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In Purpose 360’s debut episode, hosts Carol Cone and Chris Noble talk to REI's Alex Thompson about REI’s #OptOutside, a campaign which has inspired more than 15 million people to go outside on Black Friday.
Business is an unlikely hero: a force for good working to solve society's most pressing challenges, while boosting bottom line. This is social purpose at work. And it's a dynamic journey. Purpose 360 is a masterclass in unlocking the power of social purpose to ignite business and social impact. Host Carol Cone brings decades of social impact expertise and a 360-degree view of integrating social purpose into an organization into unfiltered conversations that illuminate today's big challenges and bigger ideas.
Welcome to Purpose three sixty. I'm Carol Cohn.
Chris Noble:And I'm Chris Noble.
Carol Cone:And we're on a journey to explore the brightest and most innovative minds and initiatives in social purpose.
Chris Noble:Today, companies and brands must stand for something meaningful. They have to have a social purpose and bring that purpose forward to their employees, their customers, and their community.
Carol Cone:Each episode, we're talking to leaders at Fortune 100 companies, global brands, social enterprise startups, NGOs, and everything in between.
Chris Noble:We'll be taking a deep dive to learn how they are integrating purpose into their organizations.
Carol Cone:To benefit both business and society for enduring impact. Join us. Welcome to Purpose three sixty. I'm Carol Cohn.
Chris Noble:And I'm Chris Noble.
Carol Cone:And we are so excited to have Alex Thompson, vice president of brand stewardship and impact from REI with us today. I am just jumping out of my skin for this conversation. REI is the absolute most perfect example of a community and how that community has purpose at the center and how they have activated their members, their employees. They are so purposeful and Alex is just going to give us so much background. So Alex, why don't you just start and tell us a little bit about your background and also you have this fabulous title, so how those two interact as well.
Alex Thompson:Thanks, Carol. It's good to talk to you. You know, Carol, I I began my career in in The UK. I've, moved around and worked in two or three different parts of the world in Asia and The US now. I started what I consider to be my career in voluntary work in Zimbabwe focusing on HIVAIDS.
Alex Thompson:But I've been in the role now for about four years here at REI and brand stewardship and impact as a group of skill sets is the way I'd describe it. It's focused on the long range health of the outdoors and the outdoor community. So we look after government affairs, communications internally, externally, employee engagement work, our philanthropy and importantly our sustainability, both operational and product focused. And our remit really is to ensure that the co op is thriving and the co op community is thriving and that we leave the outdoors better than we found it.
Carol Cone:Oh, that's fantastic. You talked about the focus of the company, that there are four major pillars. Can you elaborate on that?
Alex Thompson:Sure. I'll assume that not everybody is a member of REI. So Recreational Equipment Inc was founded in 1938 here in the West Coast, the Pacific Northwest, in sort of really reaching distance of three beautiful national parks. And it was founded by a husband and wife, Mary and Lloyd Anderson, and they started the cult with 23 friends. And as we find ourselves eighty years later continuing to work in this pretty amazing organisation, one of the things that's different is we focus on four measures of success at the nice senior level of the organisation, and we focus on employee, member, society and business in that sequence.
Alex Thompson:So the core business of the co op exists to drive the other three. And that means that three quarters of our measures of success are focused on people and place. And I think that gives you permission to think really differently about the role of an organization in today's society.
Carol Cone:There are about 17,000,000 members. I'm surprised there aren't 50,000,000 members considering all the benefits that you provide. Can you talk a little bit about your membership and also how that's given you a long term view?
Alex Thompson:Sure. The membership base is comprised of people who have purchased a membership. And to do the really straightforward detail, if you come into an REI or if you log on to REI, you can buy a membership. Membership is $20, and it lasts a lifetime. So you don't have to pay again.
