Partner Up: The Key to Memorable Event Activations

Interview Transcription –

Partner Up: The Key to Memorable Event Activations

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Welcome to the Proof Point Podcast, where we decode digital success one click at a time. We share key takeaways fueled by data and insights that your team can implement today to drive growth. Now, let’s get started.

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This is Stacie Porter Bilger, your host for the Proof Point Podcast, where we feature B2B and D2C businesses and thought leaders, sharing marketing, data tactics, sales strategies, and leadership insights that kickstart your growth in the rapidly changing digital space. This episode is brought to you by Proof Digital. Proof Digital is a strategic and creative performance marketing agency.

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We partner with companies to create data-fueled marketing, sales funnels, and overall growth strategies. Visit ProofDigital.com to learn more. Before I get started, I really want to thank Highmark Tech Systems.

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Highmark is a highly valued partner of ours, and it’s the reason I have the guest on today. Highmark is a leader in providing modular, multi-level decks, architecture, wall systems for temporary exhibits and buildings, proudly made in the United States, actually located in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Be sure to check them out at HighmarkTech.com. The structure, they really are the structure behind the world’s best events.

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Today’s guest is Brian Baker. Brian is the vice president of Highmark Tech Systems. He really is the creative leader and the Swiss Army knife, as they often say, behind all their creative ideas and innovations at Highmark.

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He’s been working in various fields around the space for 25 years. He’s had leadership roles as a designer, a strategist, and an innovator. He has worked with large brands like Coca-Cola, Home Depot, FedEx, State Farm, and more, along with small boutique brands and agencies.

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I look forward to having a conversation, so thanks for joining me, Brian. Thanks for having me, Stacie. I really appreciate it.

(2:13 – 2:41) 

You know, one of the questions I really do like, to everybody who wants to know people’s journey, so tell me about your professional journey as a really a creative guy. Well, yeah, so, I mean, everybody thinks their own journey is really interesting. I think mine kind of is, but, you know, I wasn’t, I think one of the things that actually,that I didn’t expect to help me as much as it did through my career, was my original career choice was, I was going to be a rock star.

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And I was in a band, played five years, put myself basically through college doing that. I was studying industrial design. I started out at Center for Creative Studies in Detroit.

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I was going to be a car designer, and then I transferred to Purdue and got an industrial design degree from there. I never intended to use my design degree, though. I was pragmatic enough that I needed a backup plan.

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And I also, I really did and do love design. To me, it’s, you know, music is another, they’re all creative outlets, right? I mean, I love to cook and I like the 10 bar, kind of any way that I can, you know, create or synthesize or, you know, I like to do that. And, you know, one of the things that I didn’t expect when I was, you know, screwing off playing music was how much the, so many things from that experience would actually really help me in my career after that as a creative and as a designer, you know, you don’t really get nervous, you know, presenting to a room of 10 people when you’ve been on stage in front of a couple thousand, you know, actually, I will say this, the worst onstage experience, it was in the town you’re in, we played a bar, it was an off night, I don’t remember what, because sometimes you get like earlier in the week gigs or whatever, it was like a Wednesday night or something.

(4:13 – 4:49) 

And they were like, maybe five people in this place, I mean, there was nobody there. And that’s weird, because you really see the people’s faces, that’s actually way more intimidating than the biggest shows we probably played were around a couple thousand, that’s way easier because energy is there and everything they bring, you don’t have to, but you learn to read a room, especially when there’s five people, right? Like they’re not digging on this at all, let’s shift the set list a little bit differently. And as a creative, you know, in presentations, I’m constantly observing like that, I’m observing my teammates, what they’re doing and how it’s going over, I’m observing the audience.

(4:53 – 5:29) 

And even as I’m speaking, you know, if you’re on stage singing and playing guitar and reading the room, you learn, you kind of train yourself, you know, after hundreds of shows to be able to do those things simultaneously. So as you’re presenting and thinking about what you’re saying and trying to sound smart and, you know, get the narrative across to hopefully win this sale, you’re also able to read the room and see, are they really reacting well to this? They really responded to that or they seemed concerned about that. So, you know, those things I was trained on, I didn’t even realize that I was being trained for what I’ve done a lot in my career.

(5:32 – 5:47) 

And I do a lot of presenting, I do a lot of that, as well as, you know, I teach a class for our industry that’s part of the accreditation process. So for CTSM, which is Certified Trade Show Marketer. So, you know, I’m giving you the long story here.

(5:50 – 6:09) 

No, absolutely. But, you know, a lot of how I was, a lot of what was really have been really things that have been important in my career were formed there and I didn’t even realize it yet. And then, you know, so after that, you know, my first job out at once, once the band started to fizzle, the guitar player, you know, I mean, to be honest, I got married and had a family and I was starting to think, okay, you gotta make some money.

(6:12 – 6:19) 

Also, my hair fell out. And, you know, so this was before Doctrine, you know, yeah, so anyway. So, you know, at that point, I was thinking, all right, it’s time to be a grown up.

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And I was actually kind of working as a designer and still playing shows, but that ended. And, you know, so my first job was, I was designing boats and it was a small company in India. We did boat interiors.

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And I really, really liked the kind of thing I was designing, but I didn’t really enjoy a lot about that work experience. I was there a year and someone who gave me the advice, if you wanted to, I was looking to maybe go and work for an industrial design like consultancy, but they said, here’s, listen, go find a job in the trade show and exhibit industry, do a couple of years in that. It’s great training for lots of reasons.

(7:07 – 7:17) 

And he was telling me the reasons that were great training for industrial design consultancy work. And so that was kind of my plan. I’m like, well, there’s actually, there’s a small exhibit house in my hometown of Fort Wayne, Icon Exhibits.

(7:19 – 7:37) 

And I had done some little bit of freelance rendering and stuff for them. So I actually, I did, I applied there and I ended up getting hired and, you know, I was there for five years and really grew a ton. And what I didn’t expect was in my doing my short tour through it to get a good background was that I would fall in love with it.

(7:38 – 7:57) 

And, you know, as a designer, you know, designing cars or objects or whatever, it’s this thing and you can, I can rotate that around pretty easily in my head. I can think of it in different angles and draw it and understand it in an environment. It’s completely different from the outside, from the inside, from every angle you’re at different heights.

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I mean, it just changes almost infinitely. So the way you experience it is, is, is way more complex in designing it and anticipating that was just, just, I don’t, I can’t even tell you, it was exponentially more challenging than to design an object. And although I love both, I really, I just, I felt like, and I still do feel like there’s a ton I can learn, even just pure design.

(8:25 – 8:43) 

And then from there as a designer, you begin to, you know, it’s not just about a structure or a shape or a color, you know, or, you know, proportions and things like that. We’re now learning about what is, what is this brand trying to say? What are their goals? Who’s their audience and how do they want to affect them? Right? So you start to learn more strategic thinking. And so, you know, that’s the way my career was going.

(8:49 – 8:59) 

I really wanted to stay at Icon for a long time, but I had an opportunity. My wife had an opportunity to, to move close to family and work for her dad here in Atlanta. And we tried to work something out with, with Icon and didn’t.

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So I ended up going to work for a pretty large company in our industry, MC Squared, and I was there for 17 years and as a designer and then creative director. And, you know, really, really got more involved in strategy, you know, and again, what I was just referring to a minute ago, the idea of it’s, you know, it’s not just about the design and by the way, we use the word strategy all the time. I use it a lot.

(9:28 – 9:29) 

I overuse it. I overuse it. I’m sure.

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But there’s different, you know, there’s different layers of it. Right. Like, for example, you know, we, we always, we start at the end.

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That’s, that’s the thing. Right. And I, honestly, I still, everything that we do, even if it’s a small project, I always still start at the end of, you know, that at the end of this whole thing, when it’s done, what did we want to achieve? Forget if we can or what the budget is or whatever, what’s the ultimate, if we could do, if we could, if people could, you know, who’s the audience, how are we going to affect them? And what do we want them to think, feel, do, or say as, or all of the above as a result of this experience that they’re going to come to you? So you go there and you figure out, okay, well, here’s what we want.

(10:08 – 10:12) 

Here’s what we want. Here’s they need. We want to change their mind or we want to expose them to something they don’t know about or whatever.

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So you go backwards from there and from there you go to what’s the, what kind of experiences do we need to have in that space to support that strategy? And so you, you know, there’s this, there’s this iterative ideation from that, just like there is the strategic part. Sure. And once you have those things in place and you feel really confident about those, then it’s a matter of, okay, now what structure will support those experiences and everything needs to point to in align with that strategy.

(10:45 – 11:03) 

And that was a, that was a process that, you know, it’s, it’s actually pretty close to what people refer to as design thinking now. But, you know, that process that went through for a long time and honed it. And I never, I never have given up design where a lot of guys who become more creative directors become more involved in strategy.

(11:05 – 11:19) 

They tend to just, you know, pull levers. And I don’t want to, I certainly have had teams where we’re assigning work and that’s part of it. But I’ve also never wanted to give up completely the role as a designer because I think I’ve seen too many of my friends as, as they age, where they kind of willingly do that.

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And we, we run the risk of becoming kind of irrelevant. We lose our chops. We don’t know what’s cool anymore and never wanted, I’ve always been afraid of that.

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And so, you know, I, I still, to this day, you know, I, I still do a lot of our design work myself. By the way, I want to say one thing at the beginning when you introduced me, you said all the, all the cool creative ideas come from me. That’s absolutely not true.

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Okay. I want to give you credit for a lot of it. Well, I mean, I am, I am, I, that’s the hat I wear, I’m responsible for it.

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But I will say this. One of the most important things about a creative leader is to recognize the, the ideas that are good or sometimes the idea that you’re, you’ve been told to do and figure out how to, how to make it as best as possible. But recognizing those good ideas.

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And I, I’ve had discussions with this, you know, about arguments even about this with other creatives. Good ideas can come from anywhere. I mean, good creative ideas can come from anywhere.

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And I, I really, I’ve always enjoyed, you know, meetings where there’s people in there, they have nothing to do with this thing that we’re designing or any experience in it, but almost always they’re going to have an observation that we didn’t expect. Right. You get too close to it.

(12:41 – 12:56) 

Yes. And, and which, which I wasn’t, I don’t know why I’m going to say this, but I do now, but I wasn’t planning on it. So one of the things that I learned my very first, probably eight weeks in college at Center for Creative Studies was they were trying to define what creativity is and where it comes from.

(12:58 – 13:16) 

And the, the instructor, he had this, I’m going to grab my computer mouse. It’s not what it was, but he had, he had an object and he was holding it. And he said, can you all, you know, describe what you see from this angle? And he had us all over here.

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I want you all to describe what you see. And it was kind of a cube thing and he was holding it. We were all describing the same thing.

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He said, I want you to sketch it. And then he had one person come over and stand off to the side and he had them do the same thing. And he had another person come behind him.

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And so then, then he had them show what they had. And when he turned it around, it was completely different on those other sides. So he talked about the idea that of creativity, that it’s, that like his simplest definition of it was the ability to see the same thing, an object, a problem, whatever it is from a different angle.

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And that was a really great visual example of that. So I’ve always tried to like, okay, everybody’s going here. How do I get around this a different way to see it differently? And you know, a lot of times that’s automatic.

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If somebody is not, if they’re, if they’re, if they don’t do that every day, if they’re, if they work on the shop floor and you know, something they see is different than what the, so they might bring a different thought and it happens a lot. But I do want to make sure that specifically when we talk about, and by the way, I’m super proud of a lot of the, the creative that Highmark does. And you know, some of that is actually even external, like partners, like we’ve had great partners, bring great ideas to us.

(14:27 – 14:37) 

Debbie and Matt, Debbie is the president, Matt’s our senior vice president. They also wear a ton of hats and I mean, as you have to, but they’re both, Debbie would tell you she’s not creative. She is.

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She is. I’ve seen her, I’ve seen her in action. She’s got great ideas.

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She does. Super positive. And that really, you know, helps facilitate and encourage that, you know, Matt was a technical grade.

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Matt has a technical graphics degree from Purdue. So you know, his background, his background is basically illustration and stuff. It’s a little more on the technical side.

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So he downplays his creativity, but you know, there are a lot of times that we’ll start a meeting and say, Hey, we were thinking about this and like, Oh my gosh, this is awesome. And we go from there. So a lot of the great ideas don’t start in here from me there, you know, I might, I might take it and run with it.

(15:12 – 15:18) 

And then on top of that, you know, I’ve got great people that help me execute as well. My daughter’s actually on our creative team now. I know I’ve seen your work, man.

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I want to hire her. I want to hire her. She’s a rockstar.

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I’ll tell you what, it’s humbling because, you know, I’m the old war horse that’s been doing this forever. And then I see her do some stuff where I’m like, that’s better than what I would do. And, you know, even we’ve had, uh, you didn’t have, I don’t think you’ve met Elijah yet.

(15:36 – 15:39) 

He’s still in school. He’s done two projects for us. He’s middle of working on one right now.

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He did the EMS, a lot of the EMS video work you saw, he did that. Oh, he did that. He did a great job.

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Yeah. And it’s, it’s just like the drone shots and stuff and, and, you know, but he’s, they’re really creative. And like I said, I’m proud of them, but it’s really humbling because I, you know, I want to be, I want to be the man and I can see that they’re, they’re better at some things than I am.

(16:00 – 16:18) 

And that that’s definitely humbling, but yeah, the team, you know, like I said, the leadership within the company, you know, we kind of tag team and, you know, we, we, we get our heads together and brainstorm on things. And, um, I certainly do bring some ideas, but, uh, you know, the, the team does as well. And we have a really great energy where we tend to build it.

