YouSaid · the spoken record

Mike Cessario

lines on the record: 101
first: 2024-01-22
most recent: 2024-01-22
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Like liquid death, like liquid death was one of these names. It was just like, what sounds like something that you would never want to drink? And it's like, you know, liquid death. Do the opposite of what you think you should do. But I remember thinking a beverage called liquid death, like there is no chance someone's not sharing that if they see that in a store.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I think when I really started thinking about, like, again, it's like, okay, let's take a step back. Like, if I launch this thing for real, what I learned from Western grace, there's going to be no dollars for marketing. And the only chance this has at survival is it has to be something that people naturally want to share on social. So then I started thinking like, okay, what are some of the names where if someone saw this, they have to share it. And that's where it's like you literally start trying to think of what's the dumbest.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fat tire, yeah. I think one of the early really bad names that I had was like Southern Thunder. Terrible name. Terrible name.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mood board, exactly like pulling all these references, I used a lot of craft beer inspiration, not so much in the design, because craft beer design, part of what makes it great is it doesn't look anything like typical big beer. Also, just it almost is like craft beer is cool because it kind of looks like a soda or energy drink most times and not a beer. And that's what makes it interesting. But from a naming perspective, I thought some of the craft beers had some of the most interesting brand names compared to regular beer where it was like there was like a skull crusher IPA. There was like arrogant bastard ale.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. So it was like, hey, if we actually want, you know. Or even people in their 20s want something like let's not make it look like a kitty energy drink that 12-year-olds think is cool. Let's make it look like a beer that everyone between Know 15 and 50 think is cool. So then I just really started pulling all these beer references for like, hey, what does classic beer design look like? What kind of fonts do you need?”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know it's like energy drinks, they kind of mark it to teens 17 year olds don't think monsters the coolest thing, but 12 year olds do, you know.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I think once we're in, I think it's like 2000 early, I think when I'm I finally have kind of landed on, you know. The general concept for liquid death was going to be because it wasn't always going to be looked like a beer. It was kind of like, you know, does it look like an energy drink? So then when I finally decided, hey, I want this thing to look like a beer. Like that was kind of the concept. I remember calling one of my best friends and telling him, I'm like, hey, I think I have the new business ideas. Like, what is it? I'm like, I want to put water in cans that look like cheap beer. And that felt right to me because I'm like, you know. Everybody wants stuff they're not supposed to have. It's like they say, hey, if you want teens to think something's cool, you actually market it to people in their 20s.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There goes your idea. Yeah, that kind of slowed some of the momentum of my idea down when I realized how hard it was going to be to produce. What started as this fervorous, oh my God, I found something. I found something. I'm researching. Yes, all this stuff makes sense. And then, yeah, it's kind of this big roadblock of, well, literally, there's no one that can make it. So this might be a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Presumably, but no, because it was not a category that existed. So every single water source that had bottling capabilities, they only had plastic capabilities. Maybe a couple of them had glass. But even that was rare. So it was all plastic. Like the whole industry.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right. And even if I wanted to use city water, there's a whole other thing that you'd have to do there. But no, I wanted this to be like a premium spring source because you knew that based on the cost of aluminum. Not going to be able to sell this for the same price as a piece of trash plastic bottle, right? It's like this is going to have to have a premium price point. So you're going to have to justify it with at least the product inside feels like there's a premium story. Oh, it's from a mountain. It's from a natural source. This isn't city water.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So when you create a bottled water or a canned water, the only way it makes economic sense is you have to basically bottle it at the source.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know sizzle up at that time as well. So it's like, oh, great. Not only is the can really cool, now there's actually a deeper reason why aluminum's infinitely recyclable. It's a way better alternative to plastic. All these moons just started aligning that this was the right path.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, yeah. And then, so I'm trying to find like, okay, where's there a water source? Like, who can actually can water? So I'm like Googling, you know, water sources in Kentucky or Tennessee or places like, hey, who can maybe actually produce this stuff? Then I also started seeing that, you know, the more news articles about how bad plastic is. Like those were starting to pop up in a big way then where, hey, you know, how much plastic ends up in the ocean and companies were starting to say, hey, we're just going to stop using plastic bottles in our companies. And it was kind of a hot button topic that was starting to kind of”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The original idea for a can or a tall boy can was like, hey, this looks like something like a beer or energy drink that feels fun, but what's inside is actually really good for you, which is rare. There's rarely anything inside of a can that's really good for you.