Hey, John,

Hey, Brian.

welcome back.

Hey, good to see you.

Good to see you. Hey, let me ask you a question.

Yeah.

can you ever have too many marketers on a podcast?

No, probably not. I mean, if two marketers are good,

why not three, right?

why not three?

right. Well, you know, we have some special plan tonight. We've got a friend of the show who Uh, I would say that anyone that knows or has worked with either of us has, is probably saying, Oh my God, that was, has not already happened, but we're going to throw them in right here at the beginning. And we're just going to go with it. Uh, I'd like to welcome in, uh, Tom Carasona,

Yay.

Hey, what's up guys,

uh, a longtime friend of both John and I, and, uh, is the CMO at insomnia cookies.

celebrity matchmaker as well with you too.

We would not be, Brian and I would not be together if not for you, Tom, so thank you.

thank you both. Thank you for having me today. I'm uh, I'm really excited. This has been awesome so far and really enjoying listening to these.

Good. Thank you.

you much appreciated.

We've had fun doing it. A

right. Well, why don't we just get right into it? So, we're going to talk about some marketing stuff. We're going to hear a little bit about, Tom and what he's doing over at Insomnia. And then of course, we'll have a, hopelessly unattainable guest who won't be Tom. And, because we have him and we'll go from So, know, one of the things that, is kind of sitting out there for us to talk about is, influencers. So, influencer marketing has obviously skyrocketed the last few years. in fact, state of influencer marketing of 2023 is estimating that it's going to jump in, uh, another 29 percent to an estimated 21 billion, um, P yeah. And so, um, it's a huge part of almost everybody's marketing plan. and, the ability to have somebody kind of speak for your brand who, might carry some weight. Obviously, that's not a new thing, John, but, and Tom, but it's, uh, the way that we're doing it is a little bit different than we used to. I mean, one of the, the really interesting trends that I'm seeing is this like micro influencer segment. So, there's been some categorization of different audience sizes of influencers. Clearly we know, like the Kim Kardashians, the larger celebrities, uh, And the Jenner girls, but, there's also this micro influencer segment that, a lot of brands are focusing on. And, as you get kind of more niche and niche and niche, um, there's even a, a really small segment up to about 10, 000 followers called a nano segment. And so, you know, you're looking at these, these different groups of people and even content that you're accessing online is really becoming much more niche focused. so the ways that you have to develop plans to reach people and the amount of work you now have to do to reach people in different ways. There's definitely a risk of having somebody else speak to your product but, it can obviously pay off in big ways, but you know, what are you guys seeing that's working and where do you see this continuing to go,

Brian, you said a lot and a really good intro there. I think there's a couple of things from my perspective. One, um, I think you made a point around. some ways this hasn't, this isn't a totally new thing. And I was thinking, you know, actually it's, it's kind of like the oldest form of marketing just applied to where we are today, right? It's, it's spokespeople essentially. And hopefully some of these people actually, you know, use your product, care about your product, and that's really where the word of mouth and the output that you want comes from. and I was just thinking, you know, how does that apply to today? And, you know, how does that kind of connect across all these areas? So for, for us. you know, it's really important. we try to connect with kind of different, let's think about like rings around a bullseye of influencers. Right. So you talked about nano for us, that would be like a new store opening in a new market, right? Like getting these people that are really influential. In Abilene, Texas, right? Like some little town that most of the country hasn't heard of, but one store there for us could be really powerful. So, like, getting those influencers that are going to make a major impact there might be more influential than getting on the local news if that even exists. Right? then the next ring for us might be like a college or university and, like, having the influencers and the athletes that affect that entire kind of community. And then kind of building from that might be like a dietary community, right? Like, vegan or gluten free. Right? So. Yeah. us, we try to, kind of attack it across all these different layers and sizes and try to make sure that throughout it, like, the consistent thing that you need to find is, is authenticity. Right? Like, I have a pretty strict rule that I'm not paying people who don't genuinely like the product. We have the privilege of having a product that most people like, we've all worked on products where people don't like it. It's

Yeah.

Much easier to promote something that already people already

I, don't, for the record, I don't know what you're talking about, Tom. Tom,

um, yeah. So anyway, like, I think it's important to find that authenticity and then like those people that are going to talk about it are just going to be that much more authentic and amplify that much more. Right. Because it's true. It's not just like, Oh yeah, they paid me to talk about this. So I'm going to tell them.

I know you can't enforce, you know, when you're, when you're having an influencer because you're, you're ceding control for how they craft the message and deliver the message to them. That's kind of the gig, but how do you at least guide them to delivering, on some of that, brand messaging that is important to you? And, and how do you enforce that Authenticity

it's, I mean it starts with finding the right people, right. Like really trying to find people that actually. they've never tried the product before are going to try it and, you know, give you an honest opinion or review. And if they have, trying to find the people that already love it and really just trying to figure out how do you amplify that? So, in terms of the messaging, know, we have a, we actually have a tech platform that we use to communicate with large, influencers and we can communicate with them. Load up messaging in there and, build little briefs and they can pull from the briefs and basically get, reimbursed or paid for, certain tasks that they do. So we try to really make it as systematic as possible. And then also that helps us with the, the tracking of it on the backend.

and you vet them before they have access to that platform. So you kind of know who's got access to your, stuff. Got it.

Yep. For sure.

