Is Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Its Most Valuable Asset? (Update)

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Speaker 15 Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner.

Speaker 17 Happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 18 The episode you're about to hear was originally published in 2024, and it is about as Thanksgiving as it gets.

Speaker 23 We have updated facts and figures where needed.

Speaker 9 As always, thanks for listening.

Speaker 30 I really only started paying attention to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade about 10 years ago when my family and I moved into the neighborhood where the parade starts and where the night before they stage everything.

Speaker 2 This is on the upper west side of Manhattan.

Speaker 34 They take over two extra wide streets to lay out the giant balloons.

Speaker 8 Each balloon arrives folded up flat in its own small rolling cart.

Speaker 9 It gets unpacked, unfolded, laid out on the pavement, and then comes the helium.

Speaker 1 There's a truck nearby with big helium canisters stacked horizontally on a rack.

Speaker 3 Up close, the balloons are really big.

Speaker 40 You see this as soon as they start drinking up some helium and puff up to full size.

Speaker 41 But tonight is Wednesday, the night before the parade.

Speaker 11 Inflation night, they call it.

Speaker 44 So the balloons aren't allowed to rise to parade height.

Speaker 11 Each one has a net thrown across the top and the net is held down by sandbags.

Speaker 1 If you happen to be passing by on foot, this can provide an unusual view of your favorite balloon character.

Speaker 44 A bulging eyeball, a massive derrier, some very chubby fingers.

Speaker 23 Many thousands of people come see the balloons on Inflation Night.

Speaker 31 It is an unusual and joyful scene for the visitors and the locals.

Speaker 18 For many people, myself included, it is the best New York night of the year.

Speaker 23 A lot of people who live on these blocks throw inflation parties up in their apartments.

Speaker 31 And when you look straight down out of your window, you get another unusual and wonderful view of the balloons.

Speaker 34 I've watched this whole operation for several years now, and every year, I'm a little bit more impressed.

Speaker 31 The parade people execute the mission with a blend of military efficiency and childlike glee.

Speaker 9 You can't help but marvel at how much planning must go into it.

Speaker 30 Also, how good the execution has to be, not just from the parade side of things, but from the city side and the broadcasting side.

Speaker 31 And it's not like they have weeks or even days to set up.

Speaker 36 On Wednesday morning, the streets are normal, full of cars, trucks, jaywalkers, dogs, bikes, and then the balloon people come and you get to see the real, up-close version of the thing that everybody else has to watch on TV, in miniature.

Speaker 37 The cleanup begins as soon as the last balloon enters the parade on Central Park West.

Speaker 34 And by the time they reach the Macy's flagship store down in Herald Square, our streets are back to cars and trucks again, although not so many since it's still Thanksgiving morning.

Speaker 22 Like I said, it's only recently that I began paying attention to the parade.

Speaker 56 I do remember it being on TV when I was a kid, but I don't know, I guess I just wasn't a parade person.

Speaker 21 Seeing it up close made me curious, and after last year's parade, I took a look at the TV ratings.

Speaker 16 Holy

Speaker 36 more than 30 million viewers.

Speaker 37 Another 3 million plus watch in person from the sidewalks and grandstands.

Speaker 40 But the TV numbers blew me away.

Speaker 6 As you may know, the television juggernaut these days is the National Football League.

Speaker 29 Last year, of the 100 most watched broadcasts, 72 were NFL games.

Speaker 59 Almost all the rest were presidential debates and other election programming.

Speaker 36 The Macy's parade was the only non-football, non-political program in the top 50.

Speaker 30 A TV audience of 30 million must generate a lot of ad revenue.

Speaker 11 And then I got to wondering how much. And then I got to wondering how much it costs to produce the parade.

Speaker 43 Simple questions, right?

Speaker 29 As it turns out, not so simple.

Speaker 37 Macy's is one of the oldest department stores in the U.S.

Speaker 1 and it has a lot of traditions.

Speaker 43 One of those traditions is not talking about the economics of its Thanksgiving parade.

Speaker 18 They like to call it their annual gift to the nation.

Speaker 10 And we all know it's not polite to ask how much a gift costs.

Speaker 58 But today, on Freakonomics Radio, we ask anyway.

Speaker 63 Why? Do I need to know how much lion can cost to produce?

Speaker 16 I can't tell you that. That's.

Speaker 64 We can't talk about sensitive commercial topics out here.

Speaker 65 Oh, I can't say how much they pay.

Speaker 50 Could try.

Speaker 33 This is the first of a two-part series.

Speaker 31 We will look into the the cost of the raw materials.

Speaker 66 We do have our finger on the pulse of helium.

Speaker 25 We'll look at how New York City pitches in.

Speaker 65 I don't know how you guys found me, by the way,

Speaker 65 because most people don't know I exist.

Speaker 25 We will hear from the CEO of Macy's, who's trying to keep an old store alive when so much retail is dying.

Speaker 63 I want to be perceived as giving this gift to the city and to the nation. I also want to do a lot of business.

Speaker 18 And we ask an industry expert what Macy's stands for today.

Speaker 66 Macy's doesn't stand for anything today.

Speaker 46 So come along as we drink the helium and wonder if the Macy's parade may be the most valuable asset Macy's has.

Speaker 27 This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything with your host, Stephen Dubner.

Speaker 23 We are hardly the first people to wonder how much it costs to stage the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

Speaker 71 There are published estimates ranging from around $10 to $15 million, but they're just estimates and it's unclear where those numbers come from, which makes sense.

Speaker 2 Macy's doesn't like to talk about it, and therefore it's hard to even identify all the costs. It's also hard to quantify the benefits.

Speaker 23 Keep in mind that most of the balloons and floats in the parade are sponsored by big brands that are presumably paying big money for the millions of eyeballs that will see them.

Speaker 3 And the parade itself is one big ad for Macy's.

Speaker 37 But let's start by focusing on the costs.

Speaker 21 There is, of course, the expense of building and maintaining the balloons and floats.

Speaker 57 There is the casting and wrangling of the marching bands and other performers.

Speaker 22 And there are all sorts of city services, police and sanitation and counterterrorism that somebody's paying for.

Speaker 18 And then there are all the personnel costs for the Macy's parade unit, which is a year-round operation.

Speaker 40 So we figured we might as well start at the source.

Speaker 66 Will Coss, and I'm the executive producer of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Speaker 73 And what does Will Cos actually do?

