Steve (00:02.181)
And I'm just going to take one moment to get into my mindset.

Steve (00:55.261)
When you think about the power of sports, the power of sports sponsorship, and we think about the business that goes behind that, and how individuals collectively within a corporation collate, they come together and they attempt to identify the most potent strategy to reach their target market, their cherished consumers. And it's a beautiful, beautiful game.

this industry with over 70 industries supporting this industry called the business of sports. And within those 70 industries collectively, globally today, spending over $100 billion to align their brands in a very effective way as one of the strategic tools in their tool chest to have impactful relationships that means something.

to their consumers, to their prospective clients or existing clients. And within those 70 industries, you might think automotive, financial institutions, et cetera. And within those financial institutions or service businesses, you might think insurance companies. And somehow you might not put together the concept of an insurance company that has the

beautiful undertone to it or overtone if you will of that of being a real benefit to American society and that's a product that is in the insurance industry and that caters to our veterans. It's such a beautiful fit. It's so elegant in so many ways. Doing something for those who, prospectively, make the greatest

contribution to American society, defending our nation.

Steve (02:56.078)
And then when you think about it, in particular, when you look at a brand that was created in 1887, Armed Forces Insurance, you see the manifestation of what they have done for their clients and reaching new clients and attempt to reach new clients, again, through the power of sport. And one of the most prominent happens to be through the armed

in Armed Forces and Bull Game. I almost said Armed Forces Insurance Bull Game, which is what we're going to talk about partially today because it's one of the most beautiful sponsorships without even, it's impossible to call it guerrilla marketing, but it's so beautiful in its elegance and seamless fit. And one of those spearheading it is Armed Forces Insurance Assistant Vice President Marketing

Chris Winters (03:31.436)
Ha ha ha.

Steve (03:55.109)
digital experience and that's Chris Winters and what a distinct honor is to have you on the transaction report today.

Chris Winters (04:04.098)
Well, you know, with a, with a setup like that, all I can say is thanks. I, I, I feel kind of humbled. I, I do feel humbled to work for this, this venerable company, founded by Douglas MacArthur's grandfather and other officers in the military for the purpose of saying, Hey, you know, it's hard for us. Wars, dangerous business. It's hard for us to get any kind of insurance for anything. so let's look out for each other. And here we are, essentially doing the same thing today. Yeah.

Thanks for that very nice introduction.

Steve (04:33.532)
It's so interesting that it was founded by Douglas MacArthur's grandfather. it Chester, did you say? Was it, was he, I mean, when we say a founder, was he one of the founding partners or this was his brainchild?

Chris Winters (04:37.442)
Grandmother. Yeah, Chester McArthur.

Yeah.

Chris Winters (04:49.71)
He was one of the founding partners. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was a, it was a collective idea. Uh, he was just, he had the horsepower to push it, you know, I think it's probably the way.

Steve (05:00.444)
And by the way, at that time, it was literally horsepower that was driving our military.

Chris Winters (05:04.373)
Yeah, absolutely. Right. That's funny. There's a whole other thing about auto insurance. Well, we can get to in a minute.

Steve (05:12.71)
Did you have horse insurance at the time?

Chris Winters (05:14.718)
You know what? I got to be honest. I'm not sure what product line we had in those days. It was just, and it's really, it's a great story and it's not not true, but the animal that is Armed Forces Insurance today is a much different, we live in a much different world. So obviously it's a much different organization, but it's still based on the same principles and we are still a member. We're in a membership organization. We're a collective. We're not

Steve (05:25.884)
It's really.

Chris Winters (05:43.618)
We're not a for-profit insurance agency of any kind.

Steve (05:47.976)
Would you provide a little more color behind that? So you have constituent insurance agencies that are independent of your...

Chris Winters (05:54.934)
No, well, we do know there's, so we, we do have an agency and that enables us to service people who are not veterans or not military there. can still shop and do things for them. It's just not going to be, we're not carrying, that's not going to be something that we still service it. but that's not something we underwrite those kinds of things, you know, so it's not one of our pro there are, you can get other products as worthy with us as an agent. however, if you're a veteran,

If you're active duty, if you're a family member of a veteran or active duty service member who has a policy, if you're in the Department of Defense, if you work in the Department of Defense or work for the VA, any of those, then you're eligible to be a member. And as a member, you're essentially an owner. There are proxies and we have a member advisory board.

This is, this is, remains pretty much in structure, essentially the same that, that, Captain MacArthur and, and the people, you know, he started with had envisioned. Yeah.

Steve (07:03.261)
So today there are how many members of your armed forces in

Chris Winters (07:07.682)
You know, and this is, this is an interesting thing and it's, it's not a hugely known thing. This has not been a company that has, has traditionally invested in a ton of, like we talk about the kind of major sporting events and things like that. have the one major sporting event that we sponsor, you know, a year that's the armed forces bowl that happens to have sound like our name. So as you pointed out, makes perfect sense for us, even though we're not really the title sponsor. one of the defense contractors is.

so I lost my train of thought or was I going have to cut that? Yeah, yeah, I did. I lost my train of thought because I went on the side thing.