And assume they provide like reporting and all that stuff too on the

yeah, exactly. It's Influencers can opt into and then you can find influencers based on where they live, what they're passionate about, you know, how big, big or small, or, you know, how engaging they are. It's pretty, pretty helpful.

Tom, you mentioned a minute ago the idea that you're not going to pay someone who doesn't love your product, right? And this goes to, uh, both the authenticity and then the permission thing, but, my take on this influencer marketing is you, we, we can get sometimes a little twisted up over, ,brand consistency and brand controls, but given the technology and the platforms that are out there now, we don't have control. As marketers over our brand story, because for every influencer, Tom and insomnia might deploy, there might be 10 others who might be. Commenting on the product, and you have no control over that. Right. And it could be good, could be bad, could be right on message, could be like violently, violently anti message. So I think that that's, you know, part of the reality of this influencer world is like, yeah, you want to have some control and you want to. Try some authenticity, but there's only so much you can do because it's out there.

If you want complete control, don't go down this path. Right.

Yeah. Turn off your

Put all your money, right. Put all money into advertising and then you can control the message. I think,

don't really have a brand at that point. So, you know,

exactly. Exactly.

But that's, fascinating because, you know, you look at like, you know, like, uh, Joe DiMaggio selling coffee in the 70s And, that's a way that like, Hey, like everybody loves this guy. So if he's drinking this coffee, I want to drink it. It kind of reminds me of like. the long tail of Google search, you know, like this real specific niche type thing where, somebody is looking for something so specific and, maybe there's only a small amount of people that are, are looking for that one thing at that one particular time, but they're the right people. And you'll get such a high percentage of those people because they are the right people. Whereas you're just spraying and praying with Joe DiMaggio because everybody loves Joe, but. know, so

And that at

could you go any, could you, Brian, could you go a little further back in your reference in case there's somebody who's not 90 listening to this?

John, I was actually trying to connect with your age group,

so, so, Brian, I, similarly to the, to, you know, you mentioned, uh, you know, an iconic, an old, very old 1970s iconic, TV campaign, I think this, I feel the same way about the influencer stuff as I do about TV. Like, I kind of miss the days where there are these cultural moments around big shared media moments, you know, where like everybody did watch the last episode of Match and whatever the, whatever the TV commercials that were on, then people talked, people talked about the next day. now with media so fragmented, the messaging is also so fragmented. So I kind of miss that don't have the opportunity to share with a lot of people. Oh, did you see that thing? Like, no, because it was a nano influencer that reached, you know, 8, 000 people that have nothing to do with the way I go through my

Or 80. I mean, and the only thing we have left now is really the super, it's like the super bowl. And then the person reaches 80 people in, in, in the suburb of Texas.

and some really bad stuff in between,

what, you know, what did, uh, Tom, let me ask you this. What did you, uh, what did you think of the black Friday, uh, Amazon football game?

I liked that they did something on Black Friday. I mean, everybody's off. You're kind of craving football throughout that entire weekend. give the people what they want. And like, you've seen the trends of black Friday, right? Like there's not the people banging down the doors and trampling each other to get a TV anymore. Right. Everyone's sitting online and ordering. And, I think Amazon obviously is positioned to capture quite a bit of the, uh, the Q4 retail market. and this just continues to, to position them right where, right at the top of everybody's mind, you know?

and mainstream marketing is really about these times where people are doing all the same thing. So that's definitely a time period where everybody's shopping, everybody's looking for stuff for the holidays. No one's really, know, I don't say no one's working, but you know, there's a lot of people off of work. And, the game gave them a reason to, like you said, kind of have these water cooler moments. And, and the way that Amazon is coming up with some really cool ways to, to target and, and provide content in different ways than, traditional television has done. So, uh, there's a lot, I expect something like that to really grow. So we'll see what that, what happens with that.

Yeah. And I think

football is the last, the last bastion

is, it really

you know, communal watercolor I mean, it was 19 of the 20 highest rated shows on linear TV this year have been football.

yeah, I believe it.

insane.

quote me on that because I might've made that

No, that seems like a, that seems like a right, a right stat. The right

it is.

definitely attributable to somebody. think with the Amazon thing too, like, Okay. So if you go back 5, 10 years or whatever, right, Walmart, Best Buy, whoever to bait you to get into the store, right? That's all that Amazon is doing with this game, right? They're just like, you're sitting in front of the TV now and your computer and your phone and that is their store, right? So they've got you locked in. Um, it's, it's just taking the storefront out of the store and putting it into your hand. And it's pretty, it's a pretty smart move.

One of the things that they're, they're opening up for some of their, uh, brands that they're working with is you can actually retarget by people who watch the game. Which is fascinating. I mean, like, to be able to use that data in, um, you know, as that, as an audience, and then, be able to segment that down. I mean, that's, that's ridiculous.

So speaking of that, from nano and micro to total macro, Tom, any, any, football TV programming, uh, buys in Insomnia's future?

Not that I know of We're, uh, we're on the, the nano side of, uh, budget investment at this point in our, uh, our career. Um, no, I think,

but got such a cult brand. You can do like, that's, that's

but they can also, but the thing that I love about Insomnia is that you have, not that you have, like, just a defined audience, but like, you reach people at these grassroots levels, at colleges, Okay. Uh, people that are up late, like you guys have a brand that really sticks with a certain audiences. Like, I don't even, I don't know that it would even make sense to go that broad, you know, like you guys are doing things that on such a, a cultural and, and grassroots level that, um, I don't even know that that would even make sense, you know?