Speaker 66 The executive producer oversees the entire production of the parade, from our balloon and float design, construction, fabrication, and delivery to New York City on parade day, to all of the logistics as it relates to shutting down three and a half miles of New York City on the busiest travel day in New York.

Speaker 6 Cos grew up in New York, in the Bronx, and he went to college nearby on Long Island.

Speaker 72 I traveled really far.

Speaker 1 Have you ever lived outside of the New York City area then?

Speaker 49 I've not.

Speaker 23 Cos now lives on the Upper West Side with his wife and daughter.

Speaker 37 He's 45 years old.

Speaker 25 He started out as a producer for MTV, Nickelodeon, and YouTube, and he got the Macy's job in 2021.

Speaker 40 But he sounds like a lifer.

Speaker 66 We are part of the tradition of Thanksgiving morning for millions of people. If you love marching bands, we've got that.
If you love giant balloons, we've got that.

Speaker 75 We've got floats, we've got celebrity.

Speaker 71 We've been a staple.

Speaker 66 Whether you're sat in front of the television or have it on the background, just using us as the soundtrack to to your Thanksgiving morning, we're there.

Speaker 3 Macy's itself was founded in 1858 by Roland Hussey Macy, a former whaler from Nantucket.

Speaker 37 He ran dry goods stores in Massachusetts and California before settling in New York City.

Speaker 23 They sold everything from clothing and furniture to groceries and books.

Speaker 17 By 1902, according to one history of the store, the human wants were few indeed that the Macy store could not meet.

Speaker 49 By 1924, the Macy's flagship store in Herald Square was the world's largest store with over 1.5 million square feet.

Speaker 24 That year, Macy's sponsored its first parade, a six-mile march through Manhattan.

Speaker 21 It featured three horse-drawn floats, four professional bands, and camels, elephants, and bears borrowed from the Central Park Zoo.

Speaker 49 In these early days, Macy's released big helium balloons into the sky after the parade and and offered a $100 reward for their return.

Speaker 43 That tradition ended in 1932 when a novice pilot going for the reward crashed into a balloon in the sky.

Speaker 26 It has now been 101 years since the first parade, although this year's edition is only the 99th since they took three years off during World War II.

Speaker 40 The parade today looks a lot different than it used to.

Speaker 23 When there are 30 million people watching on TV, appearances matter.

Speaker 72 We are the largest televised variety show of the year.

Speaker 66 There's something about the work that we do that connects multi-generational.

Speaker 67 It's a responsibility that we don't take lightly, knowing that we have that impact on so many folks.

Speaker 81 The demographics are far and wide and are representative of everyone that's in New York City and America.

Speaker 3 That is Jen Neal.

Speaker 81 And I oversee the strategy, the creative development, and the operations for all of our live events and specials across NBCU.

Speaker 40 NBC Universal is a network that has carried the Macy's parade for 72 years.

Speaker 3 Neil's team produces roughly three dozen big live events a year.

Speaker 81 Christmas at Rockefeller Center, New Year's Eve, the People's Choice Awards, red carpets around Hollywood's biggest nights like the Grammys, the Oscars.

Speaker 81 My role focuses on the entertainment side, but we have incredible teams on the sports side that do the Super Bowl and the Olympics.

Speaker 10 Can you compare the production and coverage of the parade to the Super Bowl?

Speaker 56 I mean, obviously, with the Super Bowl, there are many, many, many elements and features and so on, but it is, in the end, a self-contained athletic competition on one big patch of turf, whereas the parade is this roving multi-mile extravaganza through New York City.

Speaker 81 There's incredible complexity in terms of the production. Each year, there are a number of elements that stay the same.
And each year we are evaluating what we want to evolve and change.

Speaker 81 Do the Broadway shows kick off the show? Is it better to have them in the second or third hour?

Speaker 81 A Super Bowl is incredible and there's many dynamics that go into that, but you're still covering a football game which has the same rules and the same field of play each year.

Speaker 56 What is the timeline from your end?

Speaker 40 When do you start working on a given year's parade?

Speaker 81 We start looking at it right after the parade ends, truly, the week or two after.

Speaker 66 The parade is an 18-month pre-production to execution process.

Speaker 73 That's Will Cos again.

Speaker 66 My full Macy Studios team is over 65 full-time folks that range from our partnership team to our creative team to our studio production team, logistics, project management, production management.

Speaker 66 The 65 number is our full-time. As we get closer, we expand considerably.

Speaker 81 The week before, they paint the star on 34th Street. The Monday and Tuesday nights, we shut down 34th Street in front of Macy's.
We're rehearsing with all the performers.

Speaker 81 Wednesday night, we've introduced a countdown show to bring to life the inflation of the balloons that happen magically on the Upper West Side.

Speaker 81 And then Thursday, we have a call time, the day of Thanksgiving, 2 a.m.

Speaker 40 And Jen, where do you spend parade day?

Speaker 81 I'm in the truck. I'm in the truck on parade day.

Speaker 21 Which is where?

Speaker 81 On 34th Street or adjacent to 34th Street.

Speaker 56 And what's that day like for you?

Speaker 81 There's a lot of energy, a lot of adrenaline. We go live at 8:30 through noon.
So it's three and a half hours of that coverage.

Speaker 81 We have preparation and contingencies and plans for every single thing that can happen along the way.

Speaker 81 And then I do, once every parade, take 30 seconds during a commercial break and jump out into the streets and see the scale of, you know, Snoopy or the Minion or the Doughboy adjacent to the buildings in New York.

Speaker 81 And it's magic.

Speaker 80 It also sounds incredibly expensive to produce from your side, not just the coverage part, but the coordination and the run of show and talent and so on.

Speaker 56 Can you just talk about how extensive that is?

Speaker 81 We don't really get into the cost of everything, but what I can say is we know that this is incredibly valuable to our advertising partners.

Speaker 81 And we know that advertising messages that are in the parade deliver stronger memorability and likability.

Speaker 54 I did see on the NBC Universal site a report about the power of the parade from a consumer perspective.

Speaker 40 Said that the year-over-year growth demonstrates that NBC Universal is moving consumers down the purchase funnel.

Speaker 9 What does that mean, moving consumers down the purchase funnel?

Speaker 81 First, our job is we got to make sure that this is incredibly entertaining and relevant and great TV.

Speaker 81 And second, brands want to be associated with this because their messaging is woven in, and each brand takes a different strategy to do that.

Speaker 46 Can you give me an example?

Speaker 81 When you are a Genny O turkey and you want to have a turkey float, they're going to want to talk about the number of years of the Big Turkey Spectacular and what Jenny O brings to you.