Steve (07:46.629)
That's okay, because we'll, you were going to talk about the number of members we have.

Chris Winters (07:53.324)
Right, right. Okay. So yeah, let me back into that. So anyway, our membership is not something that's huge. and that's almost by design. when I, when I came here three little three and a half years ago or so, they said, we need to find a differentiator. I said, no, we don't. We're not the big ones. That's where the, we're real people you talk to. That's, that's who we are. That's who we still are. So our membership and not really exact, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000.

Steve (08:20.519)
So just to be clear, you mentioned active members of the military or veterans. A lack of clarity that I would appreciate your bringing some color to. So when our active members are serving in the military, they don't get automatically insured by the government of the United States.

Chris Winters (08:24.117)
Activate, yeah.

Our veteran. Right, right.

Chris Winters (08:43.34)
no, no. Well, so here's the thing. This is what, and this probably is important to start with. We're, we're a property insurance company. I mean, we, we have a life pro, life insurance, partner, you know, who we, so that we can offer that service to veterans and whatnot, but no, you absolutely get life, for example, live insurance when you're in the service. Yeah. And yeah, you're covered.

Steve (09:05.981)
So they're getting life insurance, they're getting medical insurance, but from a property standpoint. By the way, would you run us through, and again, this is a unique, it really is novel for us at the Transaction Report, because we usually don't try to dissect the brand itself, because we're very interested in what becomes a more universal, deployable, understandable, learnable

Chris Winters (09:11.638)
Right. Not yet.

Chris Winters (09:26.391)
You

Steve (09:36.157)
strategy from the mindset, but it would help us. So just to define Armed Forces Insurance, we're not a life insurance company, we're not a medical insurance company. Okay.

Chris Winters (09:37.646)
What?

yeah, yeah, come on.

Happy to.

Chris Winters (09:48.622)
Not at all. No, that's a, we're not a benefits type of company. We are a property and casualty company. you know, I can equate that to the broader equation of what everybody's trying to accomplish. Because when you were talking about, you know, events as a, as a way to connect with, with target audiences, I mean, that is all we ever do. As all of us, doesn't matter what company I've, know, I had an agency at one point.

So I dealt with a lot of different people in a lot of different parts of the, of the economy and a lot of different types of business, but we're all, the questions were always, they start, always start the same who wants us or who needs us. But really if it comes down to it more often than not, it's who wants us. Right. So that is always there. And so we, we're a, we're a property and casualty insurance. So we're looking forward that those, those questions that lead us to those answers are like, all right, well,

Veterans have, they buy homes. Many of, know, and I'm in a unique position because I'm a veteran myself. This is actually the first time in my career that I'm targeting, I'm a cohort within the audience I'm in more ways than one. So veterans buy homes. They invest in homes while they're in the service and pay on and pay on and pay on, wherever they go so that when they get out, they have that home where they love.

Uh, you know, there's a bunch of things about veterans that, know, where they congregate. Well, so to bring it around full circle and I'll get to my brand in a second, but to bring it on full circle for sports make perfect sense for us. You have to go where the people are. mean, just because we have an internet doesn't change the location, location, location rule, right? It still has to be where they are. Well, they're in sports, you know, we know that. So that gets us there.

And as far as our brand, looking for anybody who has served, is serving in any branch of the military service, anybody who works for the VA, anybody who works for DOD, and anybody who has a policy, who is a member, who is eligible, their family members are eligible as well, in both directions, so parents and children.

Chris Winters (12:08.492)
That is our target. is very similar to another brand I won't mention. Everybody knows. And we're not nearly as well known. And we're not really aiming to be that large. Maybe not ever. I I'm not saying we'll turn anybody away. it's a drip. It's a long-term growth strategy. All that is a drip. We're not looking to explode ever.

That will be because we understand that that would be that would actually impact what is our single most important differentiator, which is that we know each other at our company and our customers know us. And that's just, know, we're not a giant skyscraper full of suits. And we're not a $42 billion company. And that's the company that shall remain unnamed.

Steve (12:57.676)
Mm. Mm.

Chris Winters (13:06.414)
is about that, you know, and, and, you know, you're going to talk to a human being when you call. So that's our brand. And it does match up very well, like, you noted with the armed forces bowl and, and, and, and possibly other sporting events, we're just, you know, that's with at our drip sort of growth strategy, which is it's not, we're not ever angling to, to slow it down.

You know, but we're not, there's not some drumbeat of you must explode, you must grow, we need exponential growth, any of that kind of things like that, because that would be, that would have an adverse effect on the other side of our business, which is enabling us to be like you're, you know us, you know, we're like a neighbor almost who helps you cover your stuff.

Does that help? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. We're not a good neighbor. We're a perfect neighbor.

Steve (13:54.557)
I don't want to say like a good neighbor. I don't want to go.

Steve (14:01.54)
I'm just about to add on to that. You when I heard the Nike slogan, just do it.