Yeah. I, you know, it, it's a really good point. I think it connects back to the authenticity that I was trying to talk about earlier, right? Like, we're trying to follow a lot of kind of cult brands. Strategies and and, you know, really lean into those traits and yeah, just blasting ourselves across media. You know, mass media isn't really a way to do that. that being said. We're growing really fast, right? So we're, we're going to add more and more stores and we're starting to get to that point where we're, we're tipping a little bit more into mass and we need to, um, the scale at which we need to move all these stores is a lot harder than we had 100 stores, right? So trying to figure out, like, what are some of the ways that we can do that? And back to the football question. Um, and actually again, connecting back to authentic, you know, we invested in a relationship with Justin Jefferson this year, which was pretty cool. So, he actually came to

receiver for the Minnesota Vikings.

he's, uh,

the eagle should have drafted years ago, but yes, go ahead.

Yes. Yeah. Well, you guys, you know what? You guys got plenty of receivers at this point and stop

It all worked out, but go

also, yeah, but anyway, Justin's, you know, he went to LSU. He became a fan of insomnia there. And, uh, you know, he reached out and was like, I love insomnia. I want to buy insomnia, like franchises and we don't franchise, but he was like, I'm all in on this brand. Like, we, okay. How do we figure this out? So I was like, okay, this works. you know, we're doing something with him where it's kind of a bridge between. know, some of the micro stuff we're doing and a little bit more mass, right? We're leveraging, we created a whole campaign, a video campaign. It's running kind of when football airs on TV, but we're running it on mobile and social. So really trying to like pair up like, Hey, cookies make every event better and have Justin kind of be that, you know, the receiver, if you will, of our deliveries, um, at all these different times. So, um, really fun little thing, but I think it starts to, connect and bridge the gap there for us.

Yeah.

guys have stores up in Minnesota?

We do. Yeah, opened our, our, in St. Paul, we got one in Minneapolis,

you know where have, you know where you don't have one, Tom?

Where's that? Burlington, Vermont? Ah,

my daughter keeps asking,

it's, dude, I got, okay, good news for you. One coming there,

news. We're breaking news on the, uh, Snap Decisions podcast here.

John, even more exciting, about three weeks, we're opening one in South Lake Tahoe at the Steps Heavenly Resort. Yes, and I know you've been there before. It's,

Oh, oh,

gonna be, gonna be pretty cool,

I volunteer to be an on slope ambassador for that. Is that, is that one of your cookies? That can be like a hot cookie shed at the bottom of the mountain.

No, it's, it's actually like more, I don't know if you've been to Southlake before, but it's, it's a pretty like vibrant downtown and it's where there's a bunch of casinos there cause there's right on the, uh, edge of Nevada and California. So it's kind of strange, like heavenly, the mountain and the gondola goes down and then you get off it and there's like bars and casino. It's like a party vibe So we're kind of more in that scene, not

Oh, that's very

right on the mountain. Yeah. So.

fantastic. well, yeah, I just, I do have to share a story with you. I went to visit my daughter in Burlington few weeks ago, while I was at her apartment, her roommate and her boyfriend left, drove 25 minutes to another town, brought back a competitive cookie.

Terrible one.

And, and proceeded to, you know, spend a lot of time kind of evaluating which of these six different cookies were better. And, daughter kept looking at me like, gotta tell your buddy Tom to get a store up here. I'm like, yeah, I've told him. So that's great. She'll be very happy.

Coming

also says there's no food 10 o'clock except for a kebab stand and that's it.

could work for us. I mean, kind business

to do? do? A follow up from

We have road trips popping up every time we do a podcast. Right.

That would be From Burlington, Vermont.

based of these podcasts.

We're gonna, we're gonna go to a Barnes and Noble and then have cookies.

it.

So, so Tom, um, what's, uh, what's Justin Jefferson's favorite cookie?

he likes our salted caramel. Um, and I think a snickerdoodle. I should, I should have remembered this top of mine, I'm pretty sure those are the top two he really likes.

You guys had a, an interesting moment a couple of years ago. Maybe you can talk about it with the New York mats, even though I, I, I despise the New York mats. It was a pretty cool story. You want to talk about that for a little bit?

Yeah, this was crazy. it was. Let's just set the stage for where we were. It was the end of February of 2020. So

Oh

I don't know if anyone remembers, um, was like three weeks before everyone was like, Oh, COVID is a real thing. And the entire world shut down for, you know, we all lost two years of life. Anyway. So the New York Mets, uh, on MLB. com, they have, you know, content for all the different teams. They wrote this article, and it was basically about how a bunch of the, the young Mets at the time, had this kind of unofficial thing called the cookie club. And every time they visited a different city, they, after the game, they would go to their hotel and order insomnia cookies. And they like really bonded over our cookies. There's a lot of layers here, which make this so great. One, the article coming out was pretty cool to Seth. Who's our founder is like the biggest Mets fan in the world. So when this article came out, he was basically like, I think I'm done. I don't know that I to do

There's nothing else to achieve.

