Thank you, Paul Lejuez, Citigroup. Thanks, everybody for listening in. We've got the team from National Vision. We've got Alex Wilkes on the CFO spot. We've got Christopher Laden on the CFO seat for National Vision. Thank you guys for being here. I really appreciate the time.
Yeah. You're welcome.
It's our pleasure.
Glad to be here.
Maybe we'll just kick things off. We've heard from you 2 x over the past several months, including at an investor day. You very clearly have a strategy that you've very clearly communicated and articulated to bring in more insurance customers, take advantage of those insurance dollars that those customers have to spend. Maybe talk about what you've put in place so far and what the next steps are in that evolution as you kinda look to change the complexion of the customer base.
Yeah, you got it. You know, I think National Vision over the years did a great job building a business model around the notion of value within the optical category. With that positioning, won a lot of managed care consumers because they're consumers who even though they have insurance, they're seeking to maximize their benefits and get the most out of them, and we became an obvious destination for that. That being said, historically, we didn't do a good enough job distorting our business model to actually help those managed care customers get the most out of their benefits. We hadn't necessarily fine-tuned our assortment of frames and lenses to what those consumers' specific spending powers are and what their plans would allow them to engage in.
Really over these last 12 months, we've spent time sharpening our assortment, getting more premium product in that's particularly interesting to those managed vision care customers. We've worked on in-store selling behaviors with our team members to help them better serve the managed care consumers and help them understand what is some complexity sometimes around their insurance plans. We're still kinda just scratching the surface, but we've started to make meaningful headway in terms of serving those managed care consumers better.
What are those proof points that we can point to to kinda show that initial success? What are those proof points that you'll be looking at to kinda judge future success?
Yeah, great question. I mean, our managed care as a percent of our total mix is now approaching 42%. We're continuing to see strong growth with that consumer cohort. We're seeing our average transaction expand with the managed care consumer as well. As we've introduced some more premium frames, as we've talked to our associates and they're getting more acclimated to lifestyle selling on the lens side, we're seeing the average transaction rise with the consumer. We're winning more, we're driving traffic with that consumer, and those that are coming into our doors are making more premium purchases.
How much do you think about as you sort of make this transition, you know, is it a concern that you could alienate that cash paying customer? How do you make sure that that doesn't happen?
Yeah.
Are you seeing anything that would show that that is or isn't happening?
Yeah. I'd say first and foremost, what we're doing is we're rightsizing the business to the portfolio of customers that we serve. Our business model, our assortment, our selling approach was kinda still stuck in an era as if we were selling to 100% cash pay customers. As we fine-tune our assortment of frames, we will still be the most credible destination to get 2 pair of eyewear for $95, including an eye exam. We're not walking away from that value proposition to the market. We're just rightsizing our efforts, our acquisition expense, and our in-store experience against the profile of consumers that we're seeing.
If you want to make a purchase at that end of the assortment, and again, I'm confident that we're still the best destination for value in the category, we're just redefining what value is. You know, an interesting thing that we've learned along the way is that as we've changed our assortment, as we've introduced some more premium product into the assortment, actually some of those value cash pay customers are opting in, raising their hand, and joining us on that, on that journey. That's been really exciting to watch this last year as well.
I think two other data points that help substantiate that the strategy is working, we measure our exam conversion to a materials purchase, so basically is a consumer leaving the exam room and finding a product that they like, and are they seeing it at a price point that they like? We've seen exam conversions stay flat as we've kind of moved the first tier up on a more premium assortment. Second, like any retailers look at NPS, and our NPS scores have been flat to positive throughout. The consumers are telling us through their KPIs that the strategy's working as well.
Got it. Now what is your current read on that cash paying customer? There's been a couple years of pressure that that customer's been sort of trying to absorb. What's the view currently on their progress?
Yeah. I think the cash pay customer last year, you know, they're clearly more sensitive to some macro headwinds. We certainly experienced that in our business, including in Q4 in the November-December timeframe, as I talked about last week. The cash pay consumer obviously definitely more sensitive, not as resilient, as the managed care customer. I think we're still working our way through a disruption in purchase cycle that happened in 2021 and 2022. 'Cause an interesting thing happened in this category during those COVID years, right? Eye care was an essential service. We were open for business. If you were a customer group who was maybe in a three-year purchase cycle in a 2023 or 2024 cohort, you were likely pulled up into the 2021 purchase cycle.
Some of that is still going to take some time to work its way through as we get back to normality of the purchase cycle. Certainly, the category benefited from that disruption in the tail end of 2020, 2021, and early 2022 time period. It's gonna take some time for that to normalize. Again, we think about the average purchase cycle in the category of around two years, but you can imagine that the tails on both ends of that are quite long. If you're a every three, every four-year purchase cycle customer on the cash pay side, you're still kind of working through that period of normalization.
As you and the industry work through that period of normalization, how do you view your performance versus the industry? Like, what are you seeing in terms of some of those industry metrics versus, like, your own?
Yeah
... National Vision metrics?
It's a great question. I mean, one of the things that we're super proud of is that last year, the category was -7 on eye exams, and we were +1. We're growing eye exams at a faster rate than the aggregate US category is. I think that's a proof point, obviously in the right direction as we measure the success of our initiatives. We spent a considerable amount of time last summer re-architecting our brand and communication strategy for America's Best, our largest brand, and wholeheartedly, consumers have embraced that. Our unaided brand awareness is the highest it's ever been. We're outpacing the category.
We're outpacing the rest of optical retail in Q3 and Q4 on unaided brand awareness. I think that's paying off and one of the reasons that we're seeing eye exam growth above the category level. Chris, I don't know if you have any other thoughts on that.
I think that's right. I think, you know, we've gotten some questions on traffic trends, particularly in Q4 on the cash pay side, you know, just echoing a point that Alex made earlier, which is, you know, we're intentionally shifting our balance of assets to that was exclusively pushing a promotional offer at the cash pay consumer and now using that to communicate I think more equally with managed care consumers, with progressive consumers or the Outside Rx consumers. It's kind of an unexpected outcome for us that our cash pay consumers see a little softness on the traffic side, and that in combination with the fact that our exams are growing in a category that is seeing a pretty substantial high single-digit decline, I think gives us confidence that the strategy is working.
Got it. Makes sense. Maybe talk a little bit about the Eyeglass World chain and sort of the progress-
Yeah
... there and the long-term outlook and, you know, vision of, no pun intended, of operating sort of two banners. Does it make sense over the long term?
Yeah. No, we absolutely think it does make sense to run the two banners with distinct value propositions, and more distinct value proposition go forward. Over the last year, we've refocused some of our energy on Eyeglass World. We put in a separate and distinct operating structure. Previously, Eyeglass World was even from a P&L perspective, it didn't necessarily have an organizational owner. We didn't necessarily have a dedicated operational structure for Eyeglass World. We didn't add any resources to the business, we just segmented some people and pointed them directly at the Eyeglass World business. We've gotten better execution through better focus in Eyeglass World last year. We also spent some time thinking about our media strategy for Eyeglass World. We typically follow the same approach to media and...
for Eyeglass World that we did for America's Best. When you have a chain that is highly regionalized, that didn't really make a whole lot of sense. We pointed our media investments into more digital, more streaming, and actually out of linear TV, and that's been to the benefit of Eyeglass World. Then we've also worked on raising the assortment and raising some of the brand profiles within the brands we sell at Eyeglass World. That's also contributed to the success of the brand. The last thing, we spent a good amount of time in the fourth quarter moving Eyeglass World to the same doctor operating model that we had in the balance of the chain.
We had a fair number of stores, about 50 or so, that were operating under a sublease arrangement. We moved them to the friendly PC model that we use predominantly in America's Best. That's also benefited the Eyeglass World brand, in that we can offer a really consistent end-to-end experience to the consumer. Super happy with what we're seeing under the leadership of Dr. Patel at Eyeglass World. She and the team have really done an amazing job. We're also super excited about what comes next. I've said this in the past, I could not have been happier with the work that was done on America's Best rebranding in 2025. Kind of re-architecting everything from brand iconography to creative messaging was done in partnership with VML, our agency of record.
The people who worked on America's Best have now pivoted their attention to Eyeglass World. I've seen some early concepts of where they're going from a brand design perspective, and frankly, I was blown away by the work. That is work that's gonna come in the back half of the year as we start to introduce a new Eyeglass World design, brand iconography, and go-to-market value proposition. Really, really happy about the progress there.
Excellent. No, it's great to hear and great to see the progress there. Can you maybe give us an update on remote and just sort of the timeline and how that's maybe helped your business? If any challenges that you've encountered as that?
Yeah
... rolled out to the chain?
I mean, remote eye care is where we have a doctor that sits at home or somewhere else and provides eye care in real time to a patient in one of our locations. What it has helped us do is 2 things predominantly. There are doctors that are graduating from optometry school who love this idea of being able to practice how they want and where they want. It's been a real differentiator from a doctor recruiting perspective. Us being able to say, "Hey, we have 1,250 stores that you can practice in, or we also have this option for you to practice from home in this newest, most modern setting." It's been fantastic for that.
Then you marry that with, you know, some of the stores where it might have been hard to fill coverage or where we want to flex in some additional coverage on high volume days. It's allowed us to do some supply and demand smoothing to better serve those customers. Super happy with the progress. I think we're deployed, Chris, in the vast majority of places we can be.
Yeah. This concept of remote care is regulated at the state level. In the states in which this model is allowable. We're over 700 stores now, really we've got that deployed in every store that we'd want it to be at this point. As we open up new stores, it's one of the variables in a real estate strategy to say, "Hey, is this something that we think we can cover with remote care as well to as in person?
Got it. Alex, I guess just going back to just at a high level, you've been in this industry for forever, and as you look at the opportunity now that you're still fairly new in the CEO.
Yeah
... and CFO seats, how are you thinking about the number of stores long term? Who do you benchmark against, right? Like I said, you've come from other.
Yeah
... retailers. Not just the number of stores and the potential there, but the margin of potential and who you benchmark against.
Yeah. Again, right now we're in an intentional period of not growing as rapidly as we have in the past. You know, historically, we were a 70, 80 store opener, this year I think we'll open 30-35. We did about the same last year. That's an intentional capital shift in the short term because we are also making significant investments in our unified commerce experience. We completely re-platformed our CRM capability last year and moved to Adobe CRM. In just a few short weeks, we're re-platforming all of our e-commerce sites onto the Adobe e-commerce platform as well. That gives us the foundation for a stronger unified commerce experience to the consumer, not even long term, but really, starting in the third quarter of this year.
Once we've kind of checked those boxes and we've not only modernized, but I believe once we're on our new e-com platform and combined CRM platform, we'll have the industry-leading solution on how to stay sticky with the consumer regardless of what channel they shop. Once we've kind of cleared that path, we will return to more aggressive store openings, which, you know, we've said we're targeting 2028 for. To date, we operate in 38 states, so there's another 12 states we can enter. In the 38 states, there's a ton of white space where there's still opportunity for us to add stores. We have more than enough white space to expand our brick-and-mortar footprint.
Again, we're being very thoughtful that in the short term we're modernizing our unified commerce stack because we think that that needs to be a priority to support us from a long-term perspective.
Got it. Your margin goals longer term, you laid out some annual, you know, guidance-
Yeah
back when you did your investor day in the fall. Maybe touch on what you're expecting in terms of the drivers of EBIT margin and if there's any low-hanging fruit, Chris, as you've kinda, you know-
Yeah
picked through it all.
In 2025, we were able to expand operating margins by 160 basis points, which the team is thrilled about. What we had communicated investor days from 2026 through 2030, we think there's at least 50-150 basis points of operating margin expansion over that time period. The way that we look at architecting the business really in the next few years is, we really see just significant opportunities for SG&A leverage. Last year, we kicked off a project to interrogate every line of SG&A across the business and identified $20 million of cost out, half of which will materialize this year in 2026, half of which will materialize next year in 2027.
In addition to that, as you're thinking through the way that we're architecting our sales growth, our revenue growth, between a better pricing architecture, I think a more modern mix in terms of frames and lenses, you know, our goal there is to expand gross margin dollars. We actually don't expect to see significant growth in gross margin percentage in this category as you kind of move your way up the premium scale. Oftentimes it'll come at a gross margin percentage detriment, but pass through more dollars. As you think about the next few years, we're expecting to see more gross margin dollars, not a necessity to expand SG&A at any point and let that flow through to operating margin.
Just one point on the cost-out activities. We're past the execution phase. I mean, all of the cost-out has been contracted at this point. Now it's just a matter of when does it start to materialize and actualize versus be identified or have to action against. Again, we're 100% confident in our cost-out actions because at this point it is, they're contractual in nature.
Got it. Hot topic, tariffs. There's been some change over the past couple weeks. Maybe just give us a refresher on, you know, how tariffs, higher tariffs impacted your business, how you're thinking about, you know, this upcoming year, what's built into guidance?
Our guide does assume that we've got some impact of tariffs through the year. It's obviously a fluid situation is probably a fair word choice. Look, the good news is that this business has diversified its supply chain over the course of the last 10 years. As we think about our exposure to tariff impacted countries as a percent of our cost of goods, it's actually fairly low. When you think about the construct of the products that we make, the most value add that takes place is on the lenses, taking from raw material into the finished good, and we're super proud we've got four domestic laboratories where all that work takes place here in the United States. It's, it's
You know, not subject to tariff. Look, last year it was actually I think my fourth day with the company was Liberation Day, and just for a fun side fact, we actually implemented new ERP on my second day, so it was a really exciting onboarding. Last year we confidently were able to navigate the cost impact of tariffs on the P&L and still delivered what we had committed to from an operating margin perspective, and we are incredibly confident that we'll be able to do the same this year.
Yeah, I think what the team did on tariffs I just think is a great proof point of the executional capabilities of this organization. You know, we were faced with a challenge, we rallied around that challenge, we figured out how to mitigate it all within very, very short order. Again, I couldn't have been prouder of Chris and the merchandising and the supply chain and the finance and the legal team. Like, it was, it really was a thing of beauty to watch everyone kind of get together and figure out how we're gonna mitigate this thing and the team just did an exceptional job last year.
Yeah. Another hot topic, oil prices going up a ton. What are you thinking about? What's on your radar screens? Are you nervous about that cash paying customer, the potential drag?
Yeah, I mean, gosh, it's all recent news, right? I mean, I think we're bullish on the consumer, especially given what we're seeing actualize from a tax refund perspective. I think that's a tailwind and a good guy for us and for the category. You know, on gas prices, sure, I mean, you know, those are things that can lead to trade-off decisions within the consumer's wallet. I do think that as the obvious destination for value, it still gives us the winning recipe.
I mean, the consumers who enter the category generally start with either, "I'm on a predetermined purchase cycle, and it's just something I click off every couple of years," or, "I've noticed something change in my eyesight." If you're one of those consumers who notices something changing in their eyesight, you are not going to not take action because of paying, you know, a buck more a gallon at the pump, because it is something you need to take advantage of. I think that's one of the things we do love about this category is that in times of, you know, macro uncertainty, do we see wobble? Absolutely. I don't think it's anywhere as profound as, like, a truly consumer discretionary category.
As the percent of our business with managed care benefits continues to grow, that also provides us with just an increasing layer of insulation, as those folks are effectively paying every 2 weeks out of their paycheck for a prepaid benefit. In their minds, it could be a, "Well, if I don't go and get an eye exam and utilize those benefits, I'm just leaving money on the table." Makes sense. Maybe switching topics a little bit, but another hot topic is AI-powered glasses.
Yeah
... relationship with Meta. Maybe talk about where you started with that in terms of the initial launch, how many stores, what your experience was at the stores, maybe any challenges selling that product. Now I think you're going through with a bigger rollout, just maybe talk us through that.
Well, we learned a lot about smart eyewear in 2025. We started the launch with 50 stores last year. In pretty short order we're gonna have Ray-Ban Meta available in 1,200 locations, so essentially the balance of our chain with a couple of small exceptions. Here's what we learned. Our consumer that, our consumer opted in and raised their hand for this product at a higher rate than we anticipated. The Ray-Ban Meta SKUs are among the fastest turning SKUs that we have in our assortment. The consumers are not only seeking the product, but they are ever more interested in the use cases that the product can provide, from listening to music, taking phone calls.
When it comes to the AI interactivity that the product brings, there's some amazing things that you can do with it. If you are, you know, for instance if you're traveling overseas and you're looking at, you need to look at a menu and have it translate to what's on the menu, it can help you with that. If you park your car at an airport and take a picture of where your car is parked, it can recall for you where your car was parked when you, if you're like me, I forget all the time. Small detail out.
I'm always snapping a picture with my phone.
Exactly.
Yeah.
More and more... there's the intended use cases, but there's more and more use cases that people are just figuring out how to make, how to use and leverage the product to make them faster, stronger, more effective humans in some way. That's, I think, really, really exciting for the category. Our performance has been... Again, I'm super excited with how our team has done, and I'd say we still have room to go. It is a new product category introduction that we have associates who are comfortable with it, and we have a whole lot who are not yet. Getting our team of 14,000 team members super comfortable with the direction of AI smart eyewear, I think is the challenge yet to come.
Was it mostly a new customer that's coming into the store for that product, or is it more of an existing customer?
It's a good mix of both. I think we have consumers absolutely that are seeking the product, and some who are just converted to it from a curiosity standpoint. The one thing we're seeing and that is also really encouraging is the consumers who are buying Ray-Ban Meta are also opting into some of the more premium lens options as well. Our average transaction on a Ray-Ban Meta basis is one of the most valuable transactions that we have within our four walls.
Margin dollar is higher, but gross margin rate not as high.
Correct. That's a fair assumption, yeah. I think what's great about, you know, our stores being a destination for this is, A, you don't have to go to multiple stops if you do have a prescription need, a visual acuity need to get the lenses put in. You can kind of get that transaction, you know, get 2 birds with 1 stone. The second, most managed care plans will allow you to use your frame benefit against a Meta AI frame, so, kind of comparing us as a destination for this versus others, right? There's a lot of benefits to going to an optical retailer to buy this product.
Is there anything exclusive about this relationship? There are other players out there that might like to partner with.
Yeah
... someone who's got over 1,000 stores to help.
Sure
... get them on people's faces. Is that an opportunity for you guys?
It sure is, I think our vision is that we become the agnostic destination for smart eyewear and can provide people unbiased advice to help match them with the smart eyewear platform that best matches their lifestyle needs. Again, right now doing great with, you know, Ray-Ban Meta. We certainly would welcome relationships with other tech companies, other suppliers in this realm.
In terms of training, what you've already had to, you know, kind of educate your employees, as far as the Meta product, what would that look like if they were now tasked with understanding a bunch of different sort of smart eyewear?
It's a great question. I'm not sure we have a necessarily the perfect answer today, right? Because it would require retraining people who have been optical experts in helping match you with the right lenses to helping to match you with the right technology. I think there's elements of consultative selling that is really transferable, but we'd have to really make that connection for our team members to say, "Okay, your consultative selling aspects around frames and lenses and helping people find the right product for them, now it's gonna be frames, lenses, and the technology platform that best meets your patient's lifestyle needs." Again, because we do pretty well at the first two, I'm confident we could get to the third as well.
I think a proof point from last year, we rolled out an iPad-based selling support tool to all of our stores by end of the year, and even that we saw taking out the complication of smart eyewear, just attempting to describe the value of a premium progressive lens versus a standard progressive lens is actually fairly complicated to put into words, but the kind of the picture, you know, a picture's worth 1,000 words. We've kind of proven that we can deploy technology-based solutions to support the selling process today even in some of the more complicated areas of optical.
In my mind, this just becomes an expansion of, well, how can we leverage similar tools with our store teams since, as the product category might get more complicated, how do we provide the right tools to our associates to make it easy for them and ultimately easy for the consumer?
Totally. Should, do you guys take a long-term view and think that this is kind of the new long-term disruptive technology, in, as, yeah?
Our long-term view is that this is going to be a significant part of the optical experience, and in the very short time period that we've gotten acclimated to it, we are proving to ourselves that we are a credible player in the space, that our teams can rally and convey the notion of value and benefit to the consumer, that we have the right points of distribution. We think we're really well positioned for this category, for this category growth.
So far you haven't been in the seat super long.
Yeah.
The strategies that you've brought seem to be working. Is there anything that you have found more challenging, it's not going as smooth, something that you'd like to be, see happen faster than it is?
Don't say working with me.
We're working with Chris has been great. Listen, it's, you know, I am lucky that I got to come into a company that I knew and a category that I deeply understood, and in some ways, for sure I had asymmetric information about the company and who the company's consumer was from my previous life at both EssilorLuxottica and Cooper Companies, so that helped a great deal. I, you know, I did arrive here with a bit of a playbook in mind, and we have been executing against that playbook, and as we shared at our Investor Day, refined it around the four growth vectors of underdeveloped products, underdeveloped consumers, underdeveloped markets, and underdeveloped experiences. We're making good progress against all four of those components.
We have the right structure in place. In terms of, like, you know, if your question is really around, you know, lessons learned, you know, I think there's the human part of a job like this that can be tough sometimes. You know, we just, you know, recently took a bit of an organizational action last week with a number of our, you know, colleagues that were fantastic people, and they were great contributors to 19 years of success. It also became clear that some of these individuals weren't going to be contributors to what we needed to do go forward. Those are hard decisions, especially when they're decisions not necessarily around cost, right?
When you're making decisions on broad scale around talent, it's not whether you like a person, it's not how long they've been in the company, but are they someone who can be an A player go forward? You know, that's tough. I think the lesson learned in these things is you know what the right decision is. You probably knew it from the day you stepped in. Take those decisions faster. It's actually the right outcome for those impacted, and it's certainly the right outcome for the business.
Yeah. Makes sense. How about you, Chris? Anything surprising or challenges that you didn't expect when you took the role?
Yeah. You know, I'll actually I'll kind of go to the positive right on this one. When I was, like, looking from the outside in at a business that did 3.5% operating margin in a specialty retail category, when I arrived and cracked open the hood, I expected to find a lot of things I didn't find. I expected to find a real estate portfolio that needed, you know, potentially a lot of investment or relocation, and our store footprint is great, and our stores are well-maintained, and our doctor equipment is best in class from what I've seen in the category. You know, I expected to see, you know, an absence of investment in certain technologies and modernization, and lo and behold, we've got 700+ locations with remote exam technology.
It was a delight to come in and go, you know, the kinds of challenges I expected to take on, exclusive of tariffs, in my first couple of weeks were much different than what we actually encountered. I think Alex said it well earlier, it's really about modernizing the commercial approach to the business, which has been a lot of fun.
How about from an external perspective, like the market, the promotional cadence that you're seeing out there, just the competitive nature of the category? How has that looked over the past year relative to your expectations, and how do you see it kinda go forward?
Yeah. I think one of the things that the category did better than what we had historically done is meeting the consumer where they are and what their desires were. We were an analog replicator of a business model for 19 years. Punch out another store, deliver predictable result, and just do the same thing over and over again. I think as the market has embraced different ideas of customer centricity and segmentation and meeting customers where they are and refining their models, our model of analog replication just didn't work as well as it did.
We're playing a bit of catch-up there, but that's where I'm really excited about what this year has in store in terms of bringing even more brands into our assortment, going to a segmentation strategy where our stores are clustered based on a whole host of inputs that then defines what type of products they get, potentially what type of selling model that we deploy in that specific store. I think once we have those pieces in, we'll actually leapfrog where optical is, based on where based on how kinda segmentation schemes in the category work today. I think there's a ton of opportunity there.
From a promotional perspective, we were essentially an always-on promotional machine, and we had pointed all of our acquisition investment at the cash pay consumer with a message of 2 pair of eyewear for X, including an eye exam. I think that message worked really well when our market or our stores were dominated by cash pay consumers, but now that we have more managed care customers, the fact that we're pursuing the outsider X customer as a target segment, the 2 pair with an exam message, that always-on promo message isn't necessarily as attractive to them as it might have been in the past. Our challenge go forward is, how do we turn our marketing and media investments into a more targeted segmented approach where we have a brand communications platform that can be fine-tuned for a specific audience?
We took that big first step in 2025 with America's Best when we, when we said goodbye to our friend, the owl, and we introduced the brand promise of Every Eye Deserves Better, and that's central to our brand and central to our communication strategy to the consumer. Our next iteration is based on Every Eye Deserves Better, what does that mean? If you're a managed care customer, what is the brand promise that we have to deliver to you under the headline of Every Eye Deserves Better? If you are a pediatric patient and you believe in Every Eye Deserves Better, what is it that you do from a brand perspective to make that promise come to life?
One of the things we do with pediatric patients today is for every child under the age of 13 that visits us, they get a digital retinal image included in their eye exam, which is phenomenal because it gives our doctors insight into their complete eye health, including anything that might be an underlying condition. That's just part of our standard of care. Now, ironically, we've been doing this for years, but we didn't necessarily talk about it. The brand platform of Every Eye Deserves Better, a brand that believes in Every Eye Deserves Better, that is an action that you do for the consumer, but it's also something you can talk about. Again, I think we did a great job on landing on a strong communications platform.
This year's how do we take that platform and actually apply some segmented messaging to it and deploy it in media, to a way that's not how we've done things in the past, essentially just, you know, run a bunch of TV spots.
It seemed things seem to be working. You referenced earlier you grew your eye exams, this past year in a market that was down. Where do you think that share is coming from?
All-time high unaided brand awareness in Q3 and Q4. We've been super excited about that. I think, you know, you've had a fair amount of disruption in the category. You have a high degree of private equity consolidation with independent optometry. You have independent optometry that still dominates this segment from a market share perspective. I think those couple of components have dislodged some consumers, and set us up as winners of share in that market.
Sounds great. Alex and Chris, thank you so much for your time, National Vision.
Great. Thanks, Paul.
Thank you.