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Episode 15: Arielle Garcia on the Omnicom IPG merger and agencies competing with big tech
00:32:18
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- [00:00]
Ariel Garcia
Foreign.
- [00:10]
Alan Chappelle
Welcome to the Monopoly Report. The Monopoly Report is dedicated to chronicling and analyzing the impact of antitrust and other regulations on the global advertising economy. In this past week's newsletter, I went in a bit on TikTok and the TikTok ban that apparently was only temporary and some of the impacts of how that entire saga seems to be playing out in the ad space. So please check that out. If you are new to the Monopoly Report, you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Monopoly Market tv and you can check out all the Monopoly Report podcasts @monopoly report pod.com I'm Alan Chappelle. This week my guest is Ariel Garcia, the CEO at Check by Ads, the digital advertising watchdog. Ariel spent over a decade in operations and compliance and privacy roles at UM Worldwide, culminating in several years at the agency's chief Privacy Officer. I'm excited to get Ariel's thoughts on the proposed merger between UM's parent company, IPG and Omnicom. And just an open invite to anybody at either of those holding companies, if they want to come on and give it a slightly different perspective, it would be welcome. Hey, Ariel, thanks for coming on the pod. How are you?
- [01:20]
Ariel Garcia
Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.
- [01:22]
Alan Chappelle
Well, great. I'm looking forward to what I think is going to be a fantastic discussion. So I wanted to talk today about the proposed merger between IPG and Omnicom, and I've seen some of your posts on social media where you've been a bit critical of the merger, and I wanted to break down some of that criticism. And so the first category would be around operational challenges. First is cost reductions. They floated the idea of 750 million in cost savings. I guess my first question is, does that seem like a viable number to you?
- [01:53]
Ariel Garcia
I mean, sure, right? If you take a look at their broader plan and not to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but where they're saying the synergies are going to come from, it's offshoring, near shoring, obviously, the back office roles and office space. But then also they envision the synergies being driven by their adoption of AI, Right. So sure, if they're going to evolve into a world where everything's automated and they're running a true platform model in their minds, like they don't need very many people. Right. If you're centralizing investment decisions because you've already made partner commitments, for example, then there's not much human intervention that's needed. So, yeah, I think, you know, it depends on what direction they're trying to go in, but they can absolutely keep trimming. If they're not going to be in the service business anymore.
- [02:41]
Alan Chappelle
I always thought that was sort of their bread and butter was being in the service business. And so stripping it down to nothing when you're already, I think by most accounts cutting things to the bone seems like a challenging long term strategy.
- [02:53]
Ariel Garcia
No, I mean, that's exactly right. Right. If we're talking about whether it can be done, it can be done. If we're talking about what it'll mean for client attrition, that's a completely different question. You know, I've talked a lot about how the holding company model has kind of devolved and, and they've rendered themselves commodities and then now, now that they're a commodity and the only differentiator is costs. Like now they're upset that they're being pressured on cost. Right. So I think that this over indexing on how much reduction people synergy they can find is just an extension of that kind of de evolution. What the differentiator of agencies used to be was highly dependent on people and the service that was provided to clients and the degree to which they helped them grow.
- [03:42]
C
Right.
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Ariel Garcia
But if instead they're resigning themselves or indeed barreling forward with intention to a world where cost is the differentiator, then you know, they can trim all they want. I don't know that they'll be able to keep clients once they win them though.
- [03:55]
Alan Chappelle
And, and I guess the, the answer to the first question may lead me to my second question, which is around, you know, management. I mean, everybody that I've ever known who's worked in an agency for, for even 10 minutes know that there's kind of a huge herding cats problem there where, you know, creative people, smart creative people are usually not great at being told what to do. And so the idea of integrating these two very large companies just seems to be like on its face, a little bit of a challenge.
- [04:23]
Ariel Garcia
No, there's a ton at play there. Right. Because yes, there's the inherent herding cats issue and the fact that you're within a holding company, you're working across many specialty units. There's varying degrees of integration depending on how the commercials are set up. You also have like politics and PNL cannibalization. Right. So there's a lot that's happening there from kind of the top down. And then there's just the reality of as they've been laying people off as talent, has kind of seen the writing on the wall. There's also inevitably a bit of a brain drain that happens. Right. And so what you have left are people that are kind of falling in line and keeping the machine going, which is not necessarily providing the degrees of service that clients are necessarily accustomed to either, which creates further friction. Right. So there's, there's a lot happening here. Not to mention obviously you now will have two entities merging where there's been rolling layoffs after over a series of years. Right. So morale is going to be at a low, competition is going to be high, egos are going to be warring. So it's just. Yeah, it'll, it'll be fascinating to watch. I can't be more grateful to watch from, from the outside.