Chris Winters (14:06.892)
We are, no, we're not lying, we are, no. That's grand.

Steve (14:12.412)
But yours was not a neighbor. You made a point earlier, Chris, and you said you said your family, and that was a distinction.

Chris Winters (14:15.864)
Yeah

Chris Winters (14:19.82)
Yeah, no. I gotta tell you, you know...

Steve (14:22.928)
So Europe is more like a good family member.

Chris Winters (14:26.56)
We are, I can, and it's important to put good family because not everybody's family. But you know, here's the thing. So, you know, I'm, I'm pretty far down the road in my career. I've done things and I've, I've, sir, I feel blessed. I've had this really great career. This kind of meandered. I'm kind of like, I used to date a lady who called me Forrest Gump. at one point I was, she said, Hey Forrest.

Steve (14:31.14)
percent.

Steve (14:46.556)
And you continue to date her?

Chris Winters (14:51.928)
yeah. Cause yeah, well she was cute, but, but, but she called me that because, cause like, for example, I was a reporter at the time she was, sold advertising at the small newspaper. worked out near Niceville, Florida near Eglinton air force base. actually covered Eglinton air force base at the time. And as part of that coverage, when the president came, I got to be on the flatbed taking pictures and you know, kind of in the press corps and whatnot. So she said, I was like, forrest got met the president again, you know,

But here's the thing, I said all that to say this, which is that at this point in my career with this company, as soon as I came aboard with this company, immediately, I knew it was different. I knew these were people who walk the walk and don't just talk the talk. And I know that from the little side conversations I have in meetings or the conversations in meetings where the points that are brought up are points that always look at it from our members' perspective. How does that affect our members?

What are we doing to improve the conditions or circumstances or service that we have for our members? And because we never forget that they served or are serving, you know, and doing the very difficult work of serving our country. And because we never forget that I did something different in my career development that I've never done.

And, know, I've been called a LinkedIn Kool-Aid drinker because I really believe in the power. have it for many, many years. have, I have, LinkedIn comes to me and says, Hey, will you advise people on using LinkedIn? I'm not even joking. for, for many years, for most of it, I've always maintained that your LinkedIn page is your website, your, your, your personal brand, your business brand, your, your career brand website.

And if you look at my LinkedIn page now, I'm not signing anybody there, but if you look at it now, I actually have the Armed Forces Insurance logo as my background on that page. For the first time in my entire career, I traded my brand space and put my company's brand in my brand space here. So that's the kind of company this is. Yeah.

Steve (16:51.229)
So what I'm, what I'm gleaning, and I want to go back to something important that you said, and it would be something I usually come to later, but it's actually one of the core, we'll call it 12 benefits. I vacillate between 12 and 15 benefits of sports marketing. When you look at how effective sports marketing is used, if we want to look at it at a maximum optimal level,

Chris Winters (17:19.586)
Yes.

Steve (17:19.953)
And again, optimal doesn't mean you have to use all of them, but when we're maxing out those benefits, one of them that has been, I would say, an Achilles heel without it being even acknowledged by brands for decades is one where you go beyond the C-suite to integrate the sponsorship so that those, and I say this in the most respectful fashion, those rank and file employees of a company actually benefit.

and feel tethered to the sponsorship. In fact, it is one of the most potent aspects of sponsorship because we're so concerned about what you just identified, Chris, and that is rewarding and serving the pain points of our members, of our clients, prospective clients, how to appeal and provide a remedy to the challenges they face and being thanked for it, as that's effective relationship building.

Chris Winters (17:52.482)
Hmm.

Steve (18:18.747)
where internally the people that got us those clients are very often ignored in the process of sponsorship. So it's an interesting paradox. And I want to go back to the cooler when you were talking with your colleagues. Let's jump forth and look at your sponsorship of a major bowl game in the United States, one that's been around for over two decades. And your alliance with that has been around for over two decades.

while multiple title sponsors have come through and the name has changed from its inception. The bottom line is for almost two decades plus we've had it named as the Armed Forces Bowl. Internally, tell us a little about how your colleagues were you operate. Candidly, what did what do they feel about that bowl game? What does it do to instill

If you had to take the average member of the company in which you work, what would you say is the representative feedback from that sample size that would be statistically significant?

Chris Winters (19:32.046)
That feedback would vary depending on its range from ground zero of the marketing team. We love it. We love going to it. We love the experience. We love being there. There's always a ton going on. It's always really interesting. There's a lot of military. If you're a veteran,

And you find yourself amongst military. There's always a very comfortable feeling that you get. I had a conversation at the VA hospital just for a routine appointment not long ago with another veteran. he said, he goes, know, my wife brings me here and she always says, when you get here, you change a little bit, not in a bad way. But, and he said, yeah, I guess it's because I just kind of feel something click and I'm kind of back home in a way, you know?

And that's very much the way it feels for like, for me, I absolutely adore it. I understand, of course, I fully understand even more than what we get from it, what we could get, you know, we talk about that. and our team loves it. It's really, it's not a huge, you know, we don't, we only have to provide some, you know, collateral and stuff like that. It's not really a huge lift for us. So it doesn't really have a major impact on our workload.

