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Robert Berkeley  0:06  

As spring comes to the Midwest, and the corn starts to peek through the soil, we're ready to bask in the welcome sSunshine of another episode of Inside Jjobs. The podcast hosted by me, Robert Berkeley  barchi., just for you., anyone who works at or alongside in house agencies brought to you in association with I have the In House Agency Forum. We meet creative leaders who work directly for brands, learn about how they got to where they did and try to understand what drives them. Today on Inside Jobs, we’re out in the Corn Belt, learning how a farmer planted a seed that became an insurance giant with a reputation as big as the horizon is wide. Our guest Mark Gibson will tell us how he journeyed from newspaper reporter to head of Creative Services for $37 billion Corporation while keeping things true to their home values. Attracting talent when you're outside the cities isn't always easy unless you have something special. The first person I encountered during this recording was Glenn, audio production engineer at State Farm who has us well under control.

Glenn  1:11  

All right. All right, gentlemen, I'm ready to go. I am recording and I'm going to turn my mic off And 

Robert Berkeley  1:17  

iI'll just be listening if you need me. Okay, Glenn, thank you very much. So you've got you've got a good team there. Mark with Glenn and Steve.,

Mark Gibson  1:26  

I have an outstanding team. aAnd they are they are perfectionists and that said in the term of endearment and passion for what they do. So they they all do a great job. aAnd they take their job very seriously. And we're very fortunate to have them.

Robert Berkeley  1:44  

I think it's always good to start a podcast flattering the audio team.  and tThere's really no point doing it at the end.

Mark Gibson  1:51  

That's right, I would agree. No, they they are there's some of the best and we're fortunate to have them.

Robert Berkeley  1:58  

So I'm gonna find out how how it came to be that you've got them where you are, because you're not in Chicago, and you're not in New York, and you're not in San Francisco, but we'll come to all that in due course. But, Mark, I think according to Glenn, who's been at State Farm for 40 years, you you're a newbie, right? You've just started though.

Mark Gibson  2:193  

think according to Glenn, who's been at State Farm for 40 years, you you're a newbie, right? You've just started though Well, yeah, it would seem like I'm a young kid. But I had have a I had have a brief career outside of State Farm before I came here and have had the opportunity to be in this wonderful organisation for the last 23 years you born where you now live in the area you now live. I was born in Bloomington, Illinois, believe it or not, and my family has roots back to the beginnings of the state of Illinois, which is celebrating its Bicentennial issue, happy birthday, Illinois. 200 years old, and my my great, great, great grandparents, to be honest with you are the first couple ever married in this country on my on my mother's side. Yeah, so there's, there's a long history here. But my my family goes back to the very beginnings of this of this country and have been here primarily in the agricultural business. So I like to say I stayed in the family business of farming. I just am doing it with State Farm. And the interesting part about this area is that our founder at State Farm, GJ MecherleJj maharal, was a farmer himself, who due to his own personal situation decided he wanted to get into the insurance business, and was doing it for somebody else and had an idea to maybe do it a little bit better. And the gentleman told him, yYou think you got a better idea, go build your own company. And in 20 years, he built the world's largest car insurance company.

Robert Berkeley  3:50  

Okay, so that was, let's see. When was that foundedt? Then? When was State Farm founded? in. 1922. Yeah…here we go…He was a retired farmer. Yeah, I've got you on Wikipedia. Okay. Wow. So that's that's a storied history. You've got there and you've got you have your centenary coming up in a couple of years as well.

Mark Gibson  4:071  

Wow. So that's that's a storied history. You've got there and you've got you have your centenary coming up in a couple of years as well. We do. We are the our organisation we just turned 95 and quite frankly, as a department last year was our 45th anniversary as an in house creative team. So when the organisation will turn 100 years old, and and in 2022, this department will turn 50.

Robert Berkeley  4:24  

Yyou weren't you weren't at State Farm in 1922. They were you mark You're not?