Speaker 87 Well, the star of the Thanksgiving meal has arrived on a green and gold platter, the signature colors of its gracious host, Jenny O.

Speaker 81 If you're the jolly green giant, you're going to talk about holiday traditions and some of those products.

Speaker 87 Well, there in the valley on the farm, the green giant oversees the fall harvest, ensuring that each vegetable for your Thanksgiving table is picked at the peak of perfection.

Speaker 8 In other words, yes, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a parade, but unlike a memorial parade or a victory parade or a pride parade, this one is plainly a commercial venture, a marketing venture.

Speaker 81 If you have a minions float, you're definitely going to talk about Stuart the Minions and the frantic bananas.

Speaker 81 Ronald McDonald, Smokey the Bear, all of these are traditions and floats that have their own unique messaging, from forest fires to fundraising for children's hospitals to the wondership float.

Speaker 40 If I were to spec this out from a Super Bowl, I know the Super Bowl generates around $600 million

Speaker 37 in ad revenue.

Speaker 56 That's at an ad rate of about $7 million per 30 seconds, and that's viewership of 110 million, so significantly more than the parade.

Speaker 23 But I could imagine that the total ad revenue for the Macy's parade might be in the neighborhood of like 100 or 150 million.

Speaker 46 Does that seem ballpark or do you not know?

Speaker 81 You know, I'm focused on the creative side and how are we covering this event in the best way to bring audiences at home this extraordinary tradition.

Speaker 37 We did later find an estimate from Vivix, a company that tracks commercial ad spending.

Speaker 20 They report that brands spent $76 million to advertise on NBC during the 2023 parade broadcast.

Speaker 21 And the Wall Street Journal reports that NBC pays Macy's around $60 million to broadcast the parade.

Speaker 3 Macy's would, as the saying goes, neither confirm nor deny.

Speaker 18 And that TV revenue presumably wouldn't include money the brands pay Macy's directly for the rights to sponsor a balloon or a float.

Speaker 56 Although we should say not every balloon or float is bringing in sponsor money because some of them are promoting Macy's itself.

Speaker 73 Here's Will Cos again.

Speaker 66 Tom Turkey and Santa are Macy's owned and are the iconic elements that open and close the parade.

Speaker 56 Okay, so there's no royalties being paid to the Santa Claus Foundation or anything like that, I assume.

Speaker 74 So I want to ask you about the relationships with the brands and whatever you're willing or able to tell me about the financial relationship.

Speaker 48 My wife's favorite balloon when she was a kid, she grew up in New York, was the Pillsbury Doughboy.

Speaker 40 And the first year we lived on this block, when we woke up the next morning at like 6 a.m.

Speaker 62 and we looked down, it was just this magical sight with the, you know, the sunrise off the balloons.

Speaker 44 And there was the Doughboy. And we could see like the patches, his butt was taped a little bit.

Speaker 57 And it was just so beautiful and endearing.

Speaker 43 And I thought, wait a minute, is that still the Pillsbury Doughboy?

Speaker 49 Like, does Pillsbury still even exist?

Speaker 3 Then I started to think about Snoopy, and I thought about Snoopy I knew was the emblem of Met Life for a while.

Speaker 23 And I thought, oh, is that mean it's a Met Life balloon?

Speaker 4 So let me just make it an open thread for you to tell me what you can about why the balloons that are in the parade are in the parade and how that relationship works.

Speaker 3 Pillsbury Doughboy, Snoopy, our Peanuts characters, SpongeBob, SquarePants.

Speaker 66 The goal with all of our balloons is to create a moment that's instantly recognizable in the sky.

Speaker 66 As it relates to selection of balloon, the most important goal is to ensure that each of the characters resonates with our audiences and our audience is one to 100.

Speaker 66 So we have some of those, we'll call them legacy characters, and then we have new characters that are appealing to a much younger audience.

Speaker 56 And Will, what if someone like me came to you and I said, hey, Will, I've got this brand, Freakonomics, Freakonomics, Freakonomics Radio.

Speaker 22 In some ways, it's a pretty big brand, but you know, it's kind of like a big niche brand.

Speaker 48 It's not teenage mutant ninja turtles.

Speaker 4 It's not, you know, Spider-Man.

Speaker 10 I recognize that.

Speaker 45 But I've also got a pretty beautiful visual image, what we call an orpal, right?

Speaker 53 It's an apple that you cut open and it's an orange in the middle. And it's, you know, it's fruit.
Who doesn't like fruit?

Speaker 23 And I think it would be worth my while to try to figure out how to get my brand in front of the world.

Speaker 53 These 30 million people that watch it on TV, TV, these 3 million that are there.

Speaker 23 Would you even take a meeting with me?

Speaker 77 We're taking the meeting right now.

Speaker 66 You're underselling the brand, my friend. We're open to taking every meeting and every conversation.
This is not an exclusive members-only type of event.

Speaker 3 Well, maybe not quite members-only, but it's a small club.

Speaker 54 Last year, there were 17 giant balloons in the parade.

Speaker 61 Sadly, the Freakonomics Orpal was not one of them, but this guy had one.

Speaker 42 I pinch myself when I see the balloon fly down the main avenue there.

Speaker 31 That is Jeff Kinney.

Speaker 42 I'm an owner of an unlikely story bookstore in Plainville, Massachusetts, and I'm the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

Speaker 83 Now, for those who are children or have children who have read those books, you are somewhere between, I don't know, Jesus Christ and pick your favorite cult hero ever.

Speaker 22 What's it been like to be you these last 15, 18 years?

Speaker 42 The ride for me has been a lot like the Truman show.

Speaker 42 I feel like I created this character who's a stick figure, and somehow that has propelled me into the most unusual situations you could ever imagine.

Speaker 24 Kinney has written 20 books in the Diary of a Wimpy Kids series, which have sold more than 300 million copies. The main character of the series is named Greg Hefley.

Speaker 42 Greg Hefley is a complicated character. He's a bit of a mess.
He doesn't always do the right thing.

Speaker 42 At the time that I was writing Wimpy Kid, I was reading Harry Potter, which is about a boy who's an aspirational character. He's heroic.
Greg isn't heroic.

Speaker 42 He doesn't really want to hear about his best friend Raleigh's vacation and their awesome adventures. He's like a Larry David type in a way.
He's very flawed, but hopefully still lovable.

Speaker 55 Give me a little bit of the origin story of Wimpy Kid itself and Greg Heffley himself and how you brought them to life, how long it took, etc.