- [05:38]
Alan Chappelle
Yeah, I can, I can imagine. So one of the things being touted is sort of the crown jewel. And you can look at what you know, Publish has done with Epsilon and you know, it's the data assets. And so, you know, IPG purchased Axiom back in 2018. Omnicom acquired Flywheel, what in 2023. You know, actually I'm just curious, did you have a role in some of the Axiom integration and you know, what, what you know, non confidential insights can you draw?
- [06:04]
Ariel Garcia
Yeah, so what I can share is around the time of the Axiom acquisition, it was right around then when I like unofficially started to be involved in privacy. I didn't take on a privacy role until 2019, unofficially, 2020, officially. However, what's interesting about the vantage point that I had is I got to see both sides. So I was very much in the room. As you know, the integration process was beginning and there were discussions about how to like, what the offerings would be and how to position things to clients. I don't know that there's much I can share specific to things like those discussions. But one thing I'll say is like one of the critiques I've heard or read in some of the articles about this is that perhaps IPG just didn't apply as much pressure, let's say as Publicis, for example, around the adoption of Epsilon.
- [06:56]
C
Right.
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Ariel Garcia
That IPG wasn't kind of pushing Axiom as much. I think Publicis has a fundamentally different model offering products which thereby opens them up to more potential beyond just like kind of shoving it down their clients throats. So there's a fundamental difference. Right, because when Publicist acquired Epsilon, they acquired an ad tech platform. They, they operate an ad exchange. They also serve publishers more akin to Google. Right. That's not the same as the asset that IPG acquired, which was like the non valuable part of Liveramp.
- [07:30]
Alan Chappelle
So why is Axiom being referred to as a provider of first party data? That always seems sort of confusing to me.
- [07:37]
Ariel Garcia
It's been confusing to me since 2018. So here's the thing. And again, I've read what other people have said on this that have been kind of playing devil's advocate to what I've been saying. What I've been saying is exactly what you just said kind of nodded to acquiring a third party data aggregator does not make one an owner of first party data. And some people said, I was reading, I think it was an article in Digiday from, from a couple of weeks ago and someone said something to the effect of third party data can be first party if you squint hard enough. And I get it, like this stuff is not. There's a lot of ambiguity and creative interpretations and all of that. But I believe that that person was referencing online data, like data that's collected via tags and pixels and things like that, where there is somewhat more ambiguity around who owns the tech, is the data being sold to the data broker in that instance, at which point they can take a position that they're a first party in that transaction. There's a lot of ambiguity there. But we're talking about the asset that was required was predominantly third party data aggregator, mostly of offline data and then licensed data. Right. So I don't think that there's much ambiguity within that. And you know, now that we all. We've also seen there's ongoing litigation between Adstra and Kineso regarding their identity solution. So a lot is coming out in the wash, which makes it easier to talk about this stuff out loud. Right. But if we're pretending that there's some like sophisticated first party data based identity capability, there's a lot of stuff out there that, that is now in the public domain. That should draw Irene. I'll throw in a fun fact. I just saw just before we got on this call that Omnicom was named as an additional defendant in a ongoing litigation by Compass against Flywheel. So it seems like, I don't know, maybe Omnicom's just going around and buying up entities that are in IP theft litigation. I'm not really sure what.
- [09:38]
Alan Chappelle
Well, you can certainly get a better price if you were doing that. Hypothetically, if they did that, maybe you get a litigation discount or something.
- [09:45]
Ariel Garcia
I mean, granted, like when IPG acquired Axiom, it was like immediately after, in the throes of the fallout of Cambridge Analytica, when Facebook had turned off partner categories, which is what caused their share prices to tank. So, you know, this type of thing, it's not like it's unprecedented, but I think it's a. Yeah, it's definitely an interesting move by Omnicom.