Mark Gibson  4:28  

No I, I went to I got my undergraduate degree in public relations in journalism from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, not too far from Bloomington and then went into the world of radio and worked as a news reporter and farm reporter at a small station in the northern part of Illinois, and then found my way into the newspaper business and spent the next seven years there and came to State Farm in 1995. So

Robert Berkeley  5:04  

So you enjoyed your time as a journalist.

Mark Gibson  5:06  

I did, I enjoyed my time working in in both radio and... and newspaper, radio has an immediacy to it, that was always very exciting to me a. And you had to have the brevity of time because the clock controlled everything that you did. And so I learned as a as a radio news reporte.r, Hhow to be efficient with my words, how to write in an active voice. And that's something to this very day I really look at whenever we're doing any type of creative is to make sure that it's always as active and as concise as it can be. Because when you've got the ability to use a multitude of inputs, whether it's photography, or video, or whatever, really helps you maximise the impact of whatever you're creating.,

Robert Berkeley  5:52  

Hhow did the step two to State Farm happen then?

Mark Gibson  5:57  

Rright about the time that I was looking to come to State Farm, there was this thing called the World Wide Web that was growing in its importance, and you could never heard of it right. And you can see where, as we just talked about in farming, where the small to medium sized farmer was getting squeezed in times by the bigger operators and the higher costs to to produce the same thing you were seeing that family owned newspapers were being purchased by bigger newspaper holding companies, the same thing was going on in the radio world where local station owners who had a vested interest in a local area were being absorbed and being programmed out of someplace in New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, or Minneapolis, or wherever they may have been. And so there was there was a loss of the local pneus of that. And so as I started to look long term, I say, what could I potentially do that could parlay the skills that I have here, gained as a as a writer, and as a journalist, and do that for for a company where there may be more opportunity and more growth potential. So I began my career in 1995, as what was called an advertising assistant, writing and developing ads for local agents, whether they requested those ads, or whether they, whether we were just developing them as an extension of national campaigns, and so that you can tap into that with the with the radio station, because

Robert Berkeley  7:26  

can you tap into that with the with the radio station, because when I again, when I worked for a commercial radio station, everyone would occasionally chip in and do some advertising copywriting or recording for ads and that kind of thing. Were you involved in that though,

Mark Gibson  7:34  

I was involved in that then as well as I did a stint at the newspaper. Wwhile I, while I did work, in in the newspaper side began my career actually in the sports desk. I was in a Management Development rotation. So I spent functional time in every part of the newspaper in both circulation, understanding how to distribute and actually sell the subscription to the newspaper as well as advertising. I actually was the the person who started back then. And we think of this as cutting edge., Tthe voice information telephone service of a newspaper. For the the holding company that we owned, it was called city line. And it was a great, it was a great learning ground because it kind of took the essence of of newspaper and brought it into a telephone information world.

Robert Berkeley  8:21  

So you got the job working, doing advertising copywriting at State Farm that way. So before you had lots of advertising customers around and lots of people you're dealing with not just advertisers. Here you had one advertising customer, which was State Farm itself. Yeah.

Mark Gibson  8:37  

Yeah, our Sstate Ffarm was our advertising customer. But I would say that in the job that I started here writing, advertising copy across, whether it's television copy, radio, copy, print, copy, direct mail copy at that point in time as well. We had our our customer ultimately was not only the the the prospect or the existing state farm customer, but it was truly the State Farm agent who we were writing those ads for. So they were the ones that we were writing billboards for.

Robert Berkeley  9:08  

Okay, so it's just taking a step back then when you got there. Clearly State Farmstatefarm already had an in house agency.

Mark Gibson  9:15  

We did. We did. And we started as an audio visual department, I think primarily in Glynn, who's sitting in the control booth here. He can probably a remember when it was a much smaller team. And it was primarily to provide audio visual support for leadership's in your leadership meetings. But it evolved over time to truly become a a place for us to help better connect and communicate with our agents and aAssociates at State Farm.