Speaker 42 My big dream was to become a newspaper cartoonist. When I was growing up, we got the Washington Post every morning.
My father opened the paper to the comics page.

Speaker 42 So when I got up, it was already open to the far side and Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes.

Speaker 23 You had good taste in comics.

Speaker 42 Yes. And I was like, well, I know where I want to be.
I want to be at the top of that page. And so in college, I created a comic strip that got the attention of the Washington Post.

Speaker 42 They did a big full page article in the style section. It said, hey, this is the next big thing, this comic by this guy.
And I believed it.

Speaker 42 Then I hit the reality of shrinking newspapers and the limits of my own talent, and I couldn't break into the comics.

Speaker 42 So after about three years of bonking my head into the wall, I realized that it wasn't going to happen for me. At the time, I was keeping a journal.

Speaker 42 The journal was an organic mix of text and cartoon illustrations that kind of showed what was happening in my life at the time. I looked at it and I said, hey, maybe I've got something here.

Speaker 42 I can't be in newspapers, but maybe I can be in books. I thought, I'll fictionalize this.
First, I'll write down every funny thing that happened to me in my life as a kid.

Speaker 42 I thought I could do that in about two months. Instead, it took four years.
It was a 77-page 77-page sketch journal, but I filled it with enough ideas for five books.

Speaker 58 And then, as I understand, but correct me if I'm wrong, you're working as a game developer for Pearson Education, and you begin to publish some of this work online on a Pearson site called funbrain.com.

Speaker 30 Is that right?

Speaker 42 That's right. And my boss was looking for something to keep traffic up over the summer months.
I said, hey, I'm working on this thing. It's not really for kids.

Speaker 42 It's more like the wonder years where an adult is looking back on their childhood, but it could work. So I started publishing online.
After about a year, we had 12 million readers.

Speaker 62 Holy cow.

Speaker 42 And I got a lot of encouragement from adult readers who were following my almost blog-like entries.

Speaker 23 Okay, and then that leads to a book contract.

Speaker 20 Just walk me quickly through the mechanics.

Speaker 48 What came first? Was there an agent?

Speaker 25 Was there a reach out from a publisher or editor?

Speaker 42 I went to New York Comic-Con. I walked around with a sample packet.
I heard about a guy who published a webcomic called Mom's Cancer. I talked to the editor at a booth.

Speaker 42 He said, this is exactly what we're looking for. And I was off to the races.

Speaker 20 So you wind up publishing with Harry N.

Speaker 48 Abrams, correct?

Speaker 62 Yes.

Speaker 42 At the time, Harry N. Abrams would be known as an art book publisher.
So those gorgeous picture books that you have on your coffee table primarily, they weren't doing a lot of this kind of thing.

Speaker 42 What I really liked was that they treated books as an object to be valued. They put a lot of craftsmanship into their publishing.

Speaker 42 And I thought, if I sign with Harry and Abrams, that might elevate the work itself. And that's the way it's been with Wimpy Kid.

Speaker 42 About two weeks after the book was published, it got on the New York Times bestseller list, which was just an absolute shock.

Speaker 42 I remember my wife and I were jumping up and down on our kids' bed like we just couldn't believe it. Now it's been on the list a combined total of something like 900 weeks.

Speaker 56 And let's now talk about how you came to intersect with the Macy's parade.

Speaker 42 In about 2010, Diary of a Wimpy Kid was doing pretty well, and we had an ambitious publicist named Jason Wells who said, hey, I think we could get a balloon in the Macy's parade.

Speaker 42 So he approached Macy's and said, hey, how about a balloon? They said,

Speaker 42 it might not be ready for a balloon, but how about a float? The idea I remember was that there was going to be a standing Greg Heffley and at the base of the float would be a bunch of kids reading.

Speaker 42 So it would be a float to promote reading and literacy.

Speaker 55 That sounds a little, what's the word I'm looking for?

Speaker 37 More reverent, perhaps, than the Wimpy Kid brand is.

Speaker 42 That's right. And we said, we're going to hold out a little bit and see if we get into balloon territory.

Speaker 37 And then what happens next?

Speaker 42 So the next year, I think I got named to Time magazine's most influential people list.

Speaker 22 Congratulations on that. Thank you very much.

Speaker 28 Theoretically makes you balloon worthy.

Speaker 74 Yeah, right.

Speaker 42 So Macy said, yes, please, we'd like to do a giant helium balloon. And my publisher was kind enough to sign on for the terms.

Speaker 3 Tell me what you know about that negotiation and the terms of the deal.

Speaker 42 As you can probably imagine, the terms are proprietary. So I can't talk about that.
But it was a multi-year situation.

Speaker 42 You pay a certain amount to get the balloon made and then a certain amount to have it flown every year. That first balloon flew for three years, and then we re-upped and flew it for another three.

Speaker 42 And that's really the pattern we've been in for now a good long time. I have no idea.
what Macy's deals look like with other creators if we're standard, if we have our own separate thing.

Speaker 69 Has Harry and Abrams continued to basically pay for or subsidize the participation?

Speaker 42 To their great credit, Abrams has continued to support the balloon. This past balloon, I chipped in because, of course, I have a big stake in this as well.

Speaker 21 Any idea what it costs to make it?

Speaker 42 I don't know what the actual costs are to make a balloon, but I would guess it's somewhere around the low $100,000 range.

Speaker 56 I guess the big question is, how do you and your publisher think about ROI and all that that implies?

Speaker 28 Not just, you know, whether it extends and grows the brand and sells more books and so on, but if it creates a different sort of awareness around the brand?

Speaker 42 That's a really good question. We think about it a lot.
It's possible that the balloon is one of the legs of a chair. And if you kicked out that leg, maybe the whole thing collapses.

Speaker 42 The fact that Wimpy Kid is still going strong suggests that the balloon is a part of that equation. But there's also some real pride that's associated with the balloon.

Speaker 42 Everybody gets to hold the string and walk down the streets of New York City.

Speaker 59 So what's that like?

Speaker 42 It's nerve-wracking in a way because you're sort of presenting yourself to the world. You're saying, hey, my property is worthy of being here.

Speaker 42 I remember the first few years, like we would walk the balloon down the main avenue and I think people were sort of scratching their heads.

Speaker 69 You know, what's this?

Speaker 42 Is this Charlie Brown? Who is this?

Speaker 42 And over time, one of the rewards of this has been that Wimpy Kid has sort of seeped into the cultural consciousness. So now most people know what the cheese touch is.