- [10:05]
Alan Chappelle
And I think, you know, one of the reasons they're touting data as first party data is that's a code to the marketplace that it is two things, that it is privacy safe and that it is higher quality. And so, and I'm not here to disparage axiom, but you know, it sort of feels a little disingenuous to hold that out as something that it is not. And one of the inherent challenges, I think within the larger, you know, digital media marketplace is that there's a whole bunch of folks out there holding out their data as being, you know, first party when clearly it is not. I saw a podcast digiday too. So we both, I guess are big fans of Digiday. Shout out to to Ronan. But Jonathan Nelson of Omnicom had claimed that the agency, and I'm air quot here own the impression data, the ads they serve and not to pick on him. But that sort of struck me because my understanding is how this is supposed to work is that the advertiser owns that impression data. Am I not thinking about this the right way?
- [11:01]
Ariel Garcia
It's interesting and your assumption is the same as my assumption and slash but you see a ton when you're actually, and I'm sure this is not new to you when you work in this space around how things are defined. Like if you're working with a media vendor on IB standard T's and C's. That kind of is very prescriptive about IO data versus performance data. The differences in ownership and usage rights therein. I've seen, particularly when CCPA was taking effect and then cpra, that publishers were their desired terms were not aligned.
- [11:39]
C
Right.
- [11:40]
Ariel Garcia
Like some of them were trying to explicitly require the agency to honor opt outs they pass down and things like that, which just go to show that there's a. There is a legitimate variety of both interpretations as well as contractual terms that exist. That being said, as between the publisher and the platform it's run through and the advertiser, there's some ambiguity as to the agency's ownership of impression data. I, I have no idea what their position would be and what client would write a contract that allows for that. That simply doesn't make sense to me.
- [12:18]
Alan Chappelle
Yeah, and it becomes very weird. I mean having sat across the table from a bunch of holding Companies over the years, every single one of them starts from the idea that, oh, wait a minute, this isn't our responsibility, we have nothing to do with this. But that's directly counter to the idea that we own the data. And I think what's driving the we own the data or what's partly driving it is the competition with the tech giants. Because if you're meta or you're goog, for the most part you can say, yeah, we own this data, therefore we can do whatever we want with the data to help you, Mr. And Mrs. Advertiser, to achieve your goals. So one of the arguments for this acquisition of that it places the combined entity in a better position to compete going forward. And so I guess the operative question in my mind is like, well, okay, compete with whom? How should the holding companies be thinking about in terms of their relationships with and positioning themselves against Google, Facebook, TikTok and others in big tech? Let's just kind of break that down. Let's start with data.
- [13:20]
Ariel Garcia
Yeah, I mean, well, I, I guess let's take a half a step back because this is probably the most confusing part of all of the press around this acquisition that I've seen to your point. This acquisition, positioning them to compete with big tech, it implies that they're competing with big tech, which is confusing on its face. Even more confusing when you see some of the deals that they engage in with these big tech companies. And to your point, on the data side of this, a data strategy moving forward that is durable. It's always been reliant on first party data and smart partnerships. I am not understanding the world in which an agency is going to ever get scale in a unique data asset that's sufficient to compete on data alone with these big tech companies. But data is data. Like the way that that data is activated and put to use for the client was always the sweet spot for agencies. I don't know that there is a need to quote, unquote, compete with these companies on just amassing a bunch of data and calling it first party.
- [14:33]
Alan Chappelle
Okay, so no, that makes sense. And so, okay, we say, well, data, that's going to be a trouble differentiating yourself. And so let's go to, you know, to media. You know, are the holding companies adding value? You know, are they adding value helping an Advertiser Buy on YouTube and Facebook? And just more generally, how are they differentiating themselves?
- [14:50]
Ariel Garcia
Oh, I just remembered it. One more thing I'll say on the data front because even when we're talking about these big platforms that have access to all of this data, they're still the same type of posturing. It's worth mentioning that happens with these companies. Like I think when the average marketer thinks about the wealth of first party data that Google has, there's also a tendency to forget that a lot of their data is acquired through like tracking.
- [15:13]
C
Right.