And so it's really kind of all benefits for us. Now, as you move away from the team, the awareness of the bowl and its value, you you start with a marketing professional understanding of what that value is. But as you move away from that marketing professional, you get a less nuanced understanding of how that value. So you might not think you might not equate as much value to it over, you know, depending on the further away you get from that, that insider knowledge, you know, so.

somebody in actuarial might be like, I don't understand why we do that. And, and, and so, you know, you make a good point. You just called me out because we probably should explain it. And we do. mean, I'm not saying we never do. I certainly, one of the things that we do, have a small marketing team and you know, I make it a point to be extremely transparent, uh, with them regarding the wise. Uh, we do everything. And the reason I do that is because look,

Chris Winters (21:52.206)
Not every, so you're talking about out across the company. Well, that's the same as true with upline stakeholders. So when you get to the board of directors, they might not fully understand why we're doing things that we're doing, why that's a value, this, that, the other. So I make sure to be transparent with the team about all the why's so that they get trapped in an elevator with an upline stakeholder. They can give us a shot at helping them understand.

Steve (22:02.461)
Mmm.

Chris Winters (22:14.862)
But to circle back to your question, really depends on where that water cooler is. If it's in marketing, we love it, we understand it, we know it's a value, there's never a question. But if that water cooler is even maybe outside the CEO's office, then he has more than once had questions that we had to come to and say, well, look, this is how that dynamic works in the marketplace, that kind of thing.

And here's the, and here's the, by the way, he's, know, he doesn't just say, yeah, he's, he's a data guy. So we're like, and here's the supporting data for that. So data is always part of that. You know, that, that process, getting.

Steve (22:55.495)
Could you illustrate for us just a few questions that have come up since you're nearly through your tenure there? Do you resonate it from your CEO?

Chris Winters (23:04.076)
Right. No, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Here's one. Why are we doing this? Why can't we take this money and put it directly into our Legion bucket? You know, because as a marketing department, you you have an integrated, you know, ongoing, it's marketing. you put if you put it in military, in military terms is a very long term campaign. It's a war that never ends. That's I mean, that's the I'm not

That's not necessarily a positive way of looking at it, but it is kind of the commitment you have to have to it. You, you, you, you won today, but tomorrow morning you got to get up and win again. and so that requires that you, it's, if you think of it as a hopper, you got to always be putting people on the top of the hopper so that they slowly come down. We talk about the funnel or the journey or whatever, but you got to be getting, you got to get those people there to start with. They got to know about you.

If they're going to make a big decision, a big spending decision, you know, there's a ton of a ton of research that makes it very clear that in order to make a big spending decision and to say yes to your brand, they need to see your brand a bunch of times. You know, anywhere from eight to 20 times, it depends on the study you look at, but the more they see your brand, the more likely are to ultimately say, yeah, I want you to give me a quote and I want to do business with you.

Steve (24:23.517)
By the way, I know a lot of our viewers might be thinking in their own mindset that it's interesting because for some of us, we might have said to the CEO, CEO, I'm so glad you asked that question because this is categorically a lead gen activity. So with respect to sports sponsorship, which so often

Chris Winters (24:36.258)
Sure.

Chris Winters (24:39.822)
Absolutely.

Chris Winters (24:43.874)
Well, it is categorically, but it's way up the it's way. I don't mean to cut you off, but you know, I misspoken away. We call it brand placement or brand awareness, right? We don't Reach right. And so we don't think of it. mean, it is, it ultimately it is all Legion. We don't do anything just to cause it's pretty, you know, every bit of work we do has to earn its living, you know.

Steve (24:55.261)
So yours is more reach, more of the reach factor.

Chris Winters (25:13.87)
So yeah, it's all Legion in a way you're right about that, but it's way it's it's out there in the whole like shadow from the mountaintop level which

Steve (25:23.293)
So I can just because I love this is this is our bread. We love having you as our guest. So let's let's let's have a little bit of interaction on that. So brainstorming. Having worked with a lot of insurance companies throughout my life that were not focused on property but more life oriented that I used to own a lot of professional sports events and part of our bread and butter with sponsorship supporting that. That was one of our core revenue generation areas for our business.

Chris Winters (25:27.874)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Winters (25:53.24)
Sure.

Steve (25:53.47)
And we underwrote those big events and there was millions of dollars of prize money at times. Sometimes there were hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the bottom line is was on our shoulders. so when we would look at this, we would say, well, there's a way to integrate into the sponsorship. Again, while it's not a fast moving consumer goods product put into an aisle and has some type of shelf talker and an immediate redeemable or scratch something that's

that the consumer sees a perspective of an enormous immediate reward for their patronage. At the same time, when you look at the Armed Forces Ball and the brilliance of you, Armed Forces Insurance, having that kind of like, wow, this could be actually, you might be the ultimate sponsor here in the naming rights. And to be frank, my partners at SportsBiz, I believe several of us were talking about the fact that

Chris Winters (26:29.41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve (26:53.469)
We didn't even realize Lockheed Martin was the title sponsor. Because they can invest in this and they do this perhaps for big VIP corporate hospitality, just giving back to the community which funds their business in the Defense Department.