Alex Thompson:And that obviously gets you a bunch of cool stuff and discounts and all the type of things that you might expect, but importantly, it makes you an equal owner of the co op. So every single member owns the same amount as anyone else, and and and that's that gives you permission to think about the community very differently. The community is, as you would expect, extremely diverse. The young, old, men, women, it's a really rich community of people, all of whom love the outdoors. I will say that to your point on shouldn't it be 50,000,000, shouldn't it be more, I might just come back at that and talk about something that, gets me, really motivated and the rest of our organisation here motivated.
Alex Thompson:It isn't just given that people love being outdoors breathing fresh air. The best participation data that we have, and it's a very robust survey that looks at about 30,000 people a year, indicates that around 50% of people in The US are not going outdoors even once a year to do any outdoor recreation at all. And, you know, if a 150,000,000 people aren't going outdoors once a year, that gives you something to think about. Why is that? What can we do about it?
Alex Thompson:And how can the co op continue to create access to something that's good for your health, that's good for your mind, and frankly it's good we think for communities and society more broadly.
Carol Cone:Let's shift a bit to some of the the things that make me so excited about what you're doing, Alex, which is OptOutside. And I'd love to just quote, I think it's your your your chief creative officer. And he talked about that you wanted to start a movement. You know, in the work that you do and I do and Chris does, think if I got a dollar for every time a potential client came to us and said, we wanna start a movement, we'd be rich. It's not easy to do.
Carol Cone:So I'd love you to talk about, the genesis of OptOutside.
Alex Thompson:You know, OptOutside, for those who are not familiar, it was the decision to shut down all of our retail stores and to put a black screen across our website on Black Friday, the biggest retail day in the year, for most companies, and instead to pay 12,000 employees to go outside and be with family and friends. That really was the nut of the idea. We also took the step once we'd chosen to do this for employees to invite the country to come with us. And frankly, it went beyond the borders of The US and it hit us like a ton of bricks really, the response in a positive way. Actually, don't know if a ton of bricks hitting you can be good, but regardless, in the first year about one and a half million people.
Carol Cone:Right. There's the impact answer.
Alex Thompson:Exactly. I've dropped a few bricks on my feet in the process. But anyway, about 1,500,000 people joined in year one. In year two, that number quadrupled to about 6,000,000. Last year, about 8,000,000 people put their hand up and said they decided to be part of it.
Alex Thompson:So we think somewhere north of 15,000,000 people have taken part in OptOutside. Around 700 organizations, companies, nonprofits, large, small, all over the country have taken part in OptOutside so far. State parks opening there, know, gates for free, local parks, all sorts of organizations embracing the idea. And I think that's the thing I I want to emphasize that, you know, OptOutside did receive, from the marketing communications and brand community, you know, applauded for its ability to mobilize a community. But the thing that I, push back on the most is when people ask me about OptOutside as a social media campaign.
Alex Thompson:And that could not be further away from the intent of the idea when we launched. Behind the scenes story that I haven't told that much is that, you know, right before, in fact, the night of OptOutside when we launched, I was really, really nervous as you can imagine. We're about to fly to The US no. To the to New York to go and do media. I chatted with Gerry, our CEO, and I was concerned that we had not put benchmarking metrics in place, how are we going to prove its success.
Alex Thompson:I was concerned that we didn't have a thorough enough pre and post, and and I chatted with him and he just said, look, you're missing the point. And I was like, oh, dear. You know, this is my first year of working with the CEO. That's not good. And he's like, the reason we're doing this is it's it's for the employees.
Alex Thompson:If if we do this and our employees respond by understanding what we stand for as a coop nearly eighty years into our life and and they respond well, we will have achieved our goal. Everything else is icing on the cake. And I don't want you to put any metrics in place pre or post. That is not the point. So, importantly, for OptOutside, no business metrics were put in place.
Alex Thompson:No certainly, no sales metrics. No, advertising value metric, none of that. And the reason I'm most proud of OptOutside is not for the communications and the brand work that was done, but seeing the response from employees, many of whom had spent twenty years without a Black Friday off. And when you are exposed to the outpouring of love and appreciation when that happens, it really is a reminder of the responsibilities that we have to do things that aren't just good for the brand of an organisation but fundamentally get to people's needs.
