Latest / Frap Rap with GDogggggggg / Ep 6: Erin Petty (pettye)
Transcript
- The Mediaocean Podcast Network: You're listening to the MediaOcean Podcast Network. For more of our shows, visit www.mediaocean.com slash podcasts. GDogggggggg: Welcome to Frap Rap. I'm your host, Aaron Goldman, aka G, and the artist formerly known on AOL Instant Messenger as G Dog with 8 Gs. Yes, one through seven were taken. Twenty-five years ago, I was an AE at an ad network called L90, and my biggest client was StarCom IP. Every Thursday, I'd invite everyone in Chicago at 35 West Wacker to meet me at the cozy across the street for coffee. And for each person that came, I'd do a freestyle rap about them. Hence the name Frap Rap. Each episode I track down another OGI peer to reminisce about the good old days and see what they're up to now. And my guest today is Aaron Petty. Aaron, welcome to Frap Rap! Erin Petty: Hey G, how are you? GDogggggggg: I am great. E P in the place to be. It is so great to see you. Thank you for doing this. ⁓ where are you at the moment? Where are we catching you? Erin Petty: So I am physically in my home in Salina, Texas in my front office. GDogggggggg: Cool. And ⁓ Salina is where in relation to cities that most people might know of. Erin Petty: So it's about 45 minutes north of Dallas and kind of like a smallish ⁓ farm town, ⁓ except that everybody's moving here now. And it's one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, which means it's time for me to go soon. GDogggggggg: Yeah. So if you're watching this, ⁓ first of all, don't move there 'cause we don't need any more ⁓ you know, ⁓ c congestion. Or and or ⁓ feel free to make Aaron an offer if you want to buy her place. ⁓ so we're gonna catch all the way up to present day and and figure out what brought you ⁓ to that part of the country, but let's for now zoom back to the IP days, ⁓ as it's been the theme of of season one of Frap Rap and tell us ⁓ Erin Petty: Yes, there you go. GDogggggggg: When did you start at Starcom and what was your role at the time? Erin Petty: So, well, I started at Starcom, I want to say it was probably 1999 or 1998. And I was, when I started, I was a supervisor and when I left, was associate media director. GDogggggggg: Okay. And ⁓ what account did you work on at the beginning, do you remember? Erin Petty: So it's funny, I think most people know me for Network Solutions. ⁓ And I was thinking back, I was like, wait, I think I worked on some other things. So when I first started, I worked on Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Back then it was Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. I think it's now just Morgan Stanley. And ⁓ I worked on some Disney business. I just remember that so specifically, like Disney. ⁓ multicultural business or something, very small account, and then pretty quickly got moved over to Network Solutions. GDogggggggg: Did you work on Nintendo at all? I feel like maybe you and Pranov might have worked on Nintendo. Now do I have that wrong? Erin Petty: I wanted to work on Nintendo, but no. I did not. No, no, no, wasn't on that group either. GDogggggggg: Okay. Okay. And US Army, you never did US Army? Okay. All right. Well, I'll keep going down the whole org chart till we hit one. Actually this so the org chart I have is from two thousand and five, and by this point I think you were already Yeah, so so we'll well I don't want to skip ahead too much. ⁓ I also have of course my trusty Roland X ⁓ from back in the day and wouldn't you know it? Erin Petty: ⁓ I'd laugh. ⁓ yeah. no way. So funny. Awesome. I love that. Yeah. Well, so I have to tell you, I have to tell you how I came to Starcom because it's kind of an interesting story. I came from Starcom. ⁓ GDogggggggg: I still have your card at the no title on here, which is interesting. You must have been in between ⁓ roles. ⁓ Erin Petty: regular, so traditional advertising. And I was on the GM business and starcom regular and I had like worked like crazy to get to associate director level and I had like this big fat office with like big window and I was doing these meetings with GM and they started bringing in these IP people into our meetings to like talk about digital advertising. I was like Who are these good looking, like crazy smart people coming into my meeting talking about things I don't know about? I'm like, I need to