Chris Winters (26:56.962)
And they don't care. They don't care. Their defense conference.

Chris Winters (27:10.425)
It does not hurt their feelings in the least that people really, it doesn't.

Steve (27:13.245)
We've got to maximize then your exploitation of that non-

Chris Winters (27:20.322)
We have, well, we surely, yeah, we do. and, you know, I mean, you ask about the questions and what the answers are without even going into data. Why are we sponsoring the armed forces bowl armed forces bowl? Right. It's right. It's people that they, they're, first of all, when they see that our logo, when there's a touchdown,

Steve (27:39.101)
Armed Forces Inference, yeah.

Chris Winters (27:50.06)
the net rises up and it's Armed Forces Insurance logo on the net. And the camera's always trained where on the extra point? On the net, right? So for example, there's no doubt that there are people who say at some point out in the world, the Armed Forces Insurance Bowl, there's no doubt. That's probably the only way they even know about it. Like.

Steve (28:09.426)
So I'm going to raise my flag and we had this conversation internally at SportsBiz. Many of us thought it was.

Chris Winters (28:16.808)
So, yeah, so, so when we have pushback on what is, uh, and, know, without getting into a lot of financial details, we have pushbacks on what I believe is an incredibly reasonable, even without taking into account what can be done with AI nowadays and maximizing and improving the effectiveness of all of your collateral and in your, in your sponsorship, even without that, it's a, it's an, it's a no brainer investment.

It is our

Steve (28:48.253)
Why did you mention that earlier about the collateral being the primary contribution you make? Can you give some more granularity to that? What is the benefit to the organizing body that they would take not cash from you as your major contributing?

Chris Winters (28:54.818)
Yeah.

Chris Winters (29:07.532)
no, no, no, no, we don't we do our, we make, I don't want to misspeak our we there's still a sponsorship that, know, the sponsorship cost. I'm just saying that as far as our marketing team and what we have to do to deliver to, to, you know, for that event is just the collateral that we, that is part of our sponsorship. so ads, brand identity.

Steve (29:32.583)
So when you're saying just to be clear, being your brand identity, different types of exposure, points of exposure, would you provide some deeper understanding of what is that that gives your company that type of exposure that you value? Where is that collateral, those sponsorship assets?

Chris Winters (29:38.112)
Right. Yeah.

Chris Winters (29:48.706)
Well, I want, yeah, sure. So I definitely, mentioned one thing I think is huge and it seems, it sounds funny or maybe not funny, but it sounds like, you know, it seems like, like I get inordinately tickled when there's a score in that, in that, in that net goes up and you see our, what I think is a very cool logo, you know, in sharp relief and you know, it's on millions, literally millions of screens. You know, people are investing in bowl games, you know, just because it's not the

you know, the championship, it doesn't matter bowls, college bowl games have a venerable, I don't have to tell you, have a venerable history in our country. Even one that's just 25 years old or whatever still has tradition in it all those things like that. Like for example, one of the great traditions at the Armed Forces Bowl is that halftime, a whole bunch of young people raise their right hand and take their oath on the field. So they take their oath in June.

Steve (30:43.901)
How long has that been part of the process?

Chris Winters (30:49.558)
Always. I don't, I don't think it ever didn't happen. I think that was probably they're inducted. They're inducted at that point. Yeah. And, and, and so, and we, so one of things that we do is we have the military spouse of the year, all of the spouses who were either were finalists who were either their, their, their, their base or their bunch of them come.

Steve (30:53.489)
Huh. So they're actually being accepted into the American military

Chris Winters (31:16.0)
And we all go on the field and as they go on the field, were there like making a line and giving them high fives and tell them where to go. And then when they come off, we have a swag bag for them. And one of the things that includes is a challenge coin. They're probably for many of them, their first ever challenge coin. Now, if you've never been in the military, you may not know what a challenge coin is, but it's a coin that you have with you and anytime you're going to be amongst.

Certainly anywhere you're going to be out and about like on the town with a bunch of GIs you better have one. Now if somebody pulls a challenge coin out and lays it on the table everybody has to pull theirs out and anybody who doesn't have one buys the round. Now that's a common military tradition but what it goes back to the challenge coin itself goes back to World War II and it was a technique used by resistance, allied resistance to identify

the good guys and bad guys. You had to have the right coin and you would challenge with the coin. So that's the history there. So there for many of them, when they come there, their first ever challenge coin, you'll get many in the service typically, you know, each unit has its own challenge coin. If you do well on a big inspection or a big event, then it's a lot of times officers, flag officers will hand you one. My personal one I got from General Stanley Clark, who was, who is our, our,

our chairman of the board and previously was the chief of the Air Force Reserve before he retired. He's a legit war hero, F-16 fighter pilot. And he gave me, like he coined me. I got my armed forces insurance coined from him. They're going to get their first one from us when they come off the field after they raise their right hand and they do it on national TV. So.