Chris Noble:I think that's fantastic. And actually, so I'm an REI member and I I see what you're talking about when I I visit the store here in New York or when I make my quarterly pilgrimage to the to the LA store, which I every time I find myself in LA walking around Santa Monica, I wind up in that store. And when I talk to employees in that store, what you're saying really comes through, right? They're very knowledgeable about the equipment, of course, but they all have their own passions. They all can tell you what's going on during the weekend.
Chris Noble:It's a very it's an environment that really encourages outside exploration. So, you know, just super well done taking something from the heart of the culture that a husband and wife team founded and bringing it all the way and getting 12,000 employees to to to have some reflection of that. Beyond the employees, when you're talking about the board and the other executives and you talk about that nervousness the night before, what was the what was the board response? And what was the sort of more business response when you guys were first contemplating the idea of OptOutside?
Alex Thompson:It's a really good question. By the way, that Lafayette store was my first REI as well, and I love it.
Chris Noble:Isn't it great? I love the open space. Every REI has such it it makes you wanna climb the walls. It really does.
Alex Thompson:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's awesome, and it's kind of a haven in that cross section in in Manhattan. Very, good espresso store over the road. But the
Chris Noble:I've been there, the Columbia, the Columbiana. Yeah.
Alex Thompson:Yeah. You know exactly where I'm talking about. I really do. So I was lucky enough to be in the room when the board first was pitched, OptOutside, and, I mean, stunned silence was the response. I saw I saw some jaws physically drop, and at least one or two expletives emerged, and it was kind of funny.
Alex Thompson:And the but very, very quickly, once the once the shock and the shock of sort of the idea of foregoing all of that revenue, and in fact, just foregoing the revenue but paying the salary at that you know, for the day off have been absorbed, the board just said, look, is spot on. This is exactly what we've been talking about. REI's values have always been very, very strong. We have always acted with our values. But REI has not always done a very good job of helping people as the community has grown.
Alex Thompson:As we've gone to 17,000,000 members and we're no longer just a handful of thousands receiving a catalogue, which is really kind of what the cohort was for many years, we haven't been as good at inviting people to join in and helping them understand where the thinking comes from. So the board was remarkably supportive and part of the reason for that is the board of directors is elected from within the membership base. And to a person, while many of them are very, very experienced business people They have a deep love for the outdoors and it's not difficult to say to somebody, you know, what do you think about the day after Thanksgiving allowing family and friends to be with one another rather than being in the store? And how do you feel about not inviting people to get away from their family and friends and instead to come to a store? Don't know that was terribly coherent, but you get the idea.
Alex Thompson:And they understand deeply and they think this is the right thing to do. Frankly, the governance structure of the co op, so we don't have shares, we don't report quarterly, and we're able to act in the long range interests of the outdoors, does give us permission, unlike some organisations, to make a move like that. But some of this is post rationalisation, frankly Chris, because you never know how this is going to roll. And we're just fortunate that the community responded well and understood that the intent behind OptOutside was it it was it was done done for the right reasons in my view.
Carol Cone:Did you have to continue to to sell it in? I mean, did they say interesting? Did you have to give them the numbers that this is the cost of the 12,000 employees' salaries? This is what the potential loss of income will be? Did you have to have multiple meetings?
Carol Cone:Or it was like, you know, what did they say in terms of they say, like, yes, go do it?
Alex Thompson:Well, you know, I'm only one person, you know, who is part of the process. And of course, our CEO, was a very strong advocate and took full accountability. Our chief creative officer, Ben Steele, was, you know, the principal. Once we had surfaced the idea, was the principal architect of the various groups that came together to build it. But certainly there were follow on discussions.