Yeah. I've had my favorite team of all time is now actually, you know, the biggest fans of the thing I created. I don't know how I could do any better than this other than having my four kids. Right. Like that, that was it. So. it was the beginning of something that we, you know, we tapped into a little bit, but I mentioned the, the February of 2020, because as soon as that happened, everything kind of, it got a little choppy for us put that way. And it was a little hard to activate that in the way that we would have liked

yeah. Too bad.

genuine, genuinely love. Uh, we've did some things with Jeff McNeil and, uh, those are great guys. They still love the brand, but they're all kind of all over the place

I just googled, and I see that the Mets finished last in the NL East that year. Just, uh, no, I'm not saying there's any sort of correlation or,

they ate too many cookies. I don't know. but, he's eaten,

I blame COVID it was 2020

he's sat on the cookies.

Well talk about authenticity, right? you probably couldn't create something like that that rung as true than it actually happened amongst them on their own without coming

this is what I, this is what I love, right? So you have these moments where, you know, you plan for God knows how long, you know, way too long. And then you hope somebody likes something, but then you have these instances like Justin Jefferson loves your cookie and wants to buy your stores. And then you have the Mets all of a sudden they have their own cookie club. I mean, how do you and your team work together to say, Hey, we have to do something right now. What are we going to do? And we were not leaving this room until we come up with an idea.

I mean, you basically described what we do. I, uh, I mean, the nice thing about our brand and our team and our company and leadership is that we are incredibly nimble, right? Like we're on top of that stuff. And like, we're getting cookies to those guys. Same day. We're reaching out to their publicist. We're trying to figure out where are they, Like, where are their families? Who can we send cookies to? It's kind of like an unwritten part of everybody's job, it's not in a job description, but it's expected that like, again, it goes back to like amplifying that authentic love, right? Like if it's there, we try to pour more gasoline on the fire and let it go. but yeah, we just try to be as fast as possible. I think

Remember when that was a thing in marketing, the idea of like real time marketing? It sounds like you guys have just really operationalized that. So Tom, you were just talking about, seizing on those moments of opportunity because you are that cult brand, you know, with that cult brand has a lot of opportunities, which you just talked about, but also, I would guess a lot of responsibility in some ways, right? Where You know, you can't screw it up. How do you know when you're maybe going too far into like having mass appeal and you need to kind of stay true to your cultish roots, how do you, is that just a art?

It's probably a little bit of art and a little bit of science, right? Like I think for us, it's about really staying true to our brand promise and essence, like we're really pretty obsessed with that. You know, we, we say our, our brand promise or essence is warm, delicious, delivered, and. And own the night, like those four things are everything for us. Right. So it's not to say that we don't want to go mass, Like I want everyone to know insomnia cookies. I don't expect everybody in the country or world to be a customer, but certainly growing the brand is important. I think doing so in a way that's responsible within the, guardrails of who we are, And not. You know, bending or, being different just to pander to the masses or whatever that might be. Right. So it's really about looking back to the business makes sense. Does it feel right? does it connect to our brand promise and our platform and all that type of stuff, does it feel. normal and authentic and fun and cool. and if not, we'll pass on things. I mean, I pass on stuff all the time, like the time. It's crazy. but we do try to try to grow the right way. And then, there's other things that I think we're still trying to work through from that perspective.

So, speaking of owning the night, you have some really cool stuff that you do, where, you are going out in the middle of the night to, you know, get everybody fired up. Can you talk a little bit about some of the stuff you guys have done with that?

Yeah, sure. So, um, you know, on the night become this kind of like mantra mantra a couple of years ago. And We were, I guess it was back in probably 18 or 19. We were, you know, trying to really understand, how the college demographic affects our business. Right. So let's say 70 percent of our stores are somehow connected or tied to a university, right? So it's either like right on that main street of that classic university town, or we're in a city. right next to Drexel or Temple or Columbia University or whatever. So very much connected to university, just like how the, the company started. and we were kind of trying to figure out like how many freshmen or, you know, first year students are coming into our system every year and what can we do? To, bring them in to our whole community of insomniacs. How do we welcome thousands of new potential customers into our system every single year,

guess, free samples?

that's a big part of it, my friends, Yeah, so then, you know, we kind of like we're throwing a lot of things against the wall and you know, we're like, it would be really cool to do something at night. So long story shorter, longer. we basically came up with this concept of the PJ party. So this is now I think we just our fifth one. And it is basically a late night grand opening style celebration at every single one of our stores across the globe. So we're 265 ish stores right now, including in England and Canada. And one one night, In September, we host a blowout party at every single store. So, you know, we're open all day long, but then at nine o'clock at night or eight o'clock at night, whatever time we decide, we basically like turn on all these crazy deals, we give out swag, we change the music and playlists. We change the lighting, we decorate the stores. and what, what happens is the coolest thing was the first year we did it. This was kind of like. We're like, okay, we're rolling the dice on this. spending a lot of money on like these crazy uniforms that looked like PJs and all this swag that we're going to give out and all this marketing. And I was like, this is either going to be amazing or fall completely flat. And I'll never forget. I was having dinner with the leadership team because we were going to go visit a bunch of stores that night. And we are, our, uh, email started blowing up and we looked at our phones and realized that all the stores were taking pictures of the lines that were forming in front of their stores, even though the stores were open just to wait for all the stuff we were giving away and stuff. So it was the coolest thing ever. So and like everyone jumped in and we had hundreds of emails going back and forth with these pictures of just students. Oh, and by the way. The whole thing is the pajama party. So you're wearing pajamas, right? So there's these kids dressed in crazy pajamas across the country. That to me is the embodiment of own the night, right? It's like, how do you take that as a brand platform and put it into an activation and make it memorable. I've been now to, you know, five years of these things. And I, we typically travel around the country and go visit a market and hit as many stores as we can. And I'll talk to tons of students and like so many of them, it's their first time. ever interacting with the brand, right? So like talk about an emotional long term bond, right? like yeah, like, yeah. And like the stories and, uh, just the emotion that you get out these customers is, is pretty cool.

Yeah. You know, I, uh, for our listeners, I've affectionately called Tom the world's oldest millennial. Yes, he, he, Tom, you, it's like you never left college in some ways. And, uh, this

Right. I think you have to update that to Gen Z. Now I've grown out of millennial.

you may have grown out of it, but I don't

Or millennials growing out of me, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, we've moved along. But, uh, the other, the other really cool thing that you guys have done is the, uh, the innovation cookie lab that you've done in, in, in Philadelphia. And, uh, can you talk a little bit about kind of where that came from and, uh, how you guys have used that? And, uh, it's a great experiment, experiential, place, but, you guys are doing a lot of cool things with that.

Yeah. The cookie lab, was born out of COVID actually. And it was kind of a crazy thing. I'll try to keep this story shortish, but Seth was like, we should. out a way we let's build an experiential brand. And again, this is when people are stuck in their homes and not going out and wearing masks and, you know, people are just talking over zoom. Right. He's like, we should build an experiential brand where you can make your own cookie. And then we'll take all the data from the different toppings they pick and the flavor profiles. And we're going to use that to help inform our innovation. And I said, you're out of your mind. We're in the middle of COVID, like is terrible idea.

I I think what you meant to say, Tom, was great idea boss.

right. Um, which is exactly what I said. No. So we, we kind of like, we were thrown around this idea. I'm like, this is a really fun idea, but how do we actually pull it off? Oh. And the other thing was like. You know, we want it to be a speakeasy. So we want it to be within a brand, literally and physically. So we have an insomnia cookies, normal cookie place, and then there's a secret door and it brings you into this insomnia on steroids, um, and innovation factory. So that's honestly how it was born. we were going to originally do it just as a digital play. Like, can we do this online and let people kind of like mix and match and play with the different flavors and toppings and all that type of stuff. and then we said, let's build this thing and let's do something. That's really cool. So we built this thing in South Philly, right across from Pat's and Gino. So kind of like the late night. You know, food Mecca of Philadelphia. Um, so a good spot for that. Lots of late night, exposure, lots of late night tourists. Um, and certainly our core demo as well. So it's a normal store. There's a bookcase, which you have to say a secret password to it opens up and then you go into the back and as a customer, you can. Build your own cookie. Kind of like you build a Sunday, you can do these crazy over the top milkshakes, and, um, it's just a really awesome, deeper experience with the brand.

Yeah, so, just to give listeners a little bit more background. So, so your, your CEO and founder, Seth Berkowitz, went to Penn, built the company at Penn, started selling cookies out of his dorm room. That's kind of the backstory there. So the, the lab having the bookshelf and kind of being the secret pathway from the regular store into the, the cookie innovation lab, is on brand is on part of the, the lore of insomnia, which is, which is great.

exactly. It can, I mean, if, and if you look at what's on the bookshelf, really connects back to like Seth's dorm room, right? Like. There's references to Halo, which is the video game he was playing when the idea came up and, you know, other silly things like little connections to Penn and kind of inside jokes and stuff like that. So yeah, there's like a nice connection there. You know, it's a, it's a brand within the brand. it's a extension of our brand, but it's also part of, the company that we're really trying to understand, you know, what does this mean for us and how can we leverage it? And does it have legs to go beyond Philly and more?

Awesome.

really, really cool, I, I went there for the opening night and, uh, thanks to you. And when you were talking about the lines outside of the stores for pajama party night, that's what it was. It was amazing with very little promotion, just a line out the door, people clamoring to get in. And then once you get in, just a very cool experience for, the brand that kind of was felt, it felt very different, but very much a part of what you're, you're creating and yeah, it was a great activation.

And the location in South Philly, like around Pat's and June's is perfect because people are there all hours of the night. Everything's 24 7 there, so perfect spot for the brand that, really leans into the late nights, late night crowd, so that's awesome. and the other cool thing is you guys are trying out new products and stuff there. And so I want to talk to you about, new product categories and how do you stay within the universe of who you are? And, we talk about being careful with the right types of media and, and things like that with the brand. But how do you, terms of the product itself, how do you make sure you don't go too far? You guys have added products for ice cream and milkshakes and, and brownies and things like that. how do you make sure you're not going too far with the product itself?