That's a huge, big tradition, you and it's, you talked about what do people think about it? Well, I'll tell you, if you ever experienced that, you know, and it's not that we can't afford to send the whole company there, but anybody who gets to go or sees it comes away going, well, that's really very, very cool, you know? And then, you know, we're talking about the collateral. Well, so we've got the nets, we've got signage.

Chris Winters (33:38.434)
There's almost nowhere a camera can pan during the course of a game that you will not necessarily see a very recognizable logo. You don't even have to read it. Once you've seen it once, you know it there. And then there's obviously sponsorship language and commercials and whatnot on the Jumbotron. And we also present the Great American Patriot Award.

We want to use this General Clark who makes that presentation. It has been Laurie Simmons, my boss before. And then we also there's a big, it's a big event beforehand. There's a big pavilion and there's like, they'll have military, they'll have high Mars and sometimes they'll have a fighter or something pulled up on a trailer. You know, they'll have all kinds of really great stuff. They had an F-35 simulator there last year. It was, people had these really cool F-35 caps like, and we had a table.

Everybody has a table and you just, you know, we just focus on giving swag away, you know, and having quick, you know, quick, you have these quick conversations. Who are you? You know, we're the alternative, you know, we're not the big boys, that kind of thing. And it's really, it's a of fun. goes really fast. And then you're watching the game and then it's over and just, that was quick. And it's a blur, but it has a, there's probably, I feel like there's more.

Armed Forces insurance signage and collateral apparent in that event than just about anything else, really.

Steve (35:12.477)
So because of your analytic background and your AI background, why don't we help just get your post-event assessment of value generated. Let's see if we can unpack a little bit of where and how, how do you go about, rather, understanding when you say the net was lifted and you have, I believe, that purple banner.

that has a website underneath it, which is interesting. And it has actually your logo above the name Armed Forces Insurance. And again, we always talk about the fact that if the name Chris Winters or Steve Feuerstein was on a giant net, we certainly feel that everyone in the world who's watching the game is gonna have recall that we were there. Or if there's signage at the stadium, there's a sense that...

Chris Winters (36:03.278)
I don't.

Steve (36:08.029)
It's prominent and it's visible. How do you and your team, from an analytics standpoint, go about assessing the value? What is it that you would go back to C-suite and say, this year we were exposed in media in a certain fashion, qualitatively and quantitatively, and I'm going to share with you what that generated value is to our company. How do you approach that?

Chris Winters (36:28.152)
Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Winters (36:34.562)
Right? Well, the event organizer helps a great deal. They provide a report. The things like the net, for example, that is, I talk about that kind of as a political thing. mean, you and I know the actual retention of people seeing this. That doesn't really, it's a thing you can point to.

And you can say, look, see there, that's huge, right? Well, yeah, it is. And again, the further you get away from that, that, that nuanced, marketing professional knowledge, the more impressive that is. So that's a pretty impressive thing. Like, you know, when this, when, when certain people see that who are, it's not that they're not smart. It's that they're, they're, don't do what we do every day. You know, they see that they're like, that's huge. That's great. Yeah, it is. It's not, it's a great thing, but it's not necessarily the great thing.

You know, like the great thing might be the geo targeted campaign we have that just drove an extra 40 quotes during that game that we might not have got because people, just, here's the thing to remember. People, well, the intent's not there. No one's going to the game to buy insurance. No question about it. They're not, but people who are tuning in and you know, are otherwise aware of it could be.

looking to buy insurance today. we almost always, in fact, we do always find it. Now, interestingly enough, you ask about the, if we want to, we do have data that tells us that the net is effective too, because we do see a spike when there's a higher score. A spike in quote volume during the game, during that time period, that specific time period.

Steve (38:20.903)
The spike is.

Steve (38:28.326)
And that's coming from your website or from calls? How do we?

Chris Winters (38:31.394)
From a website, Whether it's on a weekend or not, no matter what, it's a regular workday for marketing. We're monitoring data in real time. We're monitoring what's coming in, quote volume, where it's coming from, all that in real time. I'm usually on the phone with somebody at some point, or I'm texts saying, hey, we got 30 quotes, or we got this, that, or the other.

Steve (38:51.549)
And by the way, those quotes would be someone coming onto the website. They would then be, there's no human interaction at that time. It's more just charting the analytics of the web traffic.

Chris Winters (39:03.096)
They go into a queue. It depends on what they're quoting for. Like for example, if it's renter insurance, you can bind right there in line. You don't have to even talk to an agent. And we, I'll throw this plug in there. We have hands down the best renter product there is on the market, hands down, and it's easy to get. And they don't have to even talk to an agent for that. But everything else, you go through it, you provide some basic information and it goes into a queue and then an agent's reaching out to you.

Steve (39:12.029)
Mmm. Mmm.

Chris Winters (39:32.622)
And if they can, they'll just reach out to you with the actual quote completed. In many cases, they have to get additional information or clarify things. And it starts that process. so we see, for example, when we have higher scoring games and that net comes up six, seven, eight times during the game, then there is an uptick. Now, I'm not saying...

Steve (39:49.615)
Interesting. Yeah.

Steve (39:58.152)
Now, by the way, there commercial spots running throughout the game as well?

Chris Winters (40:03.65)
There are now I got to be honest, our commercial, our investment are our point part of that. It's not a ton of it. There's, there's, there's not a, we don't have a lot of like a bunch of, don't have like, we don't do a specific, like a 32nd spot or anything like that. we get mentions, you know, and, and,

Steve (40:21.085)
like proudly at the medal, I think you have your moniker is Medal of Honor, which we'll get into momentarily about the quality, stat, what we call them is the levels of sponsorship. you're at the, right under Lockheed Martin, you guys are called Medal of Honor sponsors. And you're up there with a few others, but at the end of the day, you're at the highest tier, literally right under the title sponsor. So you're getting a mention like this broadcast is proud to,

Chris Winters (40:33.272)
Ha!

Chris Winters (40:49.344)
Exactly.

Steve (40:50.523)
proudly brought to you by Armed Forces Insurance.

Chris Winters (40:53.818)
Exactly. Yes. And so we provide all the logos, all the high res, all the, all the necessary, um, graphic support for them to do that. And, if we, you know,

Steve (41:01.021)
Do you there's any correlation between that activity and Spike?

Chris Winters (41:09.26)
Well, you know, I, I would, got to be honest, I would love to drill down into that, into the reporting to that point. And, and that would, that would require probably some resources and that we just don't, you know, because what the resources that we have who are managing that are also managing a lot of other stuff at the same time. Like for example, we have somebody who's managing the entirety of our, of our social media activity during that event with that, which is, and then we have several of us on site. They're sending.

pictures and video and quick snippets and information to that person. So each team member has, if we were a B-17, we all have a gun. So digging that deep into that, what we end up finding out, we are able to provide enough of a granular report to say to our upline stakeholders,

these are things that we can directly trace. And then what we always say, when you provide information, it's always important to provide.

I'm a dude I gotta tell you, I'm about to lose my battery. We're about to, because I, yeah, I'm going to have to go off camera in a minute. Unfortunately, I've got about maybe five minutes. I'm sorry. We've gone like, yeah, yeah.

Steve (42:29.997)
this is on your computer. My bad for not getting us into the artificial intelligence earlier, because that's where we, I know.

Chris Winters (42:40.024)
Well, look, I can come back on. I can charge. I got to go take care of a couple of things. I got a meeting. But I can come back on if you can. I can get back on. We can talk just about that if you want. I can get it charged, and I'll have a good solid hour.

Steve (42:50.557)
What is your schedule looking at, Chris? you've been very, you know, because you've been building a story that's unique to the show, which is really about your business and how you operate. And it's helping us.

Chris Winters (42:56.844)
Yeah.

But it's not really supposed to be about just that. get it. Yeah. I want to make sure and help you out. Let me look real quick at my schedule here. I can't get that pulled up. Here we are. So after, I'm wide open after 1230 today. Like nothing else for the rest of the afternoon. If you want to jump on at any point, I'm more than happy. Even it can be any time just to get into the specific.

Steve (43:27.025)
That's ESP.

Chris Winters (43:29.774)
Central, sorry, Central, 1230 Central.

Steve (43:31.783)
Central, 1230 Central. So.

Chris Winters (43:34.35)
So anytime after 1.30, your time, I guess, yeah.

Steve (43:37.981)
So that would be, if it's okay with you, then actually 1230, is that too tight for you if we did 1230?

Chris Winters (43:44.844)
No, no, it's fine. I'll just be coming off of a call, but we can just jump right in and go straight to that, to the the AI part. I'd be happy to do that. Yeah. Send me just send me another quick thing. Another quick invite with the link so that I'll have the right one.

Steve (43:49.533)
That would be beautiful.

Ryan, are you good with that?

I wanna make sure we just finish your point here before we, and I thank you for having this, you know, cause it really, it is, it really gives you, it brings you into the mindset of really trying to understand an important sponsorship and how that gets validated throughout the organization. And...

Chris Winters (44:02.242)
Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah.

Chris Winters (44:22.638)
Well, and you know, I can, I can take a, know, the Alexander, the great sword and the Gordian knot and just kind of hack through that real quick and kind of, summarize it by saying that if we only got, if we didn't do any of the other stuff that we do, and we only got the value that we get from the report that, you know, ESPN provides to us on the, on the event, that would be more than enough. It is that valuable.

Steve (44:48.765)
By the way, that the deal partner that you sign with for these multi-year deals? And are they traditionally three-year deals or five-year deals?

Chris Winters (44:52.706)
Yes. Yes.

Chris Winters (44:58.518)
You know what? I don't sign that contract. So I think it's probably three years, I think. But maybe it's five. I don't remember. I've probably heard it said.