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think a lot of brands that are all very much the same and not fun or interesting, you know, when you compare it to something like Monster or Red Bull or Bud Light or like these brands that are associated with hilarious commercials, exciting packaging, you know, youth culture, like all of that kind of stuff. There was nothing like that in water”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think I was already in What's my next entrepreneurial mindset constantly? And I started just really doing, when I kind of focus on something, I just go into this like deep dive of homework, like where I just become obsessed where I'm like, okay, let me research the bottled water market.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I wasn't there to actually present the idea. It was like our boss had presented the idea. And they had zero interest in creating a real product. They're like, no, guys, like, we don't want to create anything like that. We literally just want a funny video like The Real Bears thing, but for energy drinks. But I just knew there was something there. I'm like, regardless if these guys were going to do this, like I think I stumbled onto something really interesting here. And I kind of just kept it in the back of my head. And I started just flipping that entrepreneurial switch again because I finally found something that got me excited that I thought I saw white space there again.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So maybe we do like a funny video. Almost feels like it's like, I don't know, like a commercial or something for this ridiculous product where I think, you know, we were saying something like 100% water, 0% bullshit. Like that was like the line.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And the thing that we landed on was that And that kind of came from some of my experience from the Warp Tour, which was the reality is these guys use all these action sports athletes to market this stuff. It seems like they're drinking this stuff, but the reality was it was all bullshit These guys are actual athletes. They have trainers. They will not be drinking this much caffeine and sugar. They take their stuff very seriously. So, you know, we, you know, we came up with a couple different ideas. And the idea that I had, and I think partially because I had just come off of like an entrepreneurial thing of creating a product. So my brain first goes to. Oh, what if we created a water brand that looked like an energy drink and it was all about making fun of the fact that this is what these guys actually drink?”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so at Humanaught, we had the opportunity to pitch ideas to this company called, I think they're called the Center for Science and Public Health. And they wanted to do a commercial that really brought to attention the dangers or unhealthy elements of soda. And I think it was called The Real Bears. And you know how Coca-Cola, like their icon. So you couldn't say Coca-Cola. You couldn't disparage a brand, but they just had this little... Cute cartoon where they had polar bears that were drinking soda. And it was like kind of very happy, like, you know, go lucky. But then it's like they start getting diabetes and then they get their arms amputated. Then they said, hey, guys, we want to do something like this, but now we want to call out the dangers of energy drinks because that was such a big thing.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I felt like I had found my lane again. I was making stuff that I was actually proud of. That started bringing in more people, more companies coming to us for that viral YouTube video, especially from the health food space. So that kind of became like our specialty. We started doing it for other brands.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They were nervous, yeah. So then we launched it. It goes totally viral. Everyone loves it. And then, you know, organic valleys calling us, guys, we need bros at trade shows. We need bros everywhere. We need more bros. What's the second bro video we're going to do?”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think they liked it at first. And then once we had the final cut of the video, and then they started sharing the video with some of their family farmers because it was a company as a co-op. So it's like partially owned by the farmer. So they run the stuff by the farmers. And of course, that was the wrong thing to do because these guys just totally didn't get it. And they literally almost didn't run it.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, you tell anyone, you know, and that's the whole culture that they were going to be launching into So, yeah, we had this idea if all these bros keep drinking all these chemical-laden protein shakes, like how long are they going to be around? And they might become extinct. And then you might miss bros if that happens. So that was kind of the seed of the idea that we then turned into this. It's sort of a format that's been done a million times, like the parody PSA.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mean it was, yeah. I mean, it really was a tough time for me. It's like, you know, I worked at one agency that wasn't great. And then I got fired from that agency because I think they realized my head just wasn't in it. And I was literally just like phoning it in. So it's like, I'm fired from a really crappy agency or what I thought was a crappy agency at the time. And I just had this whole like, what does it all mean? What am I going to do with my life? I have no interesting work in my portfolio. There is no cool agency that's going to really hire me.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, yeah, it was such a headache. I mean, the legal paperwork, background checks, like it really was such a nightmare. And that was part of the reason where when I was thinking of my next thing, I'm like, Okay, whatever it's going to be, there's going to be almost no regulations, like no complicated ingredients or manufacturing processes. It needs to be very simple because that stuff just It was really difficult.