know them. I need to be one of them. And so somehow I got a meeting with Rashad. Ms. Rashad was like, before you come over, I want to meet with her, me. And so I remember distinctly sitting in his like, like huge cubicle, window cubicle. And he was like, okay, I'll bring you over. But one, you're going to come over as a supervisor. You're not going to have any direct reports. You will come over as an associate director. And I was like, okay. And then he's like, also that big fancy office you have, we all have cubicles. So you'll have a cubicle. And I was like, say what now? He's like, you'll be in a cubicle. I'm in a cubicle. Few people have offices, but most people have cubicles. So it was, think the reason why I didn't have a title was that they were sort of waiting until they could officially like give me the title title and make sure that I, you was okay with the scenario. And thankfully I was not that shallow. I was like, wait, I'm coming over if I'm losing my office and made the right decision and came to an amazing group. GDogggggggg: Yeah, because you got to be with all the good looking smart people. I love that. That that's such a glow up. Good time for me to sip from my mug here, ⁓ which the people who are watching on YouTube can see. ⁓ it says you are my favorite. So ⁓ cheers to you and I look forward to the apartment crawl at the end when we switch over to our ⁓ solo cups. Erin Petty: Yes, exactly. I love that! ⁓ ⁓ yay! GDogggggggg: So outside of ⁓ you know ⁓ trying to get into the the gr you know the group like what was it about those early days with internet, digital emerging that kind of made you say, Hey, I wanna you know, I w I wanna go into that? Like what what was compelling you about moving in that space? Erin Petty: Yeah, I mean, I really think there was something about that group where I just thought, you know, they're doing something that's very kind of innovative. And ⁓ somehow I just knew that that was going to be sort of the wave of the future. And honestly, a big part of it was like they're talking about things that I don't understand. And I'm kind of a lifelong learner. So I'm like, I I need to know this. need to understand this. ⁓ But it was also a lot like working at a startup, which was kind of cool. Starcom, traditional Starcom was very regimented and had all the rules and regulations and IP just felt really like startupy and cool and fun. So yeah. GDogggggggg: Yeah. And so ⁓ and then you went and worked on Morgan Stanley, speaking of rules and regulations. So ⁓ it was probably not the you know the the client where you could do the most experimentation. But do you remember some of what they were doing in the early days? I mean, were we just talking like banner ads, maybe some email list rentals to, you know, affluent individuals? You remember any of the playbook? Erin Petty: I don't remember a ton. My biggest memory is going with PJ McGregor and Marshall to the offices in New York in the World Trade Center, which was wild, ⁓ and giving a presentation in front of all these guys in suits and this big, huge conference room. And I was so insanely nervous. I think I did a terrible presentation. I wasn't talking loud enough. I kept forgetting to. moved the slide like PJ and Jeff kept going, speak up, speak up. And I was just like way too nervous. I unfortunately have not the best memory of working on that client. And then I don't think I worked much longer before Network Solutions came along and I got moved. GDogggggggg: And then NetSul, of course, was ⁓ probably the biggest spender at IP just in terms of pure dollars. ⁓ talk talk to us about that account and ⁓ I mean I certainly remember it. I think I I dedicated a whole a wing of the house I bought with Lisa to my commissions ⁓ from NetSol. So ⁓ God bless. ⁓ but yeah, t talk about that that account 'cause ⁓ it was it was massive. Erin Petty: Ha ha! It was huge and I actually think that was the count where I did get promoted to associate director because working on that business was grueling. The client, which I saw Jeff's episode and he mentioned Aggie Inteta. She was intense. I liked her a lot. ⁓ She liked me, but I remember distinctly like Chris Negron, Kathy, worked on the business with us and she... loved Chris and like so anytime we had to have tell her bad news and be like Tell Chris to tell her because she'll be like totally fine