- [15:13]
Ariel Garcia
It's not necessary. It's not. Yes, it can be considered, this is the one where it can be considered first party, if you squint. But in terms of like, first party is a proxy for accuracy and fidelity and quality. That's not necessarily the case. Right. But it does provide them good air cover and helps their narrative. So on the media side of things, I would say that a good way to compete with big tech is to not accept their deals to push their products. Like this is, this is where I start to get really confused. Right. Because the actual relationship between holding company agencies and a lot of these companies, these big tech ones and other advertising technology vendors is increasingly one where they're engaged in principal trading and reselling media. They're engaged in negotiating deals and agreeing to certain spend thresholds. Right. So this was something, this is something I talked about a lot. When you see, let's say, how convenient would it be for Google to incentivize adoption of their AI powered performance max product where the agency is like, yeah, sure, like I get some money for pushing this product. Wonderful. And in the process they're kind of sitting there digging their own grave and then they're going to turn around and say that we're doing this acquisition to compete with them. It's just disingenuous to me. I don't think that there's any reality to the sentiment that this acquisition will help them compete with big tech on media. I've simply seen no indication that that is what they're interested in doing. They're a lot more interested in the near term gains from these incremental revenue streams that are not related directly to FTE based client fees.
- [16:55]
Alan Chappelle
That makes sense. And if you just think about how Google's longer term strategy seems to be pushing traffic away from what we used to call the open Internet and more towards their owned and operated. So if anything, that would seemingly exacerbate that set of challenges for the agencies because at least at one point they were able to differentiate themselves and like, well, you know, outside of the walled gardens we can be very helpful. And to the extent that the outside of the walled gardens become smaller and smaller, you know, query whether that's still true.
- [17:25]
Ariel Garcia
So there's that and then again like when you think about the fact. So part of the way that they can do that, I know I'm like a broken record on performance max, but it's, it's like kind of a genius evil plan, right? Because not only can they just quietly pull levers and direct more or less to O and O depending on what suits them on, on Google side, but they're also kind of conditioning advertisers to inquire less about where their ads go. Like, you don't have to worry about that. Our AI will make the right decisions for you. And in the process they're also kind of conditioning advertisers to believe that they don't need their media agency. And instead of using this as an opportunity to highlight that these capabilities aren't all they're cracked up to be. And it actually takes close stewardship of even these AI powered campaigns to not have brand ads end up in all sorts of odd places. Agencies instead are talking up performance max because they probably have near term targets to hit.
- [18:21]
C
Right.
- [18:22]
Ariel Garcia
So it's all kind of backwards.
- [18:24]
Alan Chappelle
Well, I mean that's sort of the genius of particularly Google. I mean they've been able to, you know, if they wet enough people's beaks in the ecosystem, then they became you. It's, boy, it's just, it makes it really, really challenging ultimately to compete with them. So, but we, we talked about data and media, but artificial intelligence is one of the things they keep throwing out there. It's like, is that a way for the agencies really to differentiate themselves? I mean, Google's got a couple of AI products. I, I've looked at what Meta's created and like, you know, is an agency really competing with those tools?
- [18:57]
Ariel Garcia
Look, I've been out of the agency game for a little bit now, but back in my day, the way that billing reconciliation was done as recently as 2023 involved a bunch of manual data files being pulled by various teams and combined in Excel.
- [19:15]
C
Right.
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Ariel Garcia
Like so when you see all of these press releases and all of the foreshadowing to investors about this potential for AI, it's difficult to process this as a real thing. But I will say that like the use cases I've seen predominantly, and I'm going to speak specifically to the media side because I think on the creative side there are differences from what I'm about to say.
- [19:42]
C
Right?
- [19:43]
Ariel Garcia
But on the media side of things, most use cases that are intelligible, that are out there are relating to efficiency and making manual tasks not manual anymore. And I've been confused about how that translates into a growth strategy. Like cost savings is not a growth strategy. Cost savings is not a differentiator. Again, unless you're resigning yourself to only competing on cost, in which case don't complain when you're facing pressure from procurement. Right. But I think we'd be a long way off and pigs may fly before we see AI as a true differentiator. For agencies. I think they'll do some shiny stuff that they'll pull together for a pitch and then it collects dust in a corner somewhere. But most of the use cases are really going to be related to driving efficiency. And even with that, I still have questions whenever I read this stuff about how much of it is AI driven or the concurrent offshoring frenzy that's actually driving the efficiency. So obviously it's no secret that I'm skeptical here, but I'm definitely skeptical about AI benefits. Yeah.
- [20:56]
Alan Chappelle
And even on the creative side, I almost just wonder if they would have been better off buying a Rembrandt or, you know, some, some really cool technology company that allows you to insert creatives in a slightly different way like that. To me, I go, oh, I get that. Okay, you can scale that. That makes sense to me.