Yeah. So similarly to, kind of the question around cult and mass marketing, we kind of take that same approach to products. So my, I run the product team as well here, and we basically have like a two-word mentality and that's cookie first. Right. So as we think about. Our products and extensions of our products. The first thing we say is like, is this cookie First Does it feel like an authentic extension of our core cookie? So talk about ice cream. We launched, an ice cream brand, last year. So we, you know, in the past, we'd always had ice cream in our stores, but it was basically regionally sourced. So you had a lot of inconsistencies. It was hard to promote, you know, different flavors at different stores. It wasn't great. And it was like, Oh, the South likes this flavor of the North. And, you know, depending on the provider, a wide, um, variety of, of quality and consistency and all that. So we were like, all right, let's take this into our own hands, make our own ice cream. But how do we make an insomnia? And we said, let's make a cookie first. So we came up with our own ice cream and every flavor except for vanilla or chocolate. It has our cookies in it. So, uh, you know, cookies and cream for us is called cookies and dream. And instead of, an Oreo type cookie, we've got our double chocolate chunk in there. Right. So, salted caramel for us is called caramillionaire and same thing. It's like caramel ice cream with our salted caramel. Cookies in there. So we really try to, again, like ice cream and cookies go together really beautifully. and no one's really kind of gone, gone all in on, you know, the cookies and ice cream really together within ice cream. Um, so yeah, just using that cookie first mentality is what is going to keep us kind of within our

Nice. You know, Tom, yesterday I was watching TV and I saw a commercial and I feel like the universe sent this to me. I'm kind of getting ready for this podcast. Dairy Queen running a national TV ad promoting to dos, just getting burgers and sodas. And I was just like, what are you doing? It blew my mind that, not only was it not ice cream first for Dairy Queen, it was ice cream non existent, and it was something completely, I would argue, inadjacent, not adjacent,

Hey Tom, when are you gonna fire up The hot dog?

Oh, just like.

I was gonna say, John, you just ruined my cheesesteak reveal. That's our next big LTO is

Yeah, more, more news breaking here. This just Insomnia, launching cheese sticks.

Yeah.

ham

Wiz with. whole thing. Spam.

we're Scrapple. We're here in Philly. Remember?

But the purple ice cream that you guys have, talk about on Brandand. I mean, it feels like you, it looks like you guys and my God, the, the, the chip witch with that ice cream. My God. That's great. Good stuff.

You got a couple brand ambassadors here. And by the way, I texted my daughter saying, Hey, breaking news. Insomnia coming to Burlington. She, and her response is no way with five exclamation points.

She'll, she'll get the Tom Carasona special secret discount code for sure.

That's great.

Yeah. Thanks. for continuing to break news here on the podcast. This

love it.

is, why I came on.

Yeah. What else, what else, what else should we forward you guys?

Ooh, I don't know. I mean, new stores galore. You know, global expansion

Talk to us about that. So you guys, you guys went to the UK and Canada. And, uh, I mean, that's, that's big for you guys. We talk a little bit about, uh, doing that, but also like the operational part of that. And, and how does that, how does that work? That's a little bit different for you guys. You want to talk about that?

Yeah, that's um, So the international thing is awesome, right? It's kind of a validating moment for us that this brand can it work in other cultures and other, countries? so we did quite a bit of work, insights work in both Canada and, the UK before we even thought of entering the country, understanding the, Case preferences, the demographics, like what's the right city to enter in, you know, every type of way you could think of it. We really try to be smart about this. so we spent a lot of time kind of figuring out the strategy to, to enter these markets in the appropriate manner. and then we spent a lot of time figuring out how the heck do we actually operate something like this? Like product, How do we get it there in the UK? There's different, laws and regulations around the suites and, you know, some of the different. things that are in our cookies, right? So like really have to understand those markets and also make sure that we're basically re engineering our cookies to work there and also work for the taste palette of whatever country that we're in. Canada is a little bit easier because it's Toronto and Toronto is pretty darn close. To the U. S. But same thing like understanding the cultural differences. you know, the college culture in the U. S. is really unique. It doesn't really exist in the same manner that anywhere else in the world, right? You don't have the frat system and the football that's, you know, billion dollar brands, right? The good thing again, is that the product's great. Right. And people love cookies and people love ice cream. The hardest thing for us really is trying to build education around the category. Like, Hey, now you can get warm cookies delivered late into the night. Like for a lot of people outside of the U S and outside of the markets that we're in, it's not even a. Thought, So there's a bit of work that we need to put into the category education and then the, Hey, we're the right brand for you.

Does it all Translate a little different there in terms of like what you're saying and is on the night still on the night?

they, they, they speak English in England, Brian, don't

I

they do. But, but Brian, to your point, it's, it's kind of like when you and I worked on that, uh, what was it? We called it like a, cultural translation, right? Like project where we went through and took the brand that you and I were working on and worked with every country across the world, not just to translate it. in language, but also to make sure it's culturally relevant. I think we did the same thing, even down to little things like we worked with the team, a really talented creative director in, uh, the UK who happens to work for our partners, Krispy Kreme and They got really, um, passionate about the brand and they took all of our brand assets and essence and just tweak them to be, to feel authentic to the UK, even all the way down to Manchester. Like there's certain ways that people say things there. Um, you know, in the, in the U S we have like a giant sign that says open late and I guess people use the phrase late, late. So like there it's open late, late. So like just like little things like that where it just builds and kind of deepens the authenticity is. Is, um, how we try to do it.

Wow. I love how attuned you all are to both that, like you said, the art and the science of maintaining your, your brand, know, your brand reality has, it's really, it's, it's fascinating to hear all these, big and small examples where you're doing that.

Cool. Thank you. It's

So, so tell us the,

Well, thank you for the opportunity to go do some secret shopping in Manchester and Tahoe. Welcome to the

Listen, it's a cool city. It really is.

Tell us about your, your, your partnership with the Flyers and the Wells Fargo Center here in Philly. I feel like that's a really good step for you guys in terms of visibility, especially in the region, but also, operationally too, you know, working with a company known as Aramark and, having to, Rely on a partner to do some of the operational things that you guys have traditionally done. How's that? How's that been?

Yeah, it, um, it's been great. I think this was one of these things that to us and, you know, we kind of were debating this for a long time, but I had some, I think we had some passion around arenas in particular as something that could work for us. Right. So again, like feels right. Like these are places where typically it's cold, right? Like you have, you have, ice skating and hockey and they have to keep it cold in their 365 days a year, even if there's a concert or a basketball game. and our cookies are served warm and, you know, like we were interested in sports, but it felt like arenas were the right space for us, one because of the frequency and two because of, you know, we're not serving a warm cookie in 100 degree weather and outside in Florida. Right. So it was a simple thing, but kind of an important thing. And then, yeah, like for us, partnering with the Wells Fargo Center and the the flyers in particular. was really about, does this work for us? So we wanted to do it in our, our home market, you know, the flyers are owned by Comcast, so the building's owned by Comcast and, Aramark operates the building and we're the brand. So it was kind of like all three companies are right here.

By the way, for anybody at home, mean, this like vortex of the universe of Tom Carasona who worked for Comcast then Aramark and now Insomnia. I

it's

triangle of like the, uh, it's the Bermuda triangle

You are right where you, you are right where you belong, sir.

Yes. So, um, I probably dangerously knowledgeable.

Jay Wright runs up and gets a cookie.

Yeah, exactly. Um,

He's a walking Venn diagram, this guy.

definitely, definitely found the overlapping circles there. Um, but yeah, again, like, you know, as we, so all that true, but more importantly in Philadelphia, it's our most established market. We've been here obviously since day one, but also like, if you look at the map of how many stores we have. It's the most kind of like penetrated marks that we have. So as we start to think about, our marketing in the past is like hyper local, right? You draw a circle around a store at Westchester university, and that's where you're marketing to right now, we have stores in Westchester and Phoenix bill and Contra Hawkins and downtown and, you know, sorry, center city and South Philly and soon to be Cherry Hill, right? So you're filling out the DMA. You need to find ways to actually communicate and connect to more people across the D. M. A. So this is a great way to do that, both within the arena itself, but then also with the sponsorship that comes with that, right?

Awesome. so, so let's talk about Aramark. So Aramark is a company that, that operates for, uh, for stadiums, for hospitals, for schools, as we used to call it, because I used to work at Aramark with Tom, for anyone looking out there, uh, cradle to grave. you know, one of the big projects that we worked on together and, uh, was a big part of, of, of both of our careers is the, uh, the rebrand of Aramark. And, you know, Aramark is such a giant behemoth company. And, as a marketer, there's these really interesting projects that you work on for like a singular brand that, that, you might have a very specific mission. And Aramark is so. So if you do one thing, it could impact everything. So can you talk a little bit about, remaking a brand for a company like Aramark and what, what are the things that popped up to you as you were, you know, refreshing a brand like that?

Yeah, I mean, that was an incredible, it's so funny, like to look back at that, know, you're in it every day. You don't realize like how much of a massive impact you have until now. Today I drive by our mark trucks with the branding that we worked

all the time,

Right. And it's like, Oh yeah, that's kind of cool. Like we, we did that. Right. And for me, I think I'd like, honestly, I don't think I was a little bit naive at the time in terms of like how big of a project that actually was and what we were going into. And I was thinking, yeah, like Iron Mark feels a little old and dated and like we need like a refresh look and like a new vibe, right? Like let's do that. And like, that to me sounds. doable, right? and for the most part it was, but the process of going through, you know, a company that was essentially like 12 or 13 different businesses, plus another like 12 or 13 different countries that operated kind of as completely different brands and businesses like getting them on all on board. So again, like for me, I was learning every day and kind of. Unpeeling this onion that I didn't even know right? Like, like, oh my God, like there's more things. I think the most, most intimidating thing, and I'll never forget this, was the trucks and like sitting,

bring that up.

sitting with the CFO and my boss at the time and being like, How are we going to attack? I don't even remember what the number was. It was like tens of thousands of trucks across the globe. And like, we're going to do these this quarter, and we're going to do those that quarter. And these trucks just got guns. So like, that was mind blowing to

Yeah, because there are several thousand dollars apiece to rewrap. Tom, when you, think about some of the things you did at Aramark and, you know, you say that you, were maybe naive enough to not realize how big a thing it was that you were tackling., I got to think that kind of not knowing what you're biting off is where some of the magic happens, When you're like, yeah, you're not constrained by, reality because you're a little naive to it.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's the cool thing about All of our jobs as marketers, You really get to affect, especially when you work on brands that are national or global, is that, your, your job is to basically leave them at a better place than when you started, right? And, it's a privilege to be able to do that. And when you're in it, you're going work, right? It's like I'm, I'm in, I'm answering emails and I'm getting project deadlines and I'm. Getting feedback on things and not wanting to hear that feedback, right? Like it's all that stuff. And then you look back and like, Oh, like how we actually did a ton of stuff. How did that actually happen? Right? Like it's, it I enjoy these kinds of conversations. It allows me to look back and be like, Oh, wow, that was pretty cool. And we, you know, we, we worked on tons of things that still are having impact. Like I

Well, I hope you, I hope you continue to have that opportunity to kind of attack stuff without full knowledge of like how insane it might be you know, it always stays fresh like that.