with it if Cathy says it ⁓ But she was very intense and she very rarely said thank you for things But I remember one time we did something I don't even remember what it was but she sent over an email and it like one sentence she was like Erin we are pleased with this and we were like GDogggggggg: Did you like print it out and hang it on your cube? Erin Petty: did. like hung it up in my cubicle like, ⁓ my gosh, she's like loving us now. ⁓ So yeah, it was it was intense, but really fun. I think we trauma bonded in the best way everybody who worked on that business on that business. GDogggggggg: Yeah. Well, and it was a huge team too. ⁓ again by O five. Actually no, still on here at O five and actually at this point it looked like ⁓ Steve Governale was running the business and he's actually gonna be our next guest after you, so keeping it keeping it in Texas. ⁓ so we'll get his perspective too when you hand it off the baton. But you know, compared to some of the other rows on the org charts, you can see there was like, you know, multiple managers, multiple associates, multiple ICs. I mean, you were just trafficking all sorts of ad units, ⁓ pr Erin Petty: ⁓ yeah. GDogggggggg: pretty much just plastering the web because back then it was the, you know, dot com gold rush and and Netzel sold domains and and helped you build websites and so pretty much their target was like anyone with a computer, right? Erin Petty: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I remember when we did like when we started doing power ads, guys, you guys were power, power. Okay. Remember when it like crashed their servers and like Aggie, the client just went completely nuts. So we ended up having to do pacing reports where literally like we would say, okay, on this day, you can only serve this many power ads on this day. And literally it was like day by day by day, we would give them a preview of what we and GDogggggggg: Yeah, yeah, great recall. Erin Petty: God bless Kevin Lang. He was the owner of the pacing reports. Super wicked smart dude. And I just remember that moment. was like, ⁓ my gosh, power ads were like crazy. GDogggggggg: Well and I remember getting that call that said we had to pause them and I was like, okay, ⁓ Lisa h ⁓ hold off on that ⁓ down payment here. We may we're having it. ⁓ but but the the the the the the the the thing with the power ad was we weren't launching ⁓ like a creative or a splash page. We were literally launching the NetSall site in its own window. And so it was literally like l you know, launching the site in a million different places on a million different machines and yes, I Erin Petty: Yeah. Right. Right. GDogggggggg: I think ⁓ we we may have overloaded the system. ⁓ so we had to kinda and this was before like ad servers had any sort of like automated, you know, ⁓ ability to to cap and and paste. So we had to kinda do it manually and yes, God bless Kevin Lang and we'll have to get him on the pod to t to talk about that and everything else. Erin Petty: Yeah. next Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, do, do. And the wild thing was they were giving us so much money. We were having a hard time spending it with particular websites, which is a good problem to have, but it was a problem. So it was really power ads that had the inventory for the budget that we were being given. it was crazy, crazy problem to GDogggggggg: Yeah, yeah. I mean and and that was the model of course for us at L and L ninety with the with the network was ⁓ amass as many, you know, small and large publishers as we can ⁓ to be able to create the reach and then you know you can start to whittle in, especially in the case of of someone like a network solutions that's very performance-based, you can just start to optimize, but you need to have a a wide enough net before you started your optimizations. Otherwise you're down to like one small placement on on one site. ⁓ and so that was kind of the the the trick back then. ⁓ all right, so then Erin Petty: Yeah. GDogggggggg: at what point did you end up ⁓ leaving the group and what was your next move? Erin Petty: So I love Starcom IP and I wanted to stay and I hate saying this knowing that so many people from Chicago are going to watch this and listen to this, but I will redeem myself in second. ⁓ I did not like Chicago. I was not happy in Chicago. ⁓ So I basically