- [21:11]
Ariel Garcia
You just reminded me of another thing I was going to say because again, we're talking about competing with big tech here. Both Omnicom and IPG have inked like deals. I forget if they're exclusive with Google to use their AI for something. So codependency and competition are kind of like mutually exclusive, I think. And so, yes, that, that part makes it even more difficult to understand. But yes, I hear you, I agree. And it's not dissimilar to my position on the data piece too. Like I've, I've been calling axiom $2.3 billion paperweight. Like now it's just kind of getting passed on to, to Omnicom. But if it is truly an aggregator of third party data, if their identity solution has abstract claims is based on borrowed data, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to just license the data? What exactly is worth spending all of this money and going through the pains of integration?
- [22:04]
Alan Chappelle
Yeah, it's a fair question. We've talked a bunch of the Monopoly report about Google's trials and tribulations and their antitrust issues. So let's speculate here. If all or part of Google's ad tech stack gets divested, does that help the holding companies compete more generally? Does that have an impact in all this?
- [22:24]
Ariel Garcia
It's difficult to see it having a massive impact. Because even in a world where divestiture occurs, by any account, the resulting companies would still be big, have leverage, be able to pull together some nice incentive deals for agencies. Still, their AI based products would still exist. I think yes, overall, reducing Google's dominance over the ecosystem as a whole increases competition in the ecosystem. But do I think that this alone would have like a marked difference on the holding company's ability to compete? Not really. I think their ability to compete and to stay, I have a hard time even saying compete with big tech, but to stay relevant. Their ability to stay relevant wholly depends on whether they continue to try to copy Google's serve both sides model. Like there are things that only work when you're a monopolist, right? And playing both sides and doing things with impunity. That's kind of one of those things. Like not worrying about what your customers think. That's one of those things. So if holding companies continue down that path, they're going to become irrelevant very quickly. With the exception of the very, very few biggest spending clients that have sufficient leverage to make holding companies work for them. I don't know that that changes much. Irrespective of what happens with Google, it's solely a strategic decision that lies with the holding companies. And I've seen no indication that anyone has any intention of reversing course here and going back to what they were good at.
- [24:01]
Alan Chappelle
So we've talked mostly about what the holding company shouldn't be doing to compete with big tech. Do you have any suggestions for things that they should be at least considering as they look to compete going forward?
- [24:13]
Ariel Garcia
Yeah, sure. So look, I guess this was like kind of a few years ago. Everything kind of ebbs and flows and goes in phases. But a few years ago the big friction within holding company agencies was that the consultancies like Accenture were going to take over.
- [24:30]
C
Right?
- [24:31]
Ariel Garcia
That's where they perceive there to be a competitive threat. And so a lot of their strategy and their effort was focused around positioning themselves as strategic business partners to clients and opening up the aperture on what they can help clients with data can enhance and refine that. But if you abandon the strategic partnership ambition and you only have the product ambition, you make yourself a vendor instead of a true partner. In my view, that path, that path to be a strategic business partner to clients was the right one. Not only from a sustainable business perspective, just like the ability to maintain clients and not just win them, but also in terms of the growth opportunity. Because, for example, I remember having Discussions like this. When it comes to privacy, it's no surprise that privacy in the ad tech sphere, it's probably one of the most, if not the most complex disciplines, right? So as you would talk to clients about this, it was inevitable that their agency, if their agency had a good privacy team, was leaps and bounds ahead of where their organization was from a privacy standpoint. And so you had clients that were looking to us for guidance for increasingly complex things. Right. When you apply that beyond the privacy context, there's growth beyond the marketing budget.
- [26:06]
C
Right?
- [26:06]
Ariel Garcia
Like you start to expand share of wallet as well. So it's something where you're delivering more value to clients. Your goal is to help them grow. You have a commercial model that's aligned to that and you have the opportunity to tap into budget that is truly net new, that's truly incremental. That to me is the right path. You can't only pursue the data ambitions and the tech ambitions without actually being the agent, right? Going back to being the agent that acts on your client's behalf because that's where the magic was.
- [26:37]
Alan Chappelle
So shifting gears a little bit, I know you were there just about every day, if not every day during the recent Google Ad Tech trial and first, mad props there because I don't think I have the attention span to sit through that kind of thing without a device for that long. And the coverage was fantastic as well. But, but I'm just curious, you know, what's your biggest takeaway or prediction? Judge Brinkhama is supposed to come out with a decision any day now. I actually thought it was going to be the week of the January 20th, but what's your prediction about how that decision is going to play out?
- [27:09]
Ariel Garcia
It was pretty evident to me that on the ad exchange and on the ad server, the DOJ would, would be successful. Like I, I have, I, I would be surprised if they're not successful both in the tie in claim and in the monopolization claims. The part that I am less convinced about is the ad network, right. So I'm not sure which way the Google Ads piece of this will land, but I also have questions about whether it actually impacts much because even in, in the DOJ's initial complaint and the remedies they were stating that they were seeking was at a minimum a sell off of the sell side of their ad tech business. So to me, like the ad network piece was important as a narrative tool. It allowed for the storytelling around search and how their monopoly in search led to their dominance in the ad network business, which led to everything else. Right. But yeah, that's. That's kind of where my head is at also because of how delayed this seems to be. I know it's like not even that long, but knowing this judge and her appetite for speed, I'm wondering if at this point, like, could there be settlement discussions happening? Like, would that even. This is a question for you, actually, would that even procedurally impact things? Like, is there an ability for the DOJ to say, hey, like, we're in settlement talks and so can we slow down this decision? Is that a thing or does not? Is that not how things work?
- [28:40]
Alan Chappelle
Everybody I talk to who has direct knowledge of how this stuff is supposed to work has told me absolutely not. There is no way in the world that this decision has been delayed pursuant to settlement discussions. That said, there's a couple of things just to keep in mind here. The first thing is the Competition of Markets Authority has eight months ago decided to go off and wander in the desert and we haven't really heard from them. That's number one. Number two, we had been hearing as early as November that there was supposed to be some big announcement from the European Commission pertaining to Google and competition, and that seems to have not gone anywhere. And then number three, Judge Brinkoma. Mad props to Judge Brinkama because she has beaten by a mile every single deadline that she had set. Nonetheless, we're what, four or five weeks past the self imposed deadline for getting a decision done. So the conspiracy theorist inside me has to wonder if the regular rules don't necessarily apply to Google. And boy, you and I could spend an entire podcast sharing examples, at least within our own little industry, of how those rules don't apply to them in so many other contexts. So that was a little bit of a filibuster, but that's how I'm thinking about this.
- [30:00]
Ariel Garcia
I mean, sounds like we're in the same confused headspace, which is fair.
- [30:05]
Alan Chappelle
Yeah. So I got one more question for you and I asked this of most of the guests who come on the Monopoly Report pod. What is your secret or semi secret hobby or passion that you enjoy?
- [30:17]
Ariel Garcia
Yeah. So mine is weightlifting and in particular powerlifting. So last year I hit 400 pound PR on my deadlift, which was huge. I never had a goal to get to 400, to be honest. And I am, I refuse to have a goal to get to 500 because risk to reward ratio. So we're slowing down and doing some other styles of lifting programs right now to. Instead of like chasing numbers until I hurt myself. But. But yeah, I Love powerlifting. I love being able to strive to lift more and to do it. And also, just like, starting your day, picking up something really, really heavy makes the rest of the day feel easy.
- [31:02]
Alan Chappelle
So do you combine that with yoga?
- [31:06]
Ariel Garcia
No.
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Alan Chappelle
Or is it how much debt is deadlifting itself? Are you the equivalent of do you remember Hans and Franz? Or are you closer to Patrick Swayze?
- [31:15]
Ariel Garcia
Typically, we change our. I say we. My husband and I do this together. We built a garage gym during the pandemic. Now we recently signed up for a gym because of what I said. I'm like, I need to have access to some variety here if I'm not chasing numbers just to keep it fun. But we lift, like, five or six days a week, and we're always following a program where it's like, when it's powerlifting, focus. We'll have one day that's bench, one that's deadlift, one that's squat, and then rinse and repeat kind of. But we do some cardio outside of that. But no, it's like very, very, very lifting, focused.
- [31:48]
Alan Chappelle
Ah, very cool. All right, well, we're going to end it there. Ariel Garcia, thank you so much for coming on the pod. This was a lot of fun.
- [31:54]
Ariel Garcia
Thank you for having me.
- [31:57]
Alan Chappelle
That was a great conversation. Ariel always brings a unique perspective. We've got a bunch of other fantastic guests coming up in the Monopoly Report podcast over the next few weeks. Please subscribe to the show@monopolyreportpod.com or on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.