Yeah. Me

we'll, we'll, we'll have you back on the podcast and you can tell us about, you know, nine more activations and how cool they were.

I would love that.

Regular guest, Tom Carasona.

I'll apologize to your listeners now.

So, Tom, I'd love to talk about just, you know, real, real quickly. what drew you to marketing? How did you get into it? I know, you know, you start, you went to Villanova, you, you jumped into tyranny, the agency in Philadelphia, and then you came to Comcast, but what made you think this is the right way to go?

question. I think probably a lame answer for you, honestly. So, I mean, I was always, as a kid, like kind of a, I'd like won the art awards. It was probably like more creative mindset. And like, I enjoyed thinking creatively and doing. creative type things. And I grew up on Long Island kind of in the shadow of like the advertising capital of the world. So as a kid and like going into college, I was like, that would be cool to like do ads one day, you know, like that seems like a cool job. And, that's kind of how it started. You know, like I wanted to do something that I remember like my mom growing up was like, you should do something that makes you really happy. Like, don't worry about, How much money you're going to make or whatever, but like find something you're going to happy and you'll be successful at that and the money will come and whatever. Right. So, I, I tried to follow that passion. I thought I actually wanted to be in, production, like be like a producer, like a TV producer or a movie producer, you know, making documentary films or whatever. And, I did an internship and I realized that wasn't for me. And the next thing I knew, you know, I graduated college and, um, I won't bore you with all the details, but I got my first job actually, uh, in New York at an agency. And, it was cool. I got immediate exposure to like massive global brands, Seeing the production process, seeing the media strategy process, all that type of stuff. And I just like, from that point on, I loved it. And then from there, I was like, okay, how do I get more control and influence on that? And that's when I moved to the, to the client side of things.

It's so important for people to realize that like, it's okay to change ideas, you know, it's okay to like, I want to do this and then I do that. And and so I, I love the story of you wanting to do production. And, you know, I was a telecommunications major and I. Went into writing and communications and marketing and it's just kind of fascinating of like, Hey, I'm going to do this and then you're just going to follow the flow. You never know what's going to happen.

Yeah. Like, you know, I talked to interns or, you know, people are like, Oh, can I talk to you about my, my, my future? I'm a college student. And one of the things I always say is like,

No.

absolutely. No, I refuse

very, I'm far too busy.

very important. The cookie world is

Saving, saving the world one cookie at a time, kid.

Yeah. I mean, this

Taco chip at a

here.

Go, Google it. Sorry, Tom. What do you, what do you, what's the advice you give?

just say that, it's just as important to understand what you don't like, right? In some ways, more important, like that learning experience to me of going to an internship for whatever a year or six months and being like, this is not what I want to do was really important. Because if I didn't do that, then I don't know, I might be you. Whatever, editing tapes in a basement somewhere and miserable. I don't know. It's okay to not love everything and it's important to understand, that those things are, just as important as things that you love.

All right. Well, let's, let's keep moving. Awesome stuff. Uh, um, what got for us?

What do I have? Well, first of all, I have Tom, thank you so much for joining us. Cause, this has been fun to just kind of shoot the breeze with you and hear your insights and kind of where you're, where you're steering, a very cool brand. So thanks for joining us.

Well, thank you. I love that. I love the opportunity. I love, uh, love you guys and love being able to chat with you guys

well,

hugs.

right. Well, you can stick around and, add to Brian's response to, our final segment, the dear, hopelessly unattainable guest Brian, uh, you, most recently asked JLo to join. So here is my plea for our next Dear Hopelessly Unattainable Guest. Dear Steve Martin, you were funny, charming, and uniquely entertaining when I was a kid. You've been in show as a comedian, actor, author, screenplay writer, producer, and even musician for over 50 years. And you're still funny, charming, and uniquely entertaining. Here at the Snap Decisions Podcast Empire, we want to hear about the choices you've made to stay relevant While pursuing your passions. How did you decide to give up sold out arenas and a rockstar like following, walking away from stand up comedy to focus on films instead? While you're making hit movies like The Jerk, Three Amigos, Father of the Bride, and my favorite Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, how the hell did you find time to become a pia a banjo player accomplished enough to win a Grammy? And finally, how did you talk Selena Gomez into joining Two Old Farts to star in Only Murders in the Building? Most of all, Steve, I just want to hang out with you. I think we'd be friends. Come join us on Necker Island with Sir Richard Branson, Michael Jordan, Taylor Swift, and J Lo. Scheduling will be a bitch, but they've all said yes. Sincerely, your pals, John and Brian.

Love it. Love

on,

That's beautiful. I love it. I love it.

TOm, thank you. This has been great. And, uh, I think we'll have to have you back someday.

Uh, listen, I feel very, uh, awkward and humbled to be part of this because your guests have been like freaking a list people. And,

we're just, we're just getting warmed up, baby.

know I'd like, I'm like looking through my Rolodex and be like, who can I help these guys get? And I'm like, meanwhile, no, they're, they're like on fire. So I'm, I love it. You guys are doing some really fun stuff and, uh, thanks for thinking of me.

it.

keep building that cookie empire and we'll have you back.

Let's do it, man. Thanks guys. to you later.

you, Brian.

Bye.