left just for a different quality of life. But what I learned is that I'm the type of person that doesn't love a big city. ⁓ And so I just... figured out that I love being way, way out, away from everyone. Where there's like cows and pastures and stuff like that. I'm just happier there. So that was the reason why I GDogggggggg: And did you go straight down to Dallas? Was that the move? Erin Petty: I started in Dallas. ⁓ So yeah, I was living in Dallas, also like kind of in a suburb. And then I had my daughter and realized that, you know, I wanted to move even further out. And so, you know, like where we are is really like a very small town and starting to change. But we like know all of our neighbors and all the kids are outside playing and running around the street, you know, barefoot bikes and stuff. So that was kind of ⁓ what we move to get closer to. GDogggggggg: Yeah. And, you know, of course the when you moved, you know, we're talking the pre COVID days, so there was not like a you know, ⁓ a a s a a templated work from home type of culture. So ⁓ were you having to like balance a a commute and and how did all that kind of work out? Erin Petty: Yeah, I know. So I've been really lucky that I've actually worked from home a good part of my career. So I'll just kind of I actually left marketing and advertising about about eight years ago. But when I was still doing that, I was I kind of bopped around on the sales side and on the client side and agency side. And a lot of those roles were remote, especially the sales roles. But I found I was just traveling way too much for my young daughter so I was looking for something to be closer to home and thankfully a lot of work from home roles so it's good. ⁓ I should probably say yeah I should probably say I actually worked for Steve Guvernalli at AT &T for a little stint so yeah that was that was really fun and then in one of my sales roles GDogggggggg: Yeah, so you're ⁓ an ⁓ once again an early pioneer. So did he move out there before you then? Erin Petty: No, after. So I was already here and I remember him talking to me about, you know, Texas, what's it like? I'm like, oh my gosh, love it. So yeah, he ended up moving out. And then in one of my sales roles at Turn, I worked for Wendy McGregor. So yeah, I had a few touch bases with IP folks along the way. GDogggggggg: Okay. Got it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's certainly a common theme that's come up in these is is how just that network and those bonds that were created ⁓ you know continued to pay pay you know, pay dividends for folks throughout throughout careers and life. And so so ⁓ and so what are you up to now? What ⁓ what what's what keeps you busy? What are you excited about looking ahead? Erin Petty: Yeah, so I mentioned I left marketing and advertising about eight years ago and I started ⁓ as a ⁓ technical program manager at WarnerMedia and that grew into a global technical or a global privacy compliance role across all of WarnerMedia's global brands. So, know, HBO Max, CNN, basically making sure that they're adhering to privacy legislation. And then Meta reached out to me and I ⁓ performed a similar role on Facebook app, which got into AI governance. And I left Meta the end of last year from the super intelligence lab, ⁓ got a very clear understanding that I don't want to help build super intelligent AI. ⁓ so I started doing some AI advocacy work, launched a consultancy. have about three clients where I'm helping them with AI compliance. ⁓ But I have some new career news that might be happening ⁓ pretty soon that I can't share just yet, but just watch the space, as they say. GDogggggggg: Alright, very exciting. I love a good teaser. ⁓ we're about I think on a three or four week delay on publishing these. ⁓ so maybe by the time this airs, ⁓ people can check your LinkedIn and ⁓ and get the updates. But very excited for you. And of course, it sounds like you're right in the midst of like this revolution and what people need to be thinking about. So certainly ⁓ the type of of skill set and approach that every company needs to be ⁓ focused on. So ⁓ good on you and yes, ⁓ we'll we will stay tuned. Erin Petty: Yeah. for sure. GDogggggggg: ⁓ before we get into our apartment crawl speed round, ⁓ d just any any fun memories, ⁓ any any stories you wanna share back from the IP days? Erin Petty: Yeah, well I'll say I was there at the Life's Too Short night. It was wild. It was awesome. But I won't share that one since Jeff shared it already. I think my favorite memory, have many, but one of my favorite is the time that none other than Gary Coleman was in our sales meeting. And I don't even remember what vendor brought them. Vogue or maybe you remember. UGO. UGO, yes. GDogggggggg: U G O. Yep. Yep. Dave Herman, I think, might have been there at the time. Erin Petty: into our sales meeting. Yes, and I just remember like us being in a meeting and at the time at Starcom, and they probably still have this, the conference rooms were like a solid wood door, but there was like a window in the middle. And I remember watching people walk by from the outside, they're just walking by and they glance over and they're like, wait a minute, is is that Gary Coleman in there? It was like the best. And then I think even afterwards he went on a boat cruise with us. And it was just so indicative of just how wild and random and awesome stock MIP was. It was just one of my favorites in the race. GDogggggggg: I love that. And I have the backstory there. ⁓ and actually I have a picture of he also came into the L90 office and I have a picture. We'll put that ⁓ there's a w we now have a website for this fancy show, so people can go to fraprap.com. ⁓ you can see the ⁓ org chart that I've been referencing in the episodes, and we'll post the picture of Gary Coleman at L90. so basically, if as I as I as it was told to me at the time, ⁓ he had fallen on some hard times financially, and ⁓ UGO, ⁓ they were like a gaming network, I think. And Erin Petty: Thanks. ⁓ cool. Right, right. GDogggggggg: They had helped him ⁓ basically auction off a bunch of his stuff to help make money, and then they paid him to go around and visit clients ⁓ as like, you know, just a celebrity endorser. And so ⁓ this and I remember that there was like some pre-meet like rules that we got. And it was one, you can't make him you don't ask him to say the famous ⁓ catch line, ⁓ what you talk about, Willis. He he was stick he would not do that and he would not enjoy when people ask. Erin Petty: Yes! GDogggggggg: ⁓ two, don't ask about his parents. ⁓ and I never found out why. I never of course asked him why. And three, don't get him talking about trains. For some reason he was obsessed with trains. And once he started talking about trains, it was like five minutes later and you couldn't ⁓ you know escape the conversation. So very, very random facts. But yes, it was ⁓ I got I'll we'll have to fact check this. Hopefully some people listening could tell us. Was it was it Dave Herman, UGO? Erin Petty: That's so funny. GDogggggggg: ⁓ and yes, I remember the boat cruise, I think might have been the SEMA boat cruise that they brought him on. And and you know, you know how they say like most celebrities, T V personalities, like when you see ⁓ in real life, you know, they're not as as big as as you think, like you know, like Tom Cruise, etc. I mean, you you kinda always knew that he was short, ⁓ but in real life he was really short. Erin Petty: That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He totally was. And it's funny you said that about his tagline. I remember in the sales meeting, we asked him to say it. And of course he wouldn't. But on the boat cruise, I think we probably need someone to fact check this. But I'm pretty sure we got him to say it. I want to say he actually said it. But maybe that was a fever. I'm not sure. But yeah. ⁓ GDogggggggg: Yeah. Get a couple of cocktails in ⁓ and y and all of a sudden the rules ⁓ go out the window. That's awesome. Great memory. Good good pull there. ⁓ okay. Are you ready for our apartment crawl? Erin Petty: I am! GDogggggggg: All right, so shout out to our producer Rob McAvelly who always dubs in some nice music here. We've got our solo cups and ⁓ my goodness, I see we've got this isn't the the standard red solo issue, ⁓ Aaron. What you got? Is that ⁓ a pink for petty? Erin Petty: Yes. It is a pink solo cup. It was literally all I had in the house, but I think pretty young brand for Petty and Pussy. GDogggggggg: It sure is. ⁓ all right. Well cheers. ⁓ so these we're just gonna do speed round ⁓ and quick answers. ⁓ starting with and this will end up being the title of the episode, what was your handle on AOL and Sid Messenger? Erin Petty: Thank Okay. I think it was something really boring and lame like Petty E. Sorry. GDogggggggg: Petty E okay. Well no, that's good. I mean that means you got in early because you didn't have to add like, you know, eight Ps or a random numbers at the end. All right. Petty E. ⁓ who was your first boss at IP? Erin Petty: So I thought it was Shelby, but once I started really thinking through it, it was PJ and Marshall. GDogggggggg: Okay. ⁓ who is your favorite client? Erin Petty: It was definitely Network Solutions and again as I mentioned, Aggie, she was tough but she was fair and I learned a lot from her. So yeah, I loved working with her. GDogggggggg: Might be interesting ⁓ as like a addendum to the season if we get some of the clients on ⁓ to to dish on on the Starcom ⁓ I peeps. ⁓ you I also remember Melanie Mitchell ⁓ from Network Solutions. I think ⁓ she she was I think ⁓ a little yeah, she was a little more junior when she started, but then I think by the end of it she was like running the running the business. ⁓ so ⁓ shout out to Melanie too. ⁓ okay, if you could have worked on any client other than the ones you were on, who would you have liked to have worked on? Erin Petty: Yes, yes, yes, I remember. Yeah, yeah. For sure Nintendo. I thought they just looked like they had the most fun. They had the coolest like stuff that they got to go to and do and just, you know, business and it was fun. But looked like a lot fun. I think he did. I think he did. Yeah. GDogggggggg: Yeah. Maybe Govern Alley worked on that. We'll have to check with him when we when we get him up next. Okay, cool. Yeah. ⁓ all right. ⁓ present company excluded. ⁓ who was your favorite vendor? Erin Petty: Probably Maddie Matera at the time, but I think May now. She's just, you know, always a blast, always fun to hang with. So yeah, I'm talking Maddie. Oh, good. GDogggggggg: Shout out Maddie. I know she's been listening too, because she's been commenting ⁓ on LinkedIn. So she'll be excited. She'll be excited to hear that answer. talk to you ⁓ so you mentioned ⁓ you have a daughter. tell us about her. What is she into? ⁓ and anything else you want to share on the on the home front. Erin Petty: Yeah, I she's the light of my life. She's 13 years old. Her name is Fallon and ⁓ she is theater kid in all her school theater productions. She plays piano. She's an amazing artist and actually has a pet portrait business. So if anybody's interested in getting a pet portrait done, she's really, really good. And she's learning to play drums. which is kind of fun and we're negotiating the possibility of having drums in the house in a way that would not make me want to move out of it. GDogggggggg: That's awesome. Maybe maybe a she shed out in back where she can ⁓ do her drums. ⁓ that's awesome. ⁓ so doesn't suck she's on the pre ⁓ pre advertising and media track. ⁓ do do can you see her ending up ⁓ in an agency someday? Erin Petty: Maybe. Yes, ⁓ She's, she's, well, if AI doesn't take all the creative jobs, ⁓ you know, maybe, but she is truly, truly a creative, which is amazing to me because I couldn't draw a straight line with the ruler, but she is just so artistic and creative. So I could see maybe on that side if AI doesn't take over all that work. GDogggggggg: That's awesome. ⁓ I mean she is I I'm sure this isn't why you picked the name, but there is ⁓ an ad agency called Fallon that, you know, so so it's kinda in her, you know, it's in it's in there somewhere if we can bring it out. ⁓ and what are you most excited about for the year ahead? Erin Petty: I. There. Yes. Yes. I think so I'm doing, as I mentioned, I'm doing a lot with AI governance and that is just an area that just continues to grow and be just fascinating and keeping an eye on the legislation and particularly the new state legislation around chat bots and you know whether chat bots can, you know, act like certain ways with with miners, having some regulation around that is so exciting. It makes me so happy. And ⁓ I'm just looking forward to doing more in that space and making sure that these AI systems are doing right by us as humans. GDogggggggg: Right on. ⁓ so I can pretty much guarantee that you will be one of one in answering the question about what are you excited about with the answer AI governance. That no one ever ⁓ but ⁓ but no well well done. It's it's a great niche and and obviously well needed. ⁓ all right. So now ⁓ we get to close the show. It's time for the frap wrap. So this is ⁓ paying homage to ⁓ back in the day at Cozy. Erin Petty: This is how lame and boring I am. GDogggggggg: I would wrap off the top of the dome for each person that came. Of course, when we were in person I could pick up on, you know, cues about what's going on in the room. We have to kind of manufacture it a little bit here. So do you have something you can write with and can you give me a few ⁓ keywords to work in here? Erin Petty: I have props, so I have props. Yeah, no, it's not nostalgic props, but at it'll maybe I'll help something. OK, let's see if you can see. GDogggggggg: ⁓ you brought props. Okay, all right. I thought that was just gonna be a vocal thing, but ⁓ well. Okay. All good. And and ⁓ the ⁓ okay, ⁓ here we go. ⁓ EP in the place to be with AG, and we gonna do it all the way, yay, yee. Erin Petty: you GDogggggggg: We gonna do it like our girl Beyonce. What would she do? I don't know. She'd probably twirl. She's the cowgirl now, doing those country albums in Dallas. You know we ain't mad at it. We pull it up, it's the Anna style. We're gonna get the profile with the sunglasses, working it back. Words like molasses. My words come out, the nouns and the verbs. I don't mean to shout, but I'll tell you what it's all about. We hold the cup, we say, what's up, what's up? You know what you think, girls pretty in pink. E P. Aaron Petty, Palms and Sweaty, Mom Spaghetti, we going down cause we ready. It's been fun having you here. We gotta do it again and this is clear. We'll say that for another day. AI in the place. Governance is today. Yay! Erin Petty: Great! GDogggggggg: Well done. ⁓ that was awesome. I I wanted to go into so so ⁓ I actually got to see Beyonce ⁓ in Paris ⁓ last summer. And ⁓ she brought out Miley ⁓ for that one song they do together, ⁓ Two Most Wanted. ⁓ it was unbelievable. They she went on like three hours late. ⁓ the French are not the most ⁓ patient ⁓ of crowds. Erin Petty: Yeah. ⁓ wow. Yes. GDogggggggg: But ⁓ we waited out. It was worth it it was unbelievable. ⁓ she puts on a great show. And that's a great mantra. What what would Beyonce do? Erin Petty: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was. And so I have to tell you, so as part of my sales stint, I worked in sales for Essence magazine. And so I got a chance to kind of like be around the family, not the family, but be around them a little bit like the Essence Festival when she had lined. And I remember one time I was like in a meeting at Essence and I. been in a previous conference room and I'd left my purse in there. So I go back to go get my purse and I look in the window and it's Beyonce and her dad meeting with the publisher of Essence in the meeting. And I was like, need my purse, like my phone's in there. And I'm like, you can't just like knock on the door and be like, ⁓ can I get my purse? So it was, do you wanna walk in there? I did not, I went and got my boss and my boss did it. GDogggggggg: Well what would Beyonce do? She'd walk right in there. Erin Petty: for me, so I just got a lot of... GDogggggggg: I love it. That reminds me last last story and then we can really ⁓ close it out. But so back in the day, so so L ninety was trying to represent Britney Spears as she was launching her own website, Britney Spears.com, and her mom was her manager and we had the the the two of them in the office, Keith Kaplan I think was the one meeting with them. Shout out to Cappy. and I don't think we got the business. I actually think they went to DoubleClick, which is our big competitor ⁓ at the time. Erin Petty: Bye. Yeah. ⁓ yeah? GDogggggggg: ⁓ they wanted some, you know, what at the time was ⁓ unrealistic, crazy, you know, guarantees ⁓ for ad revenue and stuff. And you know, we I mean she was already on you know on the rise, but obviously we didn't know how big she'd become and what kind of CPMs ⁓ we could get for that inventory. So all right. Well, ⁓ Aaron, this was awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Appreciate you. Keep keep doing your thing, keep doing whatever Beyonce would do. Erin Petty: Thank you. Yes! GDogggggggg: ⁓ and ⁓ shout out to Fallon too. Can't wait to see ⁓ what what she does in the future. Erin Petty: Awesome. Thank you so much. We'll talk soon. Bye. GDogggggggg: Care.