Steve (45:07.741)
So you're signing, so the deal is with ESPN and then ESPN comes back to you with the management report of saying, here's the overall assessment of the value you got.

Chris Winters (45:20.204)
Yes.

Steve (45:21.403)
And your point was if we just got those fundamental benefits of the net and basic signage you were saying, that for you that was good. Please.

Chris Winters (45:29.259)
And

Yeah, that and getting to go and set up the table and be a presence there and to be a constant presence. You know, we're everywhere in there, including in events. If we've got nothing but that, would still be worth it. Every bit of it. There's no doubt about it.

Steve (45:48.274)
By the way, just because it's pretty common to try and understand what would be that overall messaging of the value that you're getting when you look at those two primary benefits. If you just factored those and said, this is what a third party, even though they're a direct partner and have sold you the sponsorship because it's broadcast on their network, and they have the rights to the sponsor, but understanding that.

Chris Winters (46:04.568)
Yeah.

Chris Winters (46:12.578)
Sure, yeah, get that, right. Yeah, yeah.

Steve (46:17.659)
What would be, just if you took the last three years moving average, what would be your best judgment of where would that sit in the numbers? Are we talking, I don't even wanna lead you. What would that number approximately look like in what you're being told and that you feel comfortable with is an overall value for those.

Chris Winters (46:34.798)
In terms of the quantifiable value or what based on the... And understand that when they put it together, yes, they're putting it together, but they're employing essentially pretty widely accepted industry best practices in terms of measuring television impact and all those kinds of things and impressions and all that kind of stuff. And I always just figure, look, that's probably...

Steve (46:38.674)
Yeah.

Chris Winters (47:03.198)
scale accurate minus 10 % or something like that. know, like I just kind of, it's not, it's art and science, right? But realistically, I figure that it's it's a, it's a seven figure benefit for us, you know, on a, on a six figure investment and not a very high six figure investment. So yeah, it's, it's, it is, you know, they quantify it at close to that.

Steve (47:06.909)
short.

Chris Winters (47:33.664)
And they're not even looking into like their stuff. They don't have like, they don't have the data that we get. And also we make, Hey, we make, Hey, with that all year long, we save that collect all that stuff back and we refer back to it. we, you know, we, we mine all that stuff for messaging and, and just, just all kinds of general communications ourselves, you know, marketing communications, especially in social media. So the benefits.

Steve (47:40.583)
precisely.

Chris Winters (48:02.55)
continue kind of going on. Like, I don't think we've ever, I gotta be honest, I don't think we've ever gone and truly calculated to the penny what I would say was value. But I consider it to be significantly higher than even what ESPN reports to us, even with their inflated part, because again, they're not counting what we did in terms of, okay, ESPN doesn't know anything about what we did with geo-targeting over here with our agency.

You know, ESPN doesn't know anything about what we did with social media and boosted posts and things like that. And they don't know anything about the contest. You know, they don't know anything about the other stuff that we might run. We don't just sit back and go, okay, yeah, it's going to be on. That'll be great. And it'll help our brand. We're like, no, when the sun shines, you make hay. And so...

Steve (48:40.157)
Sure.

Chris Winters (48:52.494)
You know, we are trying to my grandfather was an immigrant came from came from Poland. My great grandparents came through Ellis Island, a whole nine yards grew up in the Bronx. Like if you watch the Godfather part two, those streets are literally where he grew up. And he once told me, he said he was my grandfather was known as a fighter, not in his later years, but when he was young. And he once told me that when he says when you get in a fight with somebody.

Try to hit them with every part of your body at the same time.

And that's our approach when it comes to like, for example, in the Armed Forces Bowl. are, you know, it's kind of a barely controlled chaos. The watchwords are, if you think of something that might help, do it. Just that simple, you know, you don't have to consult me. If it's a social post, if it's an image, if it's a video, if you get a conversation.

Steve (49:58.749)
Just closing in on now before you, and I know you're gonna jump and then we'll come back. So I wanna just, just a quick closing out note. When you look at that report that you got, by the way, do you have a factor of live spectator value of what it was worth for the 45,000, if I remember correctly, the size of stadium, had about 45,000 people at stadium. Do we have a sense of what value was placed on the spectators live?

Chris Winters (50:02.358)
I'm getting the last warning, so it's going to click in a minute.

Steve (50:28.441)
spectators who came and viewed.

Chris Winters (50:31.074)
You know, I gotta be honest, I would be skeptical as a person that the advertisers, they didn't come there for the advertisers, they came there for the game. So the game was the contribution of life, the experience that what they were... I don't know, I might even think, I'm not sure I would even ascribe much of...

mean, I think what we're trying to do, we are trying to help them in that if they are eligible and they need our products, we feel like we're good fit for that. mainly we're trying not to get in their way of enjoying the game.

Steve (51:10.494)
So we're gonna stop here. We'll pick up for two minutes on closing this out. And again, great stuff here as far as really for remember who our viewers are. These are people who live sponsorship every day. And like you.

Chris Winters (51:25.474)
Right.