Alex Thompson:And certainly once we moved from we directionally this is the right thing for us to do to here's how we're going to do it, here's how it's going to show up in the world, this is what the creative looks like, here's how we're going to invite people, here's what we're not going to do. Certainly there were lots of conversations at that point, but not really with the board. The board of directors, their job is to they have many jobs and one of them is just to assess are we reacting in the interest of the membership base, broadly speaking? And I think they felt very clearly that, there was a decent team on the executive side of of REI that understood what we were trying to achieve, and they gave us a lot of latitude to go and, build it as we saw fit.
Carol Cone:That's fantastic. Can you talk about you you're now you've been three years in, and the first year, it got it was massive. It was everywhere. And you won, you know, platinum at at Cannes, just incredible. But you know, you didn't want it to be a flash in the pan.
Carol Cone:How did it did it evolve? And this is really important when you go from a brilliant idea to really embedding it long term into the culture. So can you share with our listeners what were what did you do in year two? What did you do in year three? How do you get the engagement?
Alex Thompson:You you're asking a question there that prompts me to, you know, go to I'm trying to sort of draw on the memories of art afterwards and it doesn't happen very often in your career that, you know, you've got so much positive feedback on an action like this if you're interested in social impact that you almost kind of can't count the number of stories that are written about the impact of it. And at some point in year one, I personally became fairly embarrassed by that. Was so much positivity, We really didn't know what to do with it. And my my anxiety moving into December, you know, as the as we knew that it hit hard was that people were gonna expect us to, you know, one up it, that we were going to try and add more sizzle, that we were going to commercialize it. And I immediately knew that that would be a disastrous, and several people, not just obviously myself, several people.
Alex Thompson:We knew we wanted to protect the integrity of OptOutside as a business choice, not as a brand engagement campaign from I remember it distinctly as we moved into the Christmas period, into the holiday after Black Friday. So we were very careful about that. As we approached year two, we decided to embrace the peak the the component of OptOutside that was written about a little bit, but not that much that we felt was was a special part of it. And in year one, we we basically gave OptOutside to the community. We said to various groups who wanted to take part, yep.
Alex Thompson:Here's the, you know, here's the logo. Here's the hashtag. Here are the assets. Use it. And most companies try to control those things very, very carefully, and we decided to go completely in the opposite direction.
Alex Thompson:So in year two, we decided to turn OptOutside into a platform for nonprofits. REI invest about 70% of our profits annually back in the outdoor community. One portion of that is in nonprofit groups. And one of my frustrations in life on the brand and communications and public affairs side previously was that it's terribly difficult for nonprofits or organisations that are doing positive things to tell their stories. Journalists don't write about them as much as they do negative stuff.
Alex Thompson:It's very frustrating and we thought that, well, with our 17,000,000 person community, maybe we can shine a bright light on the work of the people in the community who are changing the communities we live in, people who are cutting trail, who are negotiating easements, who are investing in our national parks, who are getting young people into the outdoors, who are helping create access. So in various ways we devolved OptOutside to the nonprofit community and those who were taking part in it. And it really, really worked. And then in year three we did the same except down to the member level. And you'll see from the creative as it evolved over the three years that we increasingly have featured the participants of OptOutside.
Alex Thompson:What we're trying to do is not tell the story of REI but tell the story of life outdoors. We're trying to shine a bright light on the choices that people make to be in the outdoors, to enjoy being with family and friends instead of the alternative.
Chris Noble:You can see how it also echoes into what I what I think is a new campaign. I'm just seeing it in the last couple weeks. I got an email, in fact, this morning, for REI promoting the purchase of gently used materials, products that have already been sold. And I know that others in the outdoor industry have been pushing that message for a long time, but I'm first starting to see it now coming from you guys. Does that attach to the core in some way you can describe?
Alex Thompson:Yes. It is. And, Chris, what you're talking about now and for those who are listening, at the beginning of I'm trying to think. Was it the beginning of this this year? It may have been a bit before.