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“House in Philadelphia What I realized then was with alcohol, so much of it isn't marketing. It's like this getting it into the cool craft cocktail bars and getting bartenders on board and doing tastings. Like it wasn't really at that level about you didn't have the money for like brand marketing. It was just like, okay, you just got to get this in the right people's hands. Basically, like, yeah, we're not going to have any money to do real marketing for a while, and it's social media, and you can't market alcohol to anyone under 21. So you have to be careful about what you can put on social. And then after two years. And then they kept the brand going for a while. And it wasn't until I think it was two summers ago during COVID that they officially sort of shut the company down. Right.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Batch of this stuff was maybe like 15 grand or something like that. It was like not many cases. I don't know, 60 cases or something like that. And then literally it was, you know, these guys, I mean, they were creative directors and like VP level account people at agency. So they had probably pretty high paying jobs. Like they were co-owners. Like they kind of had their own independent money where I did not. Like I'm still paying student loans. I have like nothing in my bank account. So they were able to kind of put up like a little bit to kind of help it going. Like I had, you know, I basically asked my dad like, hey, I got this thing. And I think they lent me like five grand just so I could like put in a little bit also. And we got like the first production going where we, you know, went through all the legal head, you know, of like dealing, like getting an actual, you know, through the red tape of having an alcohol brand. And we got it into a warehouse.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I moved back to Philly. We started figuring out the details of working with this distillery, how much they wanted to charge us, how much we were going to create. And that was really like we were just going to create a really small amount. I want to say the first...”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, they had made this craft brandy, you know, and I think when they saw this marketing young marketing guy who was passionate and excited about the category and had this cool idea on how to market it and brand it, I think they got excited about it. And they were like, yeah, you know, we'll. We're down to kind of make it for you”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, yeah, we kind of created this thing. It felt like a whiskey, but it was American brandy. And I found a distillery in Ukaya, California. And yeah, and these guys have been making some of the best brandy in the world for like 20 years.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A brandy brand. That's always the funniest thing to say, a brandy brand that felt more like a whiskey brand, you know, because I felt Hey, people understand the design and branding aesthetic of whiskey and they associate it with a flavor profile. How do we bring more of that to brandy? Because it really is closer to that kind of profile. People thought branding was like ultra sweet liqueur, but it's not At all. So, when you”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, yeah, when I thought, okay, it's going to be liquor. And literally, I just started looking and doing my homework. But yeah, the one kind of category that I thought that I couldn't find one cool brand in really was brandy. And I was like, go to the liquor store and you look on the shelf, the brandy section. And there was literally dust on some of the bottles. And I started, I was like, so then I bought some brandy and was tasting it. I was like, oh, wow, this actually tastes a lot like bourbon, just a little bit sweeter. Why is this such a dead category yet a very similar tasting spirit is like the hottest thing there is right now? Clearly that is a brand and marketing problem that needs to be solved. So then I started kind of developing”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In San Francisco, yeah. I was really into whiskey and bourbon and trying all these different unique things. And my brother was a bartender at the time. So I just felt like I'm more connected to this world and probably no more about it than the average person. I think that was my sort of, you know, litmus test for like what kind of product to make, you know.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And at the time, I was just very surrounded in the spirits industry. Like at the time I was dating someone who was a mixologist bartender.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he was kind of like a punk, sort of like a punk rock sort of guy that, you know, ran this agency in Philadelphia for years. They had partnered with this big liquor conglomerate called William Grant& Sons that was based in Scotland. And they asked them to help launch. Gin brand, and they were like, hey, as a Scottish company, it's really unique that we would ever launch a gin. Whereas everyone sees us as a Scotch. So they help them. They kind of helped them create this entire Hendrix Gin brand”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I was actually really inspired by this guy. He was a creative advertising agency owner in Philadelphia named Steve Grass. And he had this agency called Quaker City Mercantile. And they actually helped create and launch two of the most successful Spirits brand launches of like at that time, like almost the last couple decades. What were they?”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Crossroads of man, I'm deep in it. So I literally had the thought, okay, if I have to depend on clients. Buy the ideas that I think are the smart things to do, or I have to depend on my boss to be willing to passing this through, that I'm like the only way, my only solution is I need to create my own product that I control what the marketing is for. That's the only way. So then I really started thinking about, okay, if”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, like a golf magazine. Exactly. Yeah. And I thought that was, I just thought it, I'm like, man, this is gold. How do you not do this? And my boss wouldn't even present it to the client. He's like, we're not even showing the client this. I'm like, ugh. Alright, fine. But yeah, it was those kinds of things. And we also were working at that time on the airline Virgin America when that was kind of a new hot airline and we were their agency. And I presented like all different kinds of. I think kind of cool ideas, but you know, again, they just ended up only wanting to show the client just very straightforward, like semi-clever headline. On a billboard, and not anything too disruptive. So yeah, it was very frustrating to just really not be able to kind of, I guess, hone in. And then that's when I started thinking. I kind of was at this.