Speaker 40 Explain the cheese touch for those who aren't familiar.

Speaker 42 There's a piece of cheese in the first book that sits under a basketball hoop, and it becomes an existential threat to Greg and to all of the middle schoolers.

Speaker 42 Everybody's worried about getting the cheese touch because it means, you know, know, certain death in the middle school popularity ranking.

Speaker 18 This year will be Wimpy Kids' 16th consecutive Macy's parade.

Speaker 58 That puts him on the all-time leaderboard, but he's still way behind Snoopy with 44 appearances and Pikachu with 25.

Speaker 11 Kenny told me that a balloon typically lasts three to five years.

Speaker 10 He is now on the third version.

Speaker 42 I think we've gotten better and better at it, and now Greg really looks exactly like I'd like him to look.

Speaker 23 Describe the current balloon.

Speaker 42 The current balloon has Greg sort of hunched over, getting ready to touch the piece of cheese. So I said to Macy's, we really need to do something special.
What can we do?

Speaker 42 And they came up with an idea that the cheese itself could be in a cart or a car that's like a motorized vehicle that could spin and sort of spew green smoke into the air to make the cheese look like it's emitting smells.

Speaker 35 Let's go back for a sec.

Speaker 60 Describe the design process and how involved you are.

Speaker 42 It's really exciting. It starts with a sketch and then it moves to kind of a pen and ink drawing.
And then Macy's has to turn that into a 3D model, which is not so easy with my character.

Speaker 42 My characters are two-dimensional purposefully. I don't have any sense of 3D space at all.

Speaker 42 And so the first time we saw a Wimpy Kid balloon was the first time we saw Greg Heffley articulated in three dimensions. He has a butt.

Speaker 55 Right.

Speaker 42 In the early days with Macy's, I'd go down to Hoboken, New Jersey, and there would be a clay model waiting for me.

Speaker 42 The clay was still pliable and then we would make changes on the fly with a really skilled artist.

Speaker 42 It would spin around on a pole so we could see it from every angle and really imagine what it would look like from the street level.

Speaker 18 Since Jeff Kinney's first Wimpy Kid balloon, the Macy's Parade studio has moved from Hoboken to nearby Menake, New Jersey.

Speaker 40 And rather than clay, balloon modeling now is done with 3D printers.

Speaker 80 Coming up after the break, let's go to Menaki.

Speaker 72 Welcome to Macy's Studios.

Speaker 46 I'm Stephen Dubner.

Speaker 58 This is Free Konomics Radio.

Speaker 8 We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 Free Konomics Radio is sponsored by FedEx, the new Power Move.

Speaker 47 You know those people who still rely on old school business power moves, like showing up late to meetings because they're so busy, or wearing a big shiny gold watch and making sure everyone notices?

Speaker 37 Maybe it's the person who takes long dramatic pauses every time they speak because they're so profound?

Speaker 89 But let's be honest, all those old school power moves won't keep your supply chain moving smoothly.

Speaker 43 The real power move?

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Speaker 9 That's how FedEx helps modern businesses stay ahead, anticipating change, rerouting around challenges, and keeping everything running smoothly.

Speaker 29 FedEx, the new power move. Visit fedEx.com/slash newpower move to learn more.

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Speaker 14 The Who's Down and Who Newville were making their list, But some didn't know Walmart has the best brands for their gifts.

Speaker 89 What about toys?

Speaker 90 Do they have brands kids have been wanting all year?

Speaker 92 Yep, Barbie, Tony's, and Lego. Gifts that will make them all cheer.

Speaker 16 Do you mean they have all the brands I adore?

Speaker 92 They have Nintendo, Espresso, Apple, and more.

Speaker 14 What about so?

Speaker 91 The Who answered questions from friends till they were blue. Each one listened and shouted, From Walmart?

Speaker 14 Who knew?

Speaker 93 Shop kissed from top brands for everyone on your list in the Walmart app.

Speaker 20 Will Koss, the parade's executive producer, met us at the Macy's Parade studios in Menaki, New Jersey, just a few miles across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

Speaker 72 This is our 3D printing room.

Speaker 86 So this is Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Speaker 1 We're looking at a three-foot plastic model of Greg Hefley.

Speaker 66 We've got our character here actually laying on the table at the moment, but if he was sitting in flight position, he'd be pointing at the stinky stinky cheese, which will be preceding him down the line of march.

Speaker 78 We are inside a sprawling brick and glass building that from the outside looks like an office building, but inside it's a 72,000 square foot warehouse with 44-foot ceilings and a variety of workshop stations.

Speaker 39 It's also a little bit noisy.

Speaker 72 The floor that we're standing on right now is our fabrication floor.

Speaker 60 As we walk through, Cos points out some floats under construction, including one representing the Bronx Zoo.

Speaker 43 So we'll have giraffes, we'll have tigers, we'll have gorillas, birds.

Speaker 3 These giraffes and tigers are not real the way they would have been back in the beginning.

Speaker 14 Every element that you see here being sculpted by our very, very talented artists start as a block of foam.

Speaker 72 We're going to walk over to meet the legend himself, Mr. John Cheney.

Speaker 94 Howdy.

Speaker 64 Good to see you.

Speaker 72 I brought some friends to talk to you.

Speaker 60 John Cheney is a carpenter who has worked on 50 Macy's parades.

Speaker 94 I came to New York and I wanted to be an artist. So I went to the Art Students League and in a few months I started running out of money.

Speaker 94 But my dad used to always have the parade on and I met some girl who wanted to work in the costume shop. So I said, I'll just walk over to Macy's and see what's happening.

Speaker 94 50 years ago it was a lot different than all the paperwork now. They had this hiring rail.
You got up to the rail, and there were all these kids around with very nice suits and everything.

Speaker 94 And I got ripped up jeans and a t-shirt on. I said, I want to work the parade.
And I said, hey, he wants to work the parade. And that's how I got hired.

Speaker 28 And how does it feel for Cheney to work year-round on something that'll be seen for just one day?

Speaker 16 Well, millions of people see it.

Speaker 94 So the exposure is really great. But there is something mind-boggling about doing all this work for one night and setting it all up in one day and now taking it down.

Speaker 94 I guess that's part of the pressure. You have this incredible deadline and we work all night in the beautiful weather because we don't even dare say that other words.

Speaker 94 The week before is maybe the hardest time. It's like getting into the water.
You know, once you're in there, damn it, we're doing it. I don't care what's going wrong.

Speaker 16 Let's go.

Speaker 18 Chaney is one of a couple dozen members of a team of carpenters, sculptors, welders, electricians, costume designers, and what are called balloon technicians.

Speaker 73 Here's Will Kos again.

Speaker 53 Right now we're on the balloon studio floor.

Speaker 86 Once our balloons are flattened, they make their way over to our heat ceiling tables.

Speaker 66 And this is essentially a sewing machine, but instead of a needle and string, it's actually melting the two pieces together. And we actually have a balloon in process right now.

Speaker 67 This is Marshall, our Paw Patrol pup.

Speaker 85 Marshall is a firehouse Dalmatian from the animated kids' show Paw Patrol.

Speaker 66 So Marshall is presently rigged to one of our rigging points in the ceiling.

Speaker 25 At this point, he just looks like a big white round blob with no distinguishable limbs.

Speaker 80 That's because of how these giant balloons are built.

Speaker 67 The head right now is the chamber that's inflated. The rest of the balloon is deflated because we're working specifically on the head unit.

Speaker 72 And that's how all of our balloons are fabricated.

Speaker 66 They're fabricated into chambers, which gives us some flexibility if we do run into a situation on parade day to quickly try to remedy that one specific area without it compromising the integrity of the entire balloon.

Speaker 23 Jeff Kinney had told us earlier about a mishap with the Wimpy Kid balloon.

Speaker 42 Yeah, I think Greg's hand popped this last year and it looked a little bit sad, but these things happen.

Speaker 40 Marshall, the Dalmatian, was a new balloon in last year's parade, one of six.

Speaker 51 All the new balloons needed to have a dry run outdoors before the parade.

Speaker 66 Our volunteers, our balloon handlers, and our flight management team have an opportunity to see the balloons working in real time and reacting in wind conditions and take notes and prepare for Thanksgiving Day.

Speaker 23 This dry run is called Balloon Fest.

Speaker 40 It happens in the parking lot of MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, about four miles from the Macy's studio in Menaki.

Speaker 20 Balloon Fest is always held on the first Saturday of November.

Speaker 95 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Balloon Fest!

Speaker 37 There are several hundred volunteers to handle the balloons.

Speaker 25 On parade day, there will be 5,000 parade volunteers.

Speaker 4 The six new balloons, including Marshall and Minnie Mouse and a new Spider-Man, they are already inflated and held down under a net with sandbags.

Speaker 69 When the time comes, the sandbags are taken away, the nets are pulled off, and the volunteers slowly unroll the thin ropes that are attached to what they call the handling bones, which are plastic X-shaped grips.

Speaker 2 Once the balloons are up in the air, the volunteers walk them around the parking lot.

Speaker 59 Will Kos is paying close attention.

Speaker 46 Everything looks good.

Speaker 69 Nearby is the helium truck.

Speaker 40 Here's the helium guy.

Speaker 64 The trailer is about 40 feet long. There are 12 high-pressure steel tubes in there.

Speaker 64 If you could get all the helium out of each one of those tubes, you could fill about six to eight of these balloons with a single trailer.

Speaker 22 His name is Kevin Lynch.

Speaker 64 I'm the vice president of global helium for Messer.

Speaker 40 Messer is one of the big players in the helium market.

Speaker 23 It and the companies it has acquired have been providing helium to the Macy's parade for decades.

Speaker 64 Helium that's here today started in an underground helium reservoir in Amarillo, Texas. And here we are filling balloons.

Speaker 64 But if you put too much helium in it, that whole crew of people would be, you know, rising up into the sky.

Speaker 23 Lynch tells us that each giant balloon takes around 15,000 cubic feet of helium.

Speaker 1 So, how much does that cost Macy's?

Speaker 16 I can't tell you that.

Speaker 64 We can't talk about sensitive commercial topics out here.

Speaker 46 The price of helium itself is not a particularly sensitive topic.

Speaker 43 Helium is used widely in medical settings and elsewhere, and there's a strong global market for it.

Speaker 9 Believe it or not, giant balloons consume only a tiny share of the helium market.

Speaker 44 We did a rough calculation of what it would cost to fill the 17 balloons in last year's parade if you paid market price.

Speaker 1 It was about $425,000.

Speaker 30 I asked Will Cos if this sounded about right, but he wouldn't take the bait.

Speaker 21 I also asked him what Macy's does about the occasional helium shortage.

Speaker 67 We do have our finger on the pulse of helium.

Speaker 66 It's a market that adjusts over time, but we plan for it and we have good relationships with our vendors across our helium supply teams.

Speaker 53 What's your biggest concern or anxiety or, you know, the thing on your to-do list that keeps you up the night before?

Speaker 10 I guess I would assume the weather, but maybe I'm wrong.

Speaker 66 The weather is definitely a concern for us. We are a rain or shine event, so unless there's significant weather that would impact the flight of the balloons.

Speaker 53 Wind particularly.

Speaker 68 Yeah.

Speaker 76 Yeah.

Speaker 66 Wind is one of the most potential risks on our overall parade. We've had some snow in our history.

Speaker 67 I don't wish that on us.

Speaker 86 I've been fortunate enough to have relatively good weather.

Speaker 72 I know my time is coming at some point.

Speaker 49 It's probably good for the broadcast, though, isn't it?

Speaker 56 Snow?

Speaker 72 It would look beautiful, but we do still have to get 5,000 people and 27 floats and 17 large balloons down the parade route. So I'd love it to snow at 12.01.

Speaker 14 How about that?

Speaker 49 Or 1159.

Speaker 23 So far, we've heard from the key people who create and broadcast the Macy's parade, but there is one more partner, sort of a silent partner, without whom it could not happen.

Speaker 65 If there were no permits, it would be a free-for-all.

Speaker 46 I'm Stephen Dubner.

Speaker 58 This is Free Conomics Radio.

Speaker 43 We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 Free Economics Radio is sponsored by FedEx, the new power move.

Speaker 47 You know those people who still rely on old school business power moves, like showing up late to meetings because they're so busy or wearing a big shiny gold watch and making sure everyone notices?

Speaker 37 Maybe it's the person who takes long dramatic pauses every time they speak because they're so profound.

Speaker 89 But let's be honest, all those old school power moves won't keep your supply chain moving smoothly.

Speaker 43 The real power move?

Speaker 27 Using data insights from FedEx to move your business forward.

Speaker 37 Like using predictive analytics to manage your entire supply chain or calling out logistics problems before they arise and sitting at the forefront of business intelligence.

Speaker 9 That's how FedEx helps modern businesses stay ahead, anticipating change, rerouting around challenges, and keeping everything running smoothly.

Speaker 29 FedEx, the new power move. Visit fedEx.com/slash newpower move to learn more.

Speaker 96 I'm a high-note hitting songbird, but I'm also a bird-watching backpacker.

Speaker 16 Oh, wood thrush, three o'clock.

Speaker 96 Walmart has a wellness side too, with tons of things I need to feel good, from electrolytes to help keep me hydrated to soothing cough drops for after every show.

Speaker 34 Oh, man, how about waterproof boots?

Speaker 97 Size 10?

Speaker 96 They've got half a billion things online, on the app, and in store.

Speaker 14 Really?

Speaker 80 Who knew?

Speaker 51 Okay, was that you or the birds?

Speaker 98 Check out the wellness site of Walmart today.

Speaker 99 This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan, real United Airlines customers.

Speaker 100 We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Kathy and Andrew.

Speaker 88 I got to sit in the driver's seat.

Speaker 101 I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.

Speaker 99 That's Andrew, a real United pilot.

Speaker 101 These small interactions can shape a kid's future.

Speaker 88 It felt like I was the captain.

Speaker 100 Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever.

Speaker 101 That's how good leads the way.

Speaker 49 Yes, there are giant character balloons drifting through the sky.

Speaker 79 And yes, there are floats and marching bands, Broadway performers.

Speaker 28 But the real star of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, if we're being honest,

Speaker 85 Come on, you know who it is.

Speaker 23 It's New York City.

Speaker 65 My name is Dawn Tolson, and I'm the Executive Director of Citywide Event Coordination and Management and the Street Activity Permit Office. And those are a lot of words.

Speaker 37 Tolson has worked in New York City government for more than a decade.

Speaker 58 Her office issues permits for many types of events, street fairs and farmers markets, festivals, and of course the Macy's Parade.

Speaker 74 We told her we were trying to put together the costs of the parade, and she did give us a little bit of pricing information.

Speaker 65 An application fee is non-refundable, and that's $25.

Speaker 65 And then it ranges from zero, no cost whatsoever, up to something that could be $66K per block, depending on the use of space and the impact.

Speaker 4 The Macy's parade uses 40 plus blocks and it is undeniably high impact.

Speaker 23 Does that mean that Macy's pays the city something like $3 million, 40 some blocks times 66K per block?

Speaker 65 Oh, I can't say how much they pay.

Speaker 50 Good try.

Speaker 65 Macy's is a partner with the city. They put on two very iconic events in New York City that are birthdays and holiday events for America.

Speaker 51 The other one she's talking about is the Macy's 4th of July fireworks, which no offense to fireworks is nowhere near as big a deal as the parade.

Speaker 65 And so we know the importance of that and we work with them, but I can say that they do work really hard with us to make sure that we are very cognizant of the amount of resources that we're using, that we're not overextending, that we're also being fair to the employees and the workers.

Speaker 33 When Tolson talks about the resources the city is using, these are serious resources, including law enforcement and emergency crews.

Speaker 9 Here is Will Kos again from Macy's.

Speaker 67 The security plan is a quite detailed plan.

Speaker 23 You could imagine if you were throwing a parade for three and a half million people on the sidewalks and 30 million people watching a live broadcast, that you would invest a lot in security planning and execution.

Speaker 66 There's a variety of personnel that are visible on the parade route and other layers of security that are less visible.

Speaker 65 Hats off to the NYPD. There are people out there that were there since 1 a.m.
in the morning putting barricades in place and moving vehicles around so you don't even hear a car honking.

Speaker 65 Then you've got, you know, counterterrorism working with the FBI on any kind of threats. You've got TARU, their technical assistance unit, who are doing the counter-drone stuff with the FBI.

Speaker 65 And then you've got the DCPI, their press group, doing press conferences with their chief of departments and chief of patrols. So basically, you're enacting the entire NYPD.

Speaker 9 And what does it cost to enact the entire NYPD?

Speaker 17 And how much of that comes from Macy's?

Speaker 59 The parade, for all its goodwill and vibes, is a commercial event.

Speaker 23 So you could imagine Macy's contributing heavily to the city services.

Speaker 18 On the other hand, even if you don't buy my argument that New York City is the real star of the show, the city does get a lot out of the parade.

Speaker 37 When I was a kid and saw the parade on TV, I barely noticed the floats and balloons.

Speaker 49 I was staring at Central Park West to a farm boy, which is what I was.

Speaker 43 The balloons and floats were cute, but the fantasy was New York.

Speaker 49 So does New York City kick in all those resources for free for the Macy's parade?

Speaker 23 Does the cost of the permit itself cover all these services?

Speaker 3 Those are questions that no one would directly answer on either the city side or the Macy's side.

Speaker 28 And there are other city resources to talk about, other city agencies that get involved.

Speaker 65 We have four walkthroughs with all of those agencies, as in we're walking the route four times. In New York City, the city of scaffolding, there's a lot of obstructions along the path.

Speaker 65 And so we have to walk that path to see what construction's going on, what potholes are in the street, what is up above.

Speaker 62 Street lamps, for instance.

Speaker 23 In 1997, the parade was held on a very windy day.

Speaker 60 At Central Park West and 72nd Street, the six-story tall cat-in-the-hat balloon hit a lamppost and knocked off part of it.

Speaker 3 Several people were injured, including one woman who was in a coma for 24 days.

Speaker 28 Macy's and the city now work together to prevent that kind of thing.

Speaker 73 Will Cos again.

Speaker 75 All of our balloons and floats starting up at 77th Street and all the way through 34th Street, that entire parade route has to be cleared of any aerial obstruction.

Speaker 59 This clearing process includes what Cos calls light swings.

Speaker 67 We have a team to physically move all of the light poles out of the way. So they're loosening them and then we're actually swinging all of the poles.

Speaker 72 It's done under the dark of night.

Speaker 11 And Dawn Tolson again.

Speaker 65 Sanitation. We haven't even talked about sanitation.
I didn't know this until a couple years ago that there's a special unit that deals with the horse refuse.

Speaker 58 This horse refuse comes from the NYPD and Parks Department mounted units that march in the parade.

Speaker 65 So we forgot to call them one year. It was not pretty.

Speaker 84 One of our responsibilities is to clean up the horse poop.

Speaker 22 That is Jessica Tisch.