Alex Thompson:We launched something called used gear beta or beta, I guess, as we say in The US. And this is a digital platform that enables REI members and REI customers to to buy gently used gear at a more affordable price. And this, of course, has multiple benefits. One, it means that it keeps gear and apparel out of landfill. And secondly, it creates access to something that REI members have enjoyed for many years physically in our stores, which are called garage garage sales.
Alex Thompson:So you can come and you can get really, really good value stuff that's been returned. Used gear beta also gives you the opportunity to bring your stuff back to REI. Right? And we launched it as a pilot, and I'm having a blank exactly when we did it, but it's in the last certainly in the last year. And we have seen such a good response from our membership base that you're starting to see increased communication about that.
Alex Thompson:And it is true that used gear as a as an offering to our membership base has a has a great sustainability story to to sort of attach to it, and it's a way that we can think differently about how we do business as a retailer. It is attached to the core idea that underpins OptOutside. And I'll just pause on that for a second. So when Carol was asking about the foundation of REI, you know, Mary and Lloyd Anderson, we talk about REI as a co op being organised around one single idea, that a life outdoors is a life well lived. And we see our role as a co op to act in the interests of people who share that belief.
Alex Thompson:And you can see how that is so obvious in OptOutside where we're choosing not to shop and instead we're choosing to go outside. Used gear is a way that we're inventing new models of doing business that can shift the system. And what we mean by shift the system is model different ways to think about traditional commercial practice. And if we can do that effectively, we hope that other organisations will experiment in similar ways and that the end outcome, whether it's on a one or a one hundred year timeframe, will be that new models of serving communities, but also the things that those communities believe in, will emerge. And over time, we therefore can help business think differently about its role in society.
Carol Cone:So, Alex, we're we're approaching the the bottom of this podcast, but there's so much more to explore. We definitely would love to invite you come back to expand on all the many facets of your product sustainability and how you're making it easy for consumers to make choices. In in closing today, can you leave five key insights to listeners who are on a journey to take their social purpose and move it closer to the center of their business? They're probably not as fortunate to have to be in a situation as is REI. But what are the five key insights?
Carol Cone:And you probably have about 25. But let's start with five where you're talking to a colleague and you say, you know, your five key things you really must, you know, keep in your heart, keep in your business head, as you keep moving on a purpose journey?
Alex Thompson:I I can try. The first that jumps to mind gets to the gets to the genesis of OptOutside. My opinion, and it's an opinion of one, is that the idea of OptOutside existed in the co op for many years before we surfaced it and acted on it. So point one would be listen really, really carefully to your organisation. Ask open ended questions and don't be scared of what comes back.
Alex Thompson:Listening is difficult practice to do in a world of infinite content and demand for us all to say lots of things. But I think listening with the practice that helped us identify the spirit of an idea that most likely had lived in our stores for a long, long time. So find ways to listen differently. Two, I do think having consulted with lots of large companies and small companies over the years and and helped them develop their stories that all the worst stories that I've tried to crystallize for a comp for companies and the ones that didn't hold are the ones that we thought the company had, and the best were those that simply existed. So the second is, you know, embrace the heritage of your organisation.
Alex Thompson:If people don't know what the heritage of your organisation is, it probably means that you haven't explored it deeply enough and ask this you know, ask deep enough questions because I don't think it's possible to invent a purpose. The purpose simply exists. The question is whether you can surface it. I think the third, get to the employee. You have to act in the interest of the community that's closest in.
Alex Thompson:It's going to vary company to company, but I'm a very strong proponent of employee first action and employee first brand, very strong proponent. I think the fourth is be willing to have people completely challenge what you thought was right. And I go back to that story about Gerry telling me, listen, don't measure this stuff. You know, it was a fairly humbling experience to be part of OptOutside in the first place. I felt like I went to the sort of edges of my comfort and back again multiple times, and we got so many things wrong, but so many things right.
Alex Thompson:And part of the most of the right things came from places that I didn't expect. And so you really have to just trust as you go into a process like that that other people can have that other people are gonna have really good insight. And then five, try something. Just get on with it. You know, you've gotta have a go.