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and literally, you just say four yards longer. Like, that's the campaign. It's four yards longer, show a pro, show the club. That's golf marketing. One of the ideas I had, I'm like, okay, well, it's this, you know, whatever it is $400 golf club with devil horns on it. It's called the Diablo. And I said, what if we ran a magazine ad That was like a contract where if Ripped out this ad and sold your soul to Callaway, the first 20 people to do it would actually get a free Diablo club. And I'm like Think about it like how much crest attention will that get? How many people will talk about that for free that is not going to talk about an ad with a golfer that says four yards longer on it?”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, a campaign, or just like, you know, because golf world, it's sort of like they would joke, like the marketing is so stale and unchanged.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there was one. It was funny. It was funny it didn't get made and then whatever it was, 10 years later, I finally made the idea myself for Liquid Death, and it's one of our most successful things that we've done. There was a golf club company, Callaway, and they released this golf club called Diablo. Literally had devil horns on it and flames. And we were trying to come up with, you know.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. I mean, I was so into brand and marketing and, I mean, deep, deep, deep in the weeds, especially like when you're working for such a top agency like Crispin. It's like everybody eats, sleeps, and breathes like advertising and marketing and everyone knows what's the new campaign and what's been done before and what hasn't. Yeah, that was my career. So I was hypered tuned into all the nuance of brand and marketing.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And yeah, I saw they had these, you know, they were all drinking these cans of monster energy, but really small on the bottom of the can, it said tore water. And they were like, yeah, because I thought they were drinking energy drinks. They're like, no, no, no. Like, this is water. Like the energy drink sponsor, you know, they don't want us drinking any other products besides Monster on stage and like clearly people aren't going to drink energy drinks all day in the hot sun and so they said so the brand had to create water for the bands that look just like their product that they wanted to”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, Denver, yep. And when they were coming through on the warp tour to Denver, like I, you know, they hit me up. Hey, Mike, we're going to be in Denver. You should come out to the show. So I came out. They gave me, you know, wristband passes like I was hanging out back on their tour bus with where they have like this kind of city of tour buses for the warp tour where they all park and people are just sitting out in lawn chairs back there bands like you know drinking playing games that kind of stuff so just hanging out with them there”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think people will tell you like a year at Crispin at that period is like five years anywhere else because again it was like you know people called it a sweatshop like it really burned me out after a year I mean doing that where I mean I think there was a period for three months I didn't have a single day off so it was after a year I kind of was starting to look at some other spots and of course because I had a year of crispin under my belt there were some other agencies willing to pay me a lot more money than I was making as a junior you know creative”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, they did a lot of funny, disruptive marketing. That resonated far more with me than like the graphic design world. It's like measuring pixels and designing to a grid and all this very meticulous stuff. You know, I was always into the more, oh, let's make stuff that's funny and clever.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was not because I didn't love music as much. It was more because I realized the reality of a band is four or five people. And you need everybody to be on the same page. I was all in, but I kind of knew I didn't feel confident that everybody else was. And then once I was in Art Center, that's when the first time probably in my life, I was fully focused on one thing. I'm like, I'm done with the music thing. I've been burned too many times that way. I know that I can't just go get a job and design. I need to get great at this. This is where I really got to get my life together. And I focused 100% on design and advertising. And, you know, it was getting straight A's and was at the top of my class. And yeah, that's when I then went into advertising.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I drew a lot of cartoony stuff. Like when I was probably 10 years old, my older cousin Eric gave me his whole collection of mad magazines. Some as early as late 70s mad magazines all the way up through the 80s. And I just thought that was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. So that kind of like comedy is what drove my creativity and how I drew stuff. Like funny cartoons, funny scenarios, little bite-sized things that felt like Mad Magazine.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of went down the punk rabbit hole, got a guitar, started playing music, started playing in a band with some of my friends that I skateboarded with in eighth grade. And then that kind of defined me as a teenager going to high school. Like I played in a band and I skateboarded I was always in the creative. I did art drawing, all of that since I was really young as well.”
2024-01-22 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Liquid Death: Mike Cessario · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT