to the biathlon. What must they think with skiers shooting guns? I don't know how that's-

Marcus Johnson (02:42):

And curling.

Peter Allen Clark (02:42):

Yes.

Marcus Johnson (02:43):

Although, I've become obsessed with curling and it's the only event that England's Great Britain is good at, so I have to pay attention.

Jeremy Goldman (02:50):

No, curling is, I'm with you, it's amazing. Basically, it's like, what if we just clean up really, really fast some ice that's not dirty? That's basically it. I'm just stuck on the fact that who did we leave out? Was it Africa or Australia with those five continents?

Marcus Johnson (03:09):

Was Antarctica not... Was that the-

Jeremy Goldman (03:11):

Well, we had seven continents, but Antarctica, obviously fine if you're not going to count that. Nobody lives there.

Marcus Johnson (03:17):

Maybe Australia wasn't invited. It's not on... Maybe they were so far away they were just like, "I don't get..." This was 1913, though. This wasn't 3,000 years ago, Pierre. Sorry, Australia, you might have been excluded from the rings. We'll get you one.

(03:32):

Anyway, today's real topic, which marketers won gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics?

(03:43):

All right, so the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics is in two cities this time round in northern Italy. Just wrapped up with nearly 3,000 athletes from over 90 nations competing across 16 sports and 116 medal events. And thought we'd start with the question, what was the reason to watch this year? Jeremy, what was the number one reason for you to watch the Winter Olympics this year? What was the most interesting storyline?

Jeremy Goldman (04:17):

Just probably Peter and I are a little bit biased because there's so many different things that aren't actually the sports to follow, which is really cool to see. I would say a player like NBCUniversal try to figure out, how do we make this worthwhile and make this pop on every single platform at a time when it's competing with the Super Bowl? And a whole lot [inaudible 00:04:47].

Marcus Johnson (04:46):

All-Star game, right? They had-

Jeremy Goldman (04:49):

The NBA All-Star game. To some degree, I think that you and I were watching that. I don't know who else was, but I think that-

Marcus Johnson (04:54):

That's the list.

Jeremy Goldman (04:55):

Yeah. And thinking about all those things, and then they had to activate this across channels and figure out how to get these really interesting highlight clips all over social, how to activate this so that wherever you were, you can consume some of it and make it worthwhile, because they obviously spent quite a bit on it. So it's been really interesting to see. This feels like a very modern Olympics with a old-school player trying to embrace all different channels in order to really make it pop. That, for me, is a story. That, and curling is cool.

Marcus Johnson (05:29):

Peter, how about you?

Peter Allen Clark (05:30):

Well, I am a huge Olympics fan in general. Honestly, for the simple broad fact that it's just amazing to watch people being good at stuff. It doesn't take anything more than that, people being good at things, whether or not I feel like I can do them at all. Everyone feels like they can luge, and I would never be ski jumping in a thousand years.

Marcus Johnson (05:51):

I've always thought it could be cool if they did something, maybe this is a social media thing for next time, but if they had... Because Usain Bolt's fast, Lindsey Vonn's fast, Shaun White is fast, all these people are fast and good at what they do. And compared to other athletes, someone's the best and they win gold, but it's not a lot in it. I thought it would be cool if they had a regular human alongside an athlete and they made them do it and you can see-

Peter Allen Clark (06:18):

Some poor normal.

Marcus Johnson (06:19):

... just the gap between how someone like Michael Phelps swims, how fast he goes, versus the regular human, or Usain Bolt runs versus a regular person.

Peter Allen Clark (06:31):

Absolutely. Some poor normal who has to guaranteed lose.

Marcus Johnson (06:35):

I'll do it.

Peter Allen Clark (06:35):

A guaranteed loss.

(06:38):

But besides that, it's always on the world stage, a huge slew of issues and gossips and scandals and things like that. And I think the one that really crept up to mind, speaking of curling, was this Canadian accusation of cheating during curling. I'm not sure how much if you all followed this, the finger touching thing. And I think I appreciate it as a best story to follow. There are a lot of great stories to follow, Quad God and the dog that ran on the cross-country team sprint, but there's something about that Canadian curling thing that just was very nostalgic for me for an older version of the internet. Maybe I'm just thinking about all of the memes that cropped up on Reddit and all of the references to them, but it felt like the internet from 2008, 2011 or something in a very, I don't know, communal way of let's all use Photoshop poorly to put this one picture in a bunch of different contexts.

Marcus Johnson (07:35):

Yeah, it's interesting because sports are moving a lot more to focusing on individuals. Fans' allegiance isn't so much to the cities that they're from or to the teams, but to individual players, especially because of social media, and I think the Olympics obviously lends itself so well to that. Yes, you have a team, you're from the USA, you're from Great Britain, you're from France or from wherever, but this much more about the individual and the stories that come with that.

(07:59):

For me, it was Quad God. I had to figure out why this chap was called that. So Ilia Malinin, a 21-year-old figure skater competing in his first Olympics, 2022, he became the first and still the only skater to land a fully rotated quadruple axle in international competition and then landed a record seven of them in a single performance. So he won the gold in the figure skating team event, but then struggled in the individual's men's figure skating event.

(08:28):

And I actually thought this was interesting because a lot of the time you see the adverts, and we'll come to some of those in a bit, a lot of the marketing is around the winners, about who's done well, who's strived and done well, but I thought this could be an interesting angle for an advertiser for someone to tell the story of this is what happens when things don't go your way, and that's okay. Because Lindsey Vonn as well came out of retirement at 41, fifth Olympic appearance, two complex leg injuries, ended up crashing 13 seconds into a downhill run. Another story of things didn't go the way you wanted, but that's fine and it's about trying to get there and the journey as opposed to if you win gold or not.

Jeremy Goldman (09:11):

Yeah. By the way, Marcus, I also think, building on the Lindsey Vonn storyline, if you think about in previous Olympics, it was something where you would fall in love with some international star that you'd never heard of before, and then they would just disappear from the scene. And now, I think that this has become this major moment for these athletes to pick up audiences and basically see their social following go up and then start to do campaigns that start two years from now because they built a following up through. So it's like a great brand building exercise in a way that you can't say it necessarily used to be.

Marcus Johnson (09:49):

Yeah.

Peter Allen Clark (09:50):

Definitely.

Marcus Johnson (09:51):

Jeremy, you'd written a piece recently about creators and how they're being used by a big broadcaster, NBCUniversal this time round. Tell us a bit about that.

Jeremy Goldman (10:02):

Yeah, I think that this has been a major moment for, like you said, linear NBC is primarily linear, even though they've done a great job at promoting Peacock throughout this period. And one thing that they made a concerted effort to do is to bring creators along and to provide them content to bring them actually to the games in order to, I want to say from a cynical standpoint, it's a way of reaching people that you wouldn't otherwise reach. It's people who are maybe thinking were never going to sign up for Peacock. And they're cord-nevers. They're not even cord-cutters. They just really get a lot of their content from and their news from high-profile creators online. So if you want to reach that audience, then this is the thing that you have to do. And if you're an NBC, who is looking to build up Peacock over time to compete with the likes of Netflix and Paramount and whoever WBD goes to, HBO Max, you need hefts, and the only way you get that heft is by getting in front of new audiences and converting them. Creators are the way to do that.

Marcus Johnson (11:15):

Yeah.

Peter Allen Clark (11:16):

And it's felt like, this isn't just true about the Olympics, but just across creator marketing and marketing in general, of how the definition of creator has been blurred and stretched and evolved over time apart from... Because they did the USA team creators rolled out before the game started and with a flock of people, a flock of actual content creators, going to Italy to report from the ground there. And also, NBC announced their partnerships with people like the Las Culturalistas, with Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers.

(11:49):

But also, I think we've continued to see, and Jeremy you mentioned this, about athletes taking on their own followings. There's just been this real bridging of athletes as creators that go hand in hand with each other. And I think about maybe even non-traditional creators, this is maybe a little bit slightly askew from the topic, but I think about the Heated Rivalry guys lighting the torch, still taking or finding the synergy, if you'll pardon me using that word, between content and different types of branded content intermeshing themselves.

Jeremy Goldman (12:28):

By the way, Marcus, also from a data standpoint, one thing that NBCU said, they explicitly framed this as extending reach to 65 million-plus social users.

Marcus Johnson (12:41):

Wow.

Jeremy Goldman (12:42):

Whether or not... Yeah. Irrespective of how they came up with that number, the point of it is this is not insignificant reach if you work through the right creators. And they have the trust of the audience that they're... You know what I mean? They don't feel marketed to when they're looking at this type of content, and that's why it's so beneficial to get in front of them.

Marcus Johnson (13:02):

Yeah. It's stretching out this moment, this two-week moment, because it happens every four years with the winter ones, four years with the summer, and being able to stretch that out the way that retailers have stretched out the holiday shopping season, the way it seems that Disney's saying that they're going to have a year-round Super Bowl campaign that I think they're broadcasting next year and saying that, "We're not just going to do something on that day. There's all these days in between." So why wouldn't we stretch it out over that time and this concept of following the athletes home, so to speak, on social?

(13:36):

And I can't remember whose piece it was on, Jeremy or Peter, but writing about, you guys can see the chart on the screen at the moment, the Paris 2024 Summer Games, YouTube accounting for 17% of all global Olympic engagement, pulling in 850 million unique viewers.

Peter Allen Clark (13:55):

Yeah, that was the stat that was in mine. And I wrote my story basically about, just because it really feels like from the advertising industry so much has changed in the last even two years since the Summer Games, I'm thinking maybe specifically about the growth of CTV and the expansion of retail media and also this continual blurring the line of creators. And so that's what led me to want to pursue and talk to some people about that. But I was really blown away by that stat as well, Marcus, and I think it goes hand in hand with Jeremy's piece about creators having their home on YouTube and people are going to YouTube to meet them where they are.

Marcus Johnson (14:37):

Yeah, meeting them on YouTube or meeting... There are all other kinds of formats as well, podcasts, other documentary formats, other ways and other media content surrounding the games. There's a lot of ways to get involved. And the stat supporting just how engaged people are with creators, nearly half of global sports fans, Peter, this is more from your piece as well, following sports influencers, and that goes up to nearly 60% when you're looking at the 18- to 44-year-olds, as according to IBM Morning Consult research.

(15:16):

Jeremy, you'd said something at the beginning about one of the storylines from this year, and that being, I think it's a really important one, NBC had the rights to the Winter Olympics, to the NBA All-Star Game, and to the Super Bowl. And they're trying to manage all of these different events, but there's also a lot of ways people can consume all of these events. Talking about the Olympics today, Peter, in your recent piece, titled How Marketers Are Going For Gold During This Year's Winter Olympics, you cite Dave Fernandes, senior planning director at FUSE Create, who reminded us that total attention to share of the Olympics continues to fragment across media channels. Peter, how have marketers attacked this fragmentation challenge?

Peter Allen Clark (16:05):

The same way they're attacking a lot of challenges with omni-channel approaches, finding ways to not only meet them while they're watching the Olympics, but building on that exposure through various other activations. I'll talk a little bit about it when we talk about maybe some of our favorite campaigns that are there.

(16:24):

But I think as I mentioned before, how the industry has changed so much with CTV, CTV and streaming, not only because this is a visual medium, but also I think really shows the power of the Winter Games and how much NBCUniversal has made their mark on it. I found this stat when I was just catching up with it, which was with these Summer Games, the average time spent per daily user is up for most age groups for these Winter Games, but particularly for older users, people over 46 saw a 48.5% increase over the 2024 Summer Games according to Apptopia. And they're watching more. That age group is watching more than 90 minutes of Olympic coverage on their phones a day according to Apptopia.

Marcus Johnson (17:10):

Okay.

Peter Allen Clark (17:12):

Yeah, it makes sense when you think about it because, to me, it's just consumer behavior. People, especially older demographics who maybe have more time, are getting more comfortable with spending more time watching media on their phone.

Jeremy Goldman (17:25):

Yeah.

Peter Allen Clark (17:27):

Sorry, Jeremy. [inaudible 00:17:28].

Jeremy Goldman (17:28):

No, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Peter Allen Clark (17:29):

No, not at all.

Jeremy Goldman (17:30):

I agree. I think that part of it is when people talk about older consumers, you think about them as if they're one moment in time and they're just a bit slower to do a few things, but they might be a few years behind a younger consumer, but at this point they've had a smartphone for a while. And on the top of that, it's not just smartphones. I would say that the platforms like Peacock, they make it very easy at this point from a UX standpoint to jump into the main thing that's live, but also everything else. And sometimes there are multiple things that are live. So as a result, if you just have a really clean interface and an ability to jump into multiple things on multiple screens, why wouldn't you do it? It makes a lot of sense,

Peter Allen Clark (18:17):

But even if it's apart from the actual Olympics coverage, I think marketers have approached this Winter Games through maybe lefts of center means, like Walmart partnered with Procter & Gamble to do Winter-Olympics-themed shoppable livestream event. One of my hobbyhorses is the growth of livestream shopping, and it's really interesting to see Walmart experiment with that in this big audience. But then also, I'm hoping to talk to somebody, and I think we'll have a story about it soon, Roku City, Roku's screensaver advertising channel, they had a big winter holiday activation as well. And so I think marketers are finding other ways that are tangentially related to the actual coverage or the actual screens where people are watching the Olympics content to make sure that their campaigns are still there, whether or not the Olympics are being shown.

Marcus Johnson (19:16):

Yeah. I want to touch on something, Jeremy, that you said specifically on this conversation, because you said with their smartphones, they can jump into the main thing that's live and everything else. And I think this was one of the stats from one of the articles that I was reading, Peter, it might be from yours, the share of Americans watching digital live sports is growing, but the amount of time spent watching sports isn't climbing as fast. So according to our forecast, from 2024 to 2025, the share of live sports viewers who watch digitally was up five points from those two years. So, 65% to 70%. However, the share of time spent watching sports on TV, the share of time spent with the sports on TV, only climbed two points from 31 to 33. And so that's telling me that the number of people who are moving over to digital to watch live sports is climbing, but they're not necessarily watching the live thing because there are so many other ways to consume that content.

Jeremy Goldman (20:18):

I think that that's, to me, one of the most fascinating things from a digital consumption standpoint, is that there is, to Peter's point, there's all this adjacent content. There's things where you're watching, which is sponsored content, but it's very engaging, so you're watching it anyway. It's just good content.

(20:36):

I think that also at the same time, one of the main things that why I think all of UC does expansion is the idea of second screen and to be looking at something else while you're doing something else. This is why we see an expansion of time spent with digital in general because it's not like, are you doing A or are you doing B? I think you could probably ask all three of us, and there are times where you're doing multiple things simultaneously. And that's a very normal experience for people right now. So the idea that somebody is actually looking on their mobile phone for a product that they saw during the Olympics in an ad, that's very, very normal right now, and I think that there's no reason to assume that that increase is going to continue. We have actually nearly two-thirds perfect stat, nearly two-thirds of social network users are watching streaming content or TV while scrolling. That's just-

Marcus Johnson (21:36):

Wow.

Jeremy Goldman (21:36):

... proof that this is occurring.

Marcus Johnson (21:38):

So Bill Bradley and Mark Mwachiro, apologies if I've pronounced that wrong, of Adweek, were noting that NBCU bundled its Olympics inventory along with the Super Bowl, and so 70% to 75% of the advertisers in the big game also showed up in the Winter Olympics with some carrying the same message. As we mentioned, they also broadcast 2026 NBA All-Star Game.

(22:04):

Jeremy, I'll start with you. What to you was the best campaign and why with the Olympics?

Jeremy Goldman (22:12):

I think that there were a lot of campaigns, but obviously if we're thinking about things that are big, one was definitely, for me, Coca-Cola was everywhere, and I think that it was able to have a very, very strongly integrated program between its athlete ambassadors and had a major social presence. It wasn't like something that it just popped up the moment the Olympics started. They had a major campaign that was a hundred days out, which is definitely best practice for this, as you want to ramp things up and basically just eat up all the oxygen in the room as much as you can.

(22:53):

It blends, I would say, this campaign, the Olympics as a brand asset with this portfolio approach because they've got multiple beverages, of course, within their portfolio where they want to build mindshare. This is a really broad canvas, and if you want to reach a lot of people, this is the way to go. But to be really integrated and to do novel activations besides just throwing a lot of ads up at the wall, that's the way you really stand out for an integrated campaign. You just need to see this brand everywhere and feel like each touch point is accentuating every other touch point. And I think they did a pretty good job at that.

Marcus Johnson (23:34):

Nice. Pizza, Jeff.

Peter Allen Clark (23:36):

Yeah, before I get to mine, it made me laugh when you were talking about how Peacock bundled the things with the Super Bowl, and it made me think about how it used to be, maybe it still is, when the most TVs were sold before the Super Bowl, that's when the TV deals would come because people needed to have the best TVs. And I'm just thinking, are bundled subscription packages the new TV in 2026?

Marcus Johnson (24:03):

Yeah.

Peter Allen Clark (24:04):

But for me, when I was thinking about the campaign, because there were a lot of great ads and great spots and great messaging, but the one that stuck out a little bit more to me was Hershey's and their Happiness Is the Real Gold campaign. And it's one that maybe in a different sort of state of mind I would maybe find a little sentimental. They've got this great two-minute-and-30-second video of a bunch of before they went to the games of a bunch of athletes going matched with a bunch of interviews with parents with supportive messages and-

Marcus Johnson (24:37):

Yes, this was my favorite one.

Peter Allen Clark (24:38):

Yeah, these biographies of them and things like that. I think it also foretold, this isn't a new problem at all, but you think about Ilia, the Quad God, talk about the unbeatable pressure. You think about Simone Biles. You think about these poor Olympians who are young people, many of them children if they're below 18, but who are having to deal with this. And it really did feel like Hershey's was hitting at that message of family support, community. And this felt very well-meaning. It felt very authentic to me because they were real people competing in real games. But also in the advertising angle, I really liked how they also made it a multi-touch campaign. They had Hershey's gold medal chocolates they were selling on TikTok shop. They had AR lenses on Snapchat as well as to go along with the Happiness Is the Real Gold. I think they found unique but also particular to that brand and brand identity ways of showing up, but also showing support for the athletes. I don't know, it hit me. It was a little sentimental, but it got me.

Marcus Johnson (25:47):

I lost it. It was amazing. So it's your happy place campaign. And so five athletes, Team USA, they're all on the ice rink and they're talking something about winning gold. And plot twist, they show videos. And I thought this is why it was so good, is because a lot of the time it's, "Here, read the lines for the campaign and just talk to the camera. Read the lines." But this, they caught them by surprise. And so you've got a genuine reaction. And they show them these videos and they're like, "What does winning gold mean to you?" And then they say, "What do you think your parents would want from you and this experience?" And then they show them videos of their parents talking to them, and then second plot twist, their parents are there to surprise them. So they come onto the rink and they just lose it, along with me. And then they get gold medals that are made of Hershey's chocolate, which is amazing. So I thought this one was brilliant. Yeah, really good.

(26:36):

I had two others.

Peter Allen Clark (26:38):

Go for it. Yeah, what are yours?

Marcus Johnson (26:39):

Yeah, Walmart's Here's to Starting campaign. So it featured a young girl who aspires to be an ice skater, and she gets her first skates from Walmart, which is really sweet because it's images of her dancing in front of the TV and doing all these spins. She's lifting her dog up as though she's doing pairs figure skating, team figure skating, and then she gets her first pair of skates from Walmart. So I just liked that a lot.

(27:03):

And then the other one was NBCUniversal's parent company, so Comcast, they had a, basically, when it comes to Team USA, we're all on the same team. So the ad's showing folks local sports team gear, so Packers and Bears, to mums at a kid's soccer game or whatever game, to fans, rival fans in the same bar. And they're bonding over... They hate each other, then they start bonding over watching the USA team, the Olympics, despite the local rivalries, which I've always thought... That's why I watch England lose every two years in a major international soccer competition, because it brings the whole country together. And I thought that was a really, really nice one. Nice message.

Jeremy Goldman (27:41):

Well, and I think in the popular zeitgeist, the words heated rivalry have a new meaning these days, let's just say. Got to throw that in there.

Marcus Johnson (27:52):

So, lots of good ones. I grabbed this chart as well. Folks can see on the screen. Peter, you wrote about this one. It's saying at least half of all generations and over two-thirds of millennials saying it's important or very important for brands to get involved in cultural events like the Olympics, according to Magna Global and Sightly, the message here. We've said a lot of advertisers get involved, and people expect folks too. According to the research, that would make it more important to get involved in something like the Olympics, a cultural event, or an award show than getting involved in cultural issues like gender equality or fair trade or cultural trends like organic food or natural beauty. They were still important but not as important to folks.

Peter Allen Clark (28:31):

That, to me, speaks of just human community. Maybe even I'm being sentimental about that as well. I was glad to find that stat because it really felt like it's important to show up at these moments because we're all going to be there and we want to see you there if we want to buy your products. I don't know, it makes sense.

Marcus Johnson (28:48):

Yeah.

Jeremy Goldman (28:49):

The big thing to me, I'll just throw another quick data point in there, Dentsu had some recent research among CMOs worldwide. And one thing, it was basically like, how do you stand out in the age of AI? And this was actually, we invested in ad placements during major international sports events like the Olympics, 45% of them said yes. So obviously, these are high-profile CMOs who largely have multinationals, and they see the value in showing up to a lot of different consumers simultaneously. It's a way of breaking out and not being commoditized.

Marcus Johnson (29:26):

Yeah. A great note to end on. If you guys, honestly, if you want a good cry, two things have made me cry on TV, the Green Mile, such a good film, and this Hershey's campaign. It's your happy place. It's beautiful.

(29:40):

Anyways, that's all we've got time for for this episode. Thank you so much to my guests for hanging out with me today. Thank you first to Jeremy.

Jeremy Goldman (29:47):

Pleasure as always. You're my favorite non polar bear.

Marcus Johnson (29:51):

Thank you. Thank you to Peter.

Peter Allen Clark (29:53):

Thank you so much for having me. Happy Ecuadorian Polar Bear Day.

Marcus Johnson (29:58):

Thank you for being here, sir. And thank you so much for the whole production crew, Lance helping us out with this one. To everyone for listening in to Behind the Numbers, an EMARKETER video podcast, tune in Monday to hear more from us. We'll be back then. Happiest of weekends.