Robert Berkeley  9:44  

There was a time then that marketing would have just instinctively just reached out to you had an agency of record I presume, and they would reach out to them and say we need campaigns and we need creative and so on. And then there was a time when they looked into Totally and so that they maybe had the resource to do that. Is that how it happened?

Mark Gibson  10:04  

Yeah, I think that's exactly how it happened. And I think it progressed over time. And so again, if you remember, I started in the advertising marketing world, and then I came to this world. And so, not to be too self aggrandisement about it, I think there was a bridge that we were building at that point in time to say, somebody who's been involved in this work in the agency and marketing world, for our brand, who can now go to this department, and take a look at the potential for this department to add greater value to the agency marketing world. I think that was the bridge that got built. And I've been fortunate enough to first of all come in and have great people who were here, who were already positioned to be able to do this kind of work, we just hadn't been using them to do this kind of work. And so we've been, we've been building the awareness of our capabilities for that. And then as we've had openings in this department, we've been very intentional about the kinds of people that we're bringing in to help us along that progression we've been bringing in people who have external advertising agency experience, people who have strategy backgrounds, people who have creative backgrounds, people who have account management backgrounds, people who have production backgrounds, from a multitude of areas to help us get even stronger to build upon this wonderful foundation that this department has been building for the last 46 years. And then now to take us to a different level. So we're not a question as to whether we should be using us or not, it's now an opportunity to say, how best do we use this department to help us maximise value for the organisation. So produce really good work on State Farm marketers mandated to use you.?. They're not mandated to use us, but I think they see benefit in using us for certain types of work. And the the journey that we're on right now is that some of our external creative teams are also seeing the benefit of what we can do to help them in some of the tasks that State Farmstatefarm is asking them to get engaged with as well.

Robert Berkeley  12:11  

Because Because you're at the table already, right, you're not you're not sitting across the divide, you're there at the table, and you can be part of those conversations. So

Mark Gibson  12:18  

No I think that's the biggest point that I would make, Robert is that I think in the past, we knew there was a table, we weren't at the table, we didn't know exactly how to ask to be at the table. Today, we're at the table, I think we have a place at the table. And when we're not sitting there, folks are looking around the table saying maybe we should find Creative Services, get them in here to make sure that we understand what they can do and how we can potentially work.

Robert Berkeley  12:43  

Presumably You are a call centre within the business and you charge out to the marketers for the work you, do you?do.

Mark Gibson  12:50  

We aren't. We do not charge out. We are okay. So we are not, we are not a chargeback organisation. We are we are services are provided to the organisation and we are we're able to be used without a charge back. And there's there's greatness in that there's also the piece that there are things that we have probably done in the past that as we move forward. And as we continue to mature in our our creative acumen and the things that we deliver for the organisation. There are things we've done in the past we've done because there's not necessarily a cost associated to it. In the future, we might look at how do we provide more of a self service option for those things that frees us up to do more, quote unquote, valuable work. Not that all work isn't valuable. But not all work has the same impact. And and so that's been a, it's been a calibration that we've had with our internal business partners here at times, to say we've used to take this thing and do it all. Today, what we might be best positioned to do is to give you a template to say this is how you can do this, make sure that it's designed with brand standards and guidelines in mind. And make sure that they, we make it easy for them to be able to do it. But as opposed to doing that for them, we might equip them and enable them to do it. And still stay true to providing some value along the way.

Robert Berkeley  14:10  

Yeah, this is something we're certainly my friends Express KCS kcse and quite a lot as well, which is that we need to provide the technology to enable people to express themselves or their to market their own in their own way locally. But certainly within brand constraints as well and you also need to be able to have the flexibility to do something that's perhaps a little more bespoke and many things can be just be pretty formulaic and templated but it's definitely means that you can have a unique marketing message out in all in every market, especially you've got how many 1,000 agents 18,000 agents? or

Mark Gibson  14:45  

Or close to 19,000 agents and so, obviously every agent brings their own unique talent and they bring their own unique perspective to that business but there is there is the the State Farm brand that that is the red thread as we like to sSay that unites them all. And so creating those consistent customer experiences not only in the agent's office, which all look different, but there are certain branded elements that we want to look the same and understanding how we can meet the needs of what happens in an agent's office. And then obviously, a lot of people in the organisation look at what that experience looks like in the online space, what it looks like in the mobile space, what that looks like, in the call space.

Robert Berkeley  15:26  

So you have 180 people in the Creative Services Division, can you can you break that down into how that's structured? Yeah,

Mark Gibson  15:33  

Yyeah, give it 180, give or take 10 or 12, on either side, probably a little closer to 170. Now, what we where we have, we have basically four divisions of this department, we have an operations area that helps us with our metrics with our technology support, because we do have specific technology needs with the network interface that we have within the State Farm network. So that's one area of our department. Another area of our department is our business partner relationships area. And those are, that's our account management function. And those folks are the ones who are working daily with our internal business partners, as well as with the external creative teams that we interface with on an ongoing basis. So that team is another division within our department. The third division of our department is our is our media media area. That media area really can consists of our producers, our directors, our video and audio engineers, our what we call our production coordinators, the people who help coordinate line produce a lot of the work that we do, as well as our live producers, we do a lot of live broadcast within our organisation. With the technology that is available today, our ability to produce many more live broadcasts and do it at a big cost avoidance for the organisation is something that we are able to do there. And then the last area is our concept and design area. And that's where you'll find our creative directors, our art directors, our graphic designers, our web designers, and the folks that are writers, the folks that do the concepting and come up with the ideas.

Robert Berkeley  17:23  

So looking into the future, what are the biggest challenges that you've got to overcome? Do you think Mark? I mean, it's uncertain the future by its definition, but what's what things do you think about most in terms of trying to solve? Well,

Mark Gibson  17:39  

Well, I think for for this team, I think the thing, there's a couple of things, first of all, is making sure we remain on the on the cutting edge tech, from a technology standpoint. Technological advances advanced so quickly, and buying a piece of equipment, new camera, a new audio, platform, whatever it may be. We buy it today, we don't know how long that's going to be. How long that's going to be the cutting edge technology. So trying to understand and anticipate when's the right time for us to upgrade our technical capabilities is something that I think is a constant battle, because just when you think you got it, you don't if you think about televisions, you always going to buy a television. And the minute you buy that television, you realise that the television you just bought is going to be replaced within three weeks by a new smarter TV that has more functionality that you would have really liked with habit you just didn't get there in time. And by the way,

Robert Berkeley  18:37  

by the way, like a price ticket. 4KAny cameras that you invest in, and suddenly they're old hat now, get yourself.

Mark Gibson  18:43  

Exactly. So I think the technology piece of it is really one is one aspect that it's it's hard to kind of keep in in front of that. But it's trying to stay on the wave of it to understand where do you place your bets? And where do you go forward with it? So that's one piece of it. I think the other thing is, how do you continue to push the frontiers of creativity for your brand without stepping so far outside it? That you, you you diminish what the brand stands for and so as again, we're judged very much on on the creative that we produce and how efficiently and effective that creative is, we should always be looking at that. But making sure that that we keep it fresh and that we keep it real and that we are authentic and genuine to who our brand is. I think another thing is as well as understanding is understanding the new the the new generation of creative folks how they want to work, the manner in which they attach themselves and their thinking. you

Robert Berkeley  19:53  

You talk about millennials here.who

Mark Gibson  19:55  

I’m are talking about millennials I'm talking about post millennials Those folks that are coming after because obviously, their their behaviours and their mindsets are truly shaping and changing our world and the consumption of all different kinds of platforms and media, and what they find relevant. And that's not to say that we can ignore the boomers and the gen x's and the gen y's and all the all the others. I mean, we would all drive ourselves crazy if we if we, if we tried to be so specific to so many different folks, and is a big brand like this. I know it's a constant challenge for our marketing department to say, how do we how do we make sure that we are talking to the right people at the right time, and make sure that we stay relevant and knowing that, what you say to a 23 year old college graduate who's out there making an insurance purchase decision for their first time is different than somebody who is 42 years old, and is adding their first teenage driver on their car insurance policy. It's they're different. But that's where the strength of the brand, has to be grounded in everything that we produce. So, I just think it's that constant creative evolution and challenging ourselves to to make sure that we're on the cutting edge of what, how do we keep the brand fresh? And how do we keep an edge to what we do? that's a that's a big, that's a big thing, and then attracting the talent.

Robert Berkeley  21:25  

Well, I was gonna come to that, because, you know, I'd never been to Bloomington, Illinois, it is my ambition to do so. But one doesn't instinctively think of that as a magnet for great creative talent. But nevertheless, you've clearly done it. So how does that work?

Mark Gibson  21:40  

Well, we've been fortunate because I think that there are things in this area that are different than what you get in a major Metro. We would never claim to be a Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, we don't, we don't have those things to offer. But what we do have to offer is there is a quality of life quotient here that is very, very good. It's a great place for people who have maybe spent time in those locations, and say, Hhey, I want to get out of the hour long commutes, I want to get out of whatever those situations are. And I'd like to I'd like to balance my life a little bit with, with family time, and the ability to maybe have a little bit more space. And in a community that is safe. And we find a lot of folks who are from this area, who go off and do their things in the bigger metropolitan areas, they at some point in time, say, I've got great experience. Now I want to take that on, I want to put some roots down a little bit more deeply. So we've been really the benefactor of that. And I think it also shows that creativity doesn't just abound in the major media centres of the of the world, that that if you've got a really good brand. And if you've got a an opportunity for people to say I can apply my craft and do it in a way where it's valued and appreciated. And I can leave at the end of the day or the end of the week, or look back at the end of the year and say look at all the different things that I impacted. People take great satisfaction in that. And they have the ability to make a difference here. And so those are some of the selling points that I think that we have. And

Robert Berkeley  23:22  

Yeah, and in a sense, you're actually attracting the right kind of people, if who are looking for those kind of who have those kinds of values, I suppose.

Mark Gibson  23:29  

Absolutely,. aAnd you know, I'll be honest, we don't have a lot of turnover in this department. Yeah,Yeah people when they turn over, they retire primarily,. aAnd

Robert Berkeley  23:38  

the average, the average longevity of the two Sstate Ffarm employees I've spoken to today seems to come in at around 30 plus years. So

Mark Gibson  23:44  

I would say in this department, our average longevity is probably somewhere north of 20. Just because we have added some new folks, but we've got we've got 50 folks or so in this department that have that have got over 30 years of experience and yet State Farm not all of it necessarily here but a lot of it. We have a lot of folks who've never spent a day outside of this department which is which is a wonderful foundation for us to build upon. So it's it's a great, it's a great it's a great problem for us not a problem. It's a great problem. It's

Robert Berkeley  24:17  

It's a tremendous asset. I think that institutional retention and I was really surprised or an $86 billion cCorporation and that's those are old numbers I think maybe but you're clearly a huge corporation. You are held in such high regard because of the brand and obviously the consistency of straightforward business to Americans over the past what almost 100 years, but yet you know you very deservedly won a few gongs at last year's IHAFI have awards for advertisements that were tremendously contemporary would you'd

Mark Gibson  24:53  

I call them social media or content posts sure. content

Robert Berkeley  24:56  

Content posts but there were so now and yet they somehow have managed to embody these, these, these values, which go back and I think that that in itself is, you know, on buttering your toaster. But that's a tremendous achievement, I think, and, and what our responsibility to continue to take that forward as well.

Mark Gibson  25:15  

Yeah, I think that's the piece of it is that, you know, you don't really get a chance to rest on your laurels. We did have it, we had a great, we've had a great several great years here. And last year was kind of a culmination to have been nominated as one of the three finalists for the in house agency of the year was was a wonderful honour for this entire team. And we didn't win, but I will tell you just to be considered in that group, was phenomenal. And I think our entire team here just was they were really odd by the recognition of what they did in the validation that what they do matters on a regular basis. And then to receive the Best in Show for the, the the hot car social post, which very, very briefly, I will tell you, that was an idea that spring up, I walked into our media team director's office, Matthew Newell, and we were talking about I said, you know, is there anything we could be thinking about doing, there had been a couple of tragedies where young children had been left in hot cars. And within 48 hours, we were able to put this together, we were able to tape it, we came up with a creative idea, which is you know, from being there was the teddy bear that had been left to see that car seat, and kind of a digital thermometer to show how hot it got how quickly in that car. And a very simple 15 second messages is Don't forget to take your loved ones with you. has done wonderfully well on social media. But it was a simple idea. And I think the cost of the whole piece, our costs, were probably the cost of some ice cold water and some lunch for the crew that put it together. And it just shows you that a great idea, no matter how much money you put into it is a great idea. And that was a very simple, straightforward idea that was incredibly well produced, incredibly well focused. And I couldn't have been more proud of the team.

Robert Berkeley  27:15  

I'm not going to ask you if you were a Chicago agency, how much you would have charged a national advertising client for that piece of work. And I

Mark Gibson  27:22  

And I wouldn't tell you what I would conjecture, but it was, let's just put like this. That was a that was a well spent case of water and some lunch for our crew.

Robert Berkeley  27:31  

I can imagine. That's fantastic. So I guess we're moving into the future. We talked a little bit about that. I was at a session yesterday in London, where I was hearing all about live streaming and Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat is this. Is this what your income embracing yet? Are there other new channels that you're just experimenting with right now?

Mark Gibson  27:51  

Well, I think all of those things are on the table, we've done some, in the last couple of years, we've actually done a 360 broadcast, which was wonderfully innovative for us. And the first time we had pushed that frontier. We had also we've also done some Facebook Live pieces, we've seen an explosion in just our own live internal broadcasting for things that traditionally, we would not have necessarily gotten involved in. I mean, the ability to activate our claims force in the wake of the hurricanes and the wildfires last year. And to be able to do that over live broadcast was an incredible money, but time saving asset for us and for our claims partners, who their first job is to get those those folks to help our policyholders.

Robert Berkeley  28:37  

Yyou're saving a lot of distress as well, because you're getting people service quickly and more accurately. Exactly.

Mark Gibson  28:42  

Exactly. And so so those kinds of things are pieces that we're continuing to figure out how we how we can continue to, to grow in our capacity and our capability to deliver in those areas. And as again, as I think the future, it's it's trying to figure out how to peek around the corners, as the cliche goes to what's the next technology that nobody's really looking at what's what's going to be the new version of whatever it is that we're not necessarily seen. But when it comes wWe are ready for it. And we're able to see the application for it and how we can help best leverage it and how we can position our team to understand the power of what they do and how they can bring it to life through whatever that platform may be. Well, I

Robert Berkeley  29:26  

Well, I think to continue to achieve the effect of being very contemporary with a with a with a timeless brand is an amazing achievement. So, you mentioned to quality lives an important part for anyone working at State Farm working where you're working, what do you do when you're not running the Creative Services Division?

Mark Gibson  29:48  

Well, I, you know, I'm I'm a pretty simple guy, spent a lot of time with with my family. My wife and I are empty nesters for the first time we ended up Who's a graduate of the University of Iowa who is exploring grad school options and so we're helping her kind of think through some of her her options on that, but she's gainfully employed and hopes to be looking at grad school options this summer to enrol a year from this coming August and then our son just trekked off to the University of Iowa. And he is a freshman and so he's adapting to life well and so it's my wife and and myself and our two dogs and,

Robert Berkeley  30:28  

and feed to get the Harley Davidson and the electric guitar as well.

Mark Gibson  30:31  

You know, it's funny you say that because in this department, I'm probably a little bit of an outlier. We we have some folks with Harley's and we have some folks we have a lot of folks that play in bands. I'm I'm probably not in that group at all. I'm not a Harley guy. I'm not I'm a I'm a pretty simple guy. I enjoy I enjoy doing yard work I enjoy spending time with family I I enjoy um, I'm a big baseball fan. And so I like to go see my my Chicago team play Mike. And so I finally got to live long enough to see them win a World Series. you know,

Robert Berkeley  31:04  

You know, I did funnily enough I've I must rectify this, but I think I've only been to see one baseball match or game one baseball game in my in my life and that was that was the Cubs but that was a long time ago. They weren't on a winning streak then.

Mark Gibson  31:18  

So I am, And so yeah, I do a lot of reading. I enjoy reading but I

Robert Berkeley  31:24  

mean, what's your what's the what's a good book right now?

Mark Gibson  31:27  

I just started Ron Chernow, his book on the life of Ulysses Grant, ah, you into biographies, then I am into biographies. So I got that as a Christmas present. And I just cracked that book the other day. So I, I enjoyed. I'm enjoying that as of right now. So that's my current my current reads.

Robert Berkeley  31:46  

And and my fact that i didn't know i don't know if a lot of people know this is that you're the State Farmstatefarm jingle originally was written by Barry Manilow. Right?

Mark Gibson  31:56  

Yeah, he actually wrote the music for it. And the the jingle itself, the worst of the jingle were written by Keith Reinhard, who started his career in advertising at a very small agency here in Bloomington, Illinois, and then translated that to go to work for Needham, Harper &in Ssteers, which was the State Farm agency of record at the time, which then became DDB Needham, which then became DDB and has been the the external agency of State Farm since September of 1939. So that's going to be next year, we would have we would celebrate 80 years of a relationship with MIDI beam. And he's right, who's the chairman emeritus of, of DDB. He, he he wrote those words.

Robert Berkeley  32:43  

Wow. So, but I presume when you're doing yard work, you're listening to Barry Manilow in the back.

Mark Gibson  32:48  

I'm not listening to Barry Manilow I'm probably listening to I'm probably listening to a baseball game o. Or I might, I might my music tastes are are probably not very contemporary. I'm probably listening to, oh, Frank Sinatra, or Andy Williams, or one of them one of the standards.,

Robert Berkeley  33:08  

Ttimeless again, right? So you're embodying the timeless brand attributes of Sstate Ffarm.

Mark Gibson  33:13  

I was told one time I was born about 25 years, too late. So let's leave it at that.

Robert Berkeley  33:19  

I don't agree. I don't agree. You're... you’re...you’re taking it into the future. You got all this technology you got to wrestle with you're talking about very contemporary terms, KPIs and wizzley, digital streaming, broadcast, live broadcast, all that kind of stuff. So I think you do yourself a disservice. So Mark, if if anybody wants to get in touch with you and find out more about how you run things at State Farm, or indeed, to learn more about your Andy Williams LP collection, what's the best way to do that?

Mark Gibson  33:49  

Best way to do that is to either send me an email, which is a very long email address, but we could do that. Or you could reach me through LinkedIn, LinkedIn is probably a better way to reach me, to be honest with you, and then I can, I can give you the other contact information, but I'm on LinkedIn, I'm not active on it. But I do respond to the requests that I get on LinkedIn and would be happy to connect with somebody there

Robert Berkeley  34:14  

Mark Gibson, must give some Thank you so much. You've been such a very open and candid guest. I really appreciate it. Thanks very much for your time.

Mark Gibson  34:21  

I appreciate the time. Thank you for having me.