Speaker 25 When we spoke spoke with her, she was New York's sanitation commissioner.

Speaker 84 We have one to two sanitation workers for every four to five horses.

Speaker 25 Tish is now commissioner of the New York Police Department.

Speaker 58 As sanitation commissioner, her job was to make the parade route as photogenic as possible on Thanksgiving Day from 8.30 a.m.

Speaker 10 Eastern Time until noon.

Speaker 84 Those streets, about 42 blocks, they need to sparkle because New Yorkers and people from around the world all converge on that part of the city, and we want those streets to look really good.

Speaker 84 After the parade is obviously a huge effort, we have about 150 sanitation workers who are involved in the post-parade cleanup.

Speaker 84 They are doing manual cleaning with brooms and baskets, but also our mechanical brooms, which can sweep 1,500 pounds of litter, are out in full force.

Speaker 84 About 71,000 pounds of trash is collected by the Department of Sanitation as part of the cleanup of the Thanksgiving Day parade.

Speaker 40 Once again, we couldn't learn anything significant about how these costs are allocated or perhaps shared.

Speaker 18 New York City plainly derives value from the parade.

Speaker 30 There's the marketing value of the broadcast, but also 3.5 million in-person spectators generate a lot of economic activity.

Speaker 36 How much?

Speaker 60 Those numbers too are shock of shocks, hard to come by.

Speaker 30 If we began this episode hoping to run even a rough cost-benefit analysis of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, we have failed.

Speaker 34 Too many of the costs are privately held.

Speaker 3 We can guesstimate the overall TV ad revenues, but we don't know how that money is split between Macy's and NBC and whatever agencies or other middlemen are involved.

Speaker 23 So we took one more shot.

Speaker 40 We asked to speak to the man at the top.

Speaker 63 Tony Spring, chairman and CEO of Macy's Inc.

Speaker 56 So Macy's refers to the parade as, quote, a privately sponsored and privately funded event and is regarded by Macy's as its annual gift to the nation.

Speaker 55 I understand that as with most gifts, you don't tell people how much the gift costs when you're giving it to them.

Speaker 53 But why is it so important that no one knows how much the parade costs?

Speaker 48 Because we've been trying to figure it out and really failing.

Speaker 63 Why? Do I need to know how much lion can cost to produce?

Speaker 35 But I can figure that out.

Speaker 63 Okay, go to the Hayden Planetarium and what did it cost?

Speaker 35 I can figure that one out too, Tony.

Speaker 60 I can't figure out the parade.

Speaker 63 I guarantee you, you're bright enough, much brighter than me. You can figure this out.

Speaker 63 But I would like to focus more on the fact that, you know, 100 years later, this thing is still relevant and is a great example of if we were still marching animals up and down the street, it wouldn't be as relevant today.

Speaker 63 But the fact that it evolved over time and includes a level of modernity, includes a level of history, floats that have been there over the years, floats that are new this year, balloons that are new this year, that is, just like the fireworks, I think what makes it such an amazing spectacular.

Speaker 44 Okay, so the Macy's parade is still relevant.

Speaker 58 Here's a bigger question, especially for Tony Spring.

Speaker 18 Is Macy's still relevant?

Speaker 1 Coming up next time in part two of our series, brick and mortar retail has been declining for years and Macy's is planning to close 150 of their stores.

Speaker 31 Spring took over a year ago and he is pushing for a renaissance.

Speaker 28 At least he is optimistic.

Speaker 63 Now is the time to buy Macy's.

Speaker 31 Next time, we go deep with Tony Spring and we get another view too.

Speaker 70 Macy's has a hell of a challenge over the next few years to remain upright, let alone become successful as they once were.

Speaker 31 We also visit Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney up in Massachusetts, where he is trying to launch his own retail renaissance.

Speaker 42 If you invest in your downtown, can you change the fate of a town? And I don't know the answer to that.

Speaker 5 That's next time on the show.

Speaker 59 Until then, take care of yourself.

Speaker 5 And if you can, someone else too.

Speaker 59 Freeconomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio.

Speaker 1 You can find our entire archive on any podcast app.

Speaker 2 Also at freeconomics.com where we publish transcripts and show notes.

Speaker 20 This episode was produced by Alina Coleman and edited by Ellen Frankman.

Speaker 2 It was mixed by Jason Gambrell with help from Eleanor Osborne.

Speaker 23 We also had recording help from Alexander Overington and special thanks to Thomas Recupero for the research paper and to Harlan Coben.

Speaker 11 The Free Economics Radio Network staff also includes Augusta Chapman, Dalvin Abuaji, Elsa Hernandez, Gabriel Roth, Greg Ripon, Ilaria Montenicourt, Jeremy Johnston, Jasmine Klinger, Morgan Levy, Sarah Lilly, Teo Jacobs, and Zach Lipinski.

Speaker 20 Our theme song is Mr.

Speaker 27 Fortune by the Hitchhikers, and our composer is Luis Guerra.

Speaker 65 When I see a crowd, I'm thinking to myself, wait a minute, did I issue a permit for that?

Speaker 27 The Freakonomics Radio Network, the hidden side of everything.

Speaker 88 Stitcher.

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Speaker 80 Tis the season of gifting and holes to deck.

Speaker 14 And the Who's and Who Louville were in love with new tech.

Speaker 82 Where can we find Sonos and Samsung and Nintendo?

Speaker 91 They shouted.

Speaker 93 Would they find it in one place?

Speaker 91 This they questioned and doubted.

Speaker 82 When suddenly a who yelled, Walmart's the place to start.

Speaker 93 And these who added headphones, TVs, and games to their carts.

Speaker 82 With Walmart, their shopping was done in a flurry.

Speaker 14 They cried out, who knew?

Speaker 93 And ordered their gifts in a hurry.

Speaker 82 Shop the latest tech gifts in the Walmart app.

Speaker 99 This is a real good story about Drew, a real United Airlines customer.

Speaker 97 After almost four years of treatments, I was finally cancer-free. My mom's like, where do you want to go to celebrate?

Speaker 75 I'm like, let's go somewhere tropical.

Speaker 97 And then pilot hopped on the intercom and started talking about me. And I was like, what is going on here?

Speaker 102 My wife beats cancer too, and I wanted to celebrate his special moment.

Speaker 99 That's Bill, a real United pilot.

Speaker 102 We brought him drinks and donuts. We all signed a card.

Speaker 97 I was smiling ear to you. Best flight ever, for sure.

Speaker 102 That's how good leads the way.