Alex Thompson:Try something, and you will fail. And we have failed on a number of different fronts, But failing can be pretty fun as long as there are people around you who are willing to give you permission to do that. So, you know, that that hackneyed phrase of fail fast and, fail again.
Carol Cone:And and in closing, do you have it's probably not one. But do you have one of your key stories about OptOutside that, you love to retell many, many times?
Alex Thompson:Oh, man. There are so many. I mean, the year afterwards, a couple got married on OptOutside day, you know, who met previously the year before. There's another story about a person in our employee community who had broken their back and then made it their goal to go and I think it was either climb a peak or run a trail the year afterwards and they recovered from OptOutside. The thing that sticks the most to me though, and this is just the case for anybody, is you remember what you've seen.
Alex Thompson:And I remember when we announced to our store managers, about a 150 of our store managers in a room of about 300, four weeks before launch that we were gonna shut down on Black Friday. And in full transparency, I haven't spent my whole career in retail. You know, I'm relatively new to retail. And the outpouring of emotion that came from people who are running stores and those stores are supporting people on all sorts of different parts of their journey from a life and career standpoint and seeing the outpouring of emotion, I don't think I will ever forget that. And to the earlier question, I think it's fair to say I didn't fully appreciate the importance of allowing people to be with family and friends.
Alex Thompson:And that is why, interestingly, we made a fairly significant pivot of our message right before launch. How
Carol Cone:did you keep it a secret if you shared it a month ahead? That's like, you know, in this world where everything leaks in one minute, how did how did you keep it a secret?
Alex Thompson:We just trusted people. I mean, that's why I was so damn nervous for four weeks leading up, frankly. But I'm just like, it was incredible. I can't believe they they held to it. And I think that's because eighty years of co op had come before us.
Alex Thompson:You know? People just love the co op, they didn't wanna ruin something that that had the potential to be pretty special.
Carol Cone:And they understood it, which is fantastic. You used the word love a number of times, and I think that that's a great way to end this first conversation with Alex Thompson. You know, love is usually not talked about in the business world, but I believe that in social purpose, when you get to the soul of a company, that love is something that is welcomed in in the discussion and in actions and behaviors. Chris, I wanna give it to you for the for the last question or comment, and then we're gonna let Alex go, but we're definitely gonna bring him back.
Chris Noble:You know, if we just have a few more minutes, and I I get that we might have more time later, and I'm very grateful for what you've spent so far, Alex. I'd love to talk about we we've talked about the the culture as it existed, the culture that's transformed into what you've got today. And I know you spend a lot of time talking and thinking about the path ahead. If could just tell us a little bit about some of the things you think are next in this journey that you're on with REI.
Alex Thompson:Yeah. I can try. Chris is referring to a document that we published that you can read and download. It's called the path ahead and it's on the REI blog. So if you pop in REI, the path ahead to your search engine, you'll find it pretty quickly.
Alex Thompson:And the path ahead articulates, it brings together thinking into nine themes, and each theme presents a choice. And the choice is what will happen if we choose to do nothing or what will happen if we choose to imagine a future that is better. And we juxtapose these choices with one another. So one of them is the idea of a lost generation, that we risk losing children or children losing the outdoors as part of their lives. And we juxtapose that with, as we describe it, a beautiful possibility.
Alex Thompson:What if what what would it mean if, instead we had free range children or free range humans? I can't remember if those are two exact pieces. But the idea of the path ahead is to present macro themes that are affecting the future of life outdoors and to broaden our thinking. And I'm I'm personally somebody who is always, always, always interested in asking the question, well, what is the role of an organisation in the context of culture today, the macroeconomic and socioeconomic pressures? And this gets back to my own personal kind of interests and the early part of my career which was very focused on public affairs, government relations and so on, like how can you put policies in place that will benefit people over time.
Alex Thompson:So the path ahead serves for REI as a way to talk about our organising concern, which is that human beings have been on a long march indoors over hundreds if not thousands of years and that we have become unknowingly an indoor species. The implications of that are huge, and the path ahead articulates lots of different ways in which we could continue to become an indoor species or if we chose, the other direction, how we might embrace life outdoors. And it's a it's a framework for us rather than a rather than the answer, and we use it to ask ourselves tough questions. What should REI be doing that could, influence any one of those themes?
Carol Cone:I mean, it's it's very much like IBM asking, you know, what would it like to build a smarter city? Or CBS saying, you know, what's it like to be a health organization versus just a pharmacy or convenience store.
Alex Thompson:Exactly. We're thinking about what the world can look like if we if we choose if we chose to design it around our purpose, around our passion for a life outdoor, these are the some of the things that we would need to be considering very seriously. And I know that people on the phone, sorry, who are listening to the podcast will be in their own organisations able to affect some of those themes. And one of the core ideas of our thinking, of our impact strategy here at REI is that we can't go alone. We absolutely have to do things in partnership with organizations that are expert in other areas.
Alex Thompson:So we're hoping that people will read it and think, oh, I can help tackle that. The REI co op, large though we are as a consumer cooperative, we are tiny compared to big multinationals and, and government organizations. So partnership is is gonna be a big part of how we tackle some of them.
Carol Cone:Well, think if the food companies partner with you or health care companies partner with you.
Alex Thompson:Exactly.
Carol Cone:And and they just see the vastness of the opportunity, which is why you go to your center, your journey to your core, and when you get that totally authentic and right and then you empower your employees, think of the exponential, impact and energy that's unleashed and where you can go with it. So it sounds like at your hundredth, you'll be able to continue to move forward and then your hundred and fiftieth and two hundredth. So we're we're very we're pleased that you gave us the tease on this, Alex. Because if you're open to coming back, we'll have you back because we'd love to dive in into that deeper and some other issues. And so we hope you will join us again soon.
Alex Thompson:If if people think this was a coherent podcast, and and if they say yes, then then
Carol Cone:Oh, I'm sure that you
Chris Noble:will If that was our standard, Alex, we would never record a thing.
Carol Cone:Oh, no. No. You're you're I think that, you know, it it's so many people talk of it, and we know all love Unilever and Starbucks and such. I think that opt outside is terrific. And, again, many potential, you know, clients have come to us and said, I wanna opt outside.
Carol Cone:They they don't know how all the elements behind it, and I think you've shared them with with us. But you should be and, you know, you are growing to be and I know you're very humble, which is which is part of the brilliance of REI and the truth of REI. But we certainly will promote you in that stratosphere of Unilever, Starbucks, and others because you deserve it.
Chris Noble:Well, yeah. Thank you, Carol. Yes. Yes. And even more so.
Chris Noble:When when we started talking about this podcast, Purpose three sixty, we talked about it being an in-depth look at how brands are putting purpose at the center. And we even talked about the the you know, in theory, the way these interviews will go is that we'll identify, you know, places where you're dissatisfied and want to grow more. And and I'm sure those are there, and I'd love to ask you about them in a different time. But rarely in just kind of our our thought experiment who we'd like to talk to have we come upon a company that's really putting it at the center so so visibly and so strongly. And it's just it's a pleasure to talk
Alex Thompson:to you, Alice. Thank you so much.
Carol Cone:Great to have you, Alex, and I I wanna end on your comment. You said that you made business choices versus brand choices. And I think that that's the power of social impact today when you bring the two together in an authentic way with employee choice and guidance. The sky's the limit, or perhaps we should say the outdoors is infinite.
Chris Noble:There you go.
Alex Thompson:New York City's spot on, Carol.
Carol Cone:So thank you so much. We are definitely gonna have you back. I know you we're gonna have a great response, and thank you so much for your time.
Alex Thompson:Thank you, Carol. Thank you, Chris.
Chris Noble:Thank you, Ox. Take care.