(16:21 – 16:42) 

My favorite type of brainstorming meeting is when you’re done, you’ve got this great idea and you can’t actually put your finger on whose it was or where it came from. You know, it’s like, yeah, it, it came out of the group, the idea what’s, uh, there’s a German word, Gestalt, I think that’s where the, where the sum is more than the, um, where the, yes. Some is more, what is it? The whole is more than the sum of the parts.

(16:44 – 16:45) 

Yeah. That’s absolutely. So, and that really does happen.

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It’s one of the, and honestly, it’s one of the things I go back to playing in a band. Um, you know, the stuff that would come out of that creatively versus me sitting with a guitar, a piano, trying to write a song. Um, I just, I enjoy that process so much more.

(17:01 – 17:12) 

But the truth of around the creativity piece, I mean, I, I, I started off of the rapidly changing digital space and we’re, you know, AI and all those types of things. But I’ll tell you one thing that will not go away. I mean, it’s not even creativity.

(17:14 – 17:31) 

Yeah. I mean, you just, you can’t, in looking at things from different perspective and in reading the room, like you talked about with the band, these technologies cannot do it. And so from a standpoint of your daughter or anybody else, if, if, if you have a creative bent, you have an advantage.

(17:33 – 17:48) 

Um, and I truly believe that. So I love that. I love that discussion that you had, and we can build on it more, but I just wanted to stay with that because creativity is, uh, is the way, uh, everything else might be taken care of, but creative, um, skillsets are, um, here to stay.

(17:55 – 18:15) 

And that’s not going to change no matter what digital tool you have out there. And there’s some pretty deep philosophical, and we could even get into religious discussions around that. But, you know, I, one of the other things that I would say, and by the way, I am fascinated with that, like the idea of, I’m not going to turn this into, into a preaching podcast, but I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of how simple anything I design is and how complex the world is and how amazing that design is.

(18:18 – 18:41) 

But, um, and I take a lot of inspiration from that as a creative, but the other thing I,  I really, I wanted to say about when I look at how I, where ideas come from and you execute a great project or whatever, and look, I’m not going to lie. There have been some times in my career where I fought for an idea that nobody else liked. And we, you know, as the creative leader, I said, listen, I believe in this, we’re going for it.

(18:42 – 18:53) 

And there have been times that crashed and burned. Well, yeah, but you had to take risks and there, and there have been times that had people coming up to me afterwards going, oh my gosh, you know, I’m, I’m glad you, you pushed this. That was amazing.

(18:55 – 19:03) 

And that feels awesome. But I, I honestly, I think the, I prefer the, the thing that comes together as a team. I, I, I just like it better, um, as, as opposed to, I just like the process better.

(19:08 – 19:41) 

It’s way more fun than, than right battling, but what I was going to say about this, you know, leadership in the company, the rest of my team, all of that. And even, like I said, you know, um, and, and, you know, one of the recent things we’ve done experiential marketing summit, you know, we, there’s a lot of back and forth with us and the staff there at event marketer and, um, you know, do a great relationship with them. So you’re looking at it from that perspective, but also, um, I mean, gosh, our parallel partners are some other suppliers in our industry that we work with and get along well with our, our, you know, company friends, whatever you would want to say.

(19:44 – 20:27) 

And then honestly, the role that I’m in now is it, it, at being at a supplier partner, um, the most important part of all of this, um, is, and this is kind of where I was trying to build to are those relationships that we have with, with our clients to help them support with, because we don’t sell to end brands. You know, I spent most of my career doing that, as you mentioned, some of those brands at the beginning, but you know, if I were, if I guess, if I, if I were really think about what my bio should say, I’d start, honestly, I’d probably start listing, listing, you know, 50 or a hundred different agencies that I partnered with on stuff, uh, that we’ve, that I’ve worked with. And, you know, that’s, that’s really satisfying to seeing that, okay, we have these solutions and we’re going to, we’re going to help you and we’re going to, you know, do a great job and then they take something, you know, great out into the world.

(20:32 – 21:08) 

And I think my favorite thing about all of that stuff, when you, when you have, it’s cool to have a creative idea that makes you feel good, but when you see an idea come from something that you’re, that you’re involved in, that’s that you didn’t expect, that was just really cool, um, that was, again, this, my favorite thing is, um, something that you didn’t anticipate, you didn’t expect in there, it didn’t expect and while there it is, and that’s cool. And I didn’t see that coming. And my favorite compliment I can ever give anybody, whether it’s a song, whether it’s whether it’s a design or whatever is, ah, I wish I would’ve thought of that.

(21:15 – 21:29) 

And it’s, and there’s, and there’s a lot of examples of that. And, you know, um, I get excited about when other designers could do something really cool, whether it’s an architecture or whether it’s an art, whether it’s, you know, in, in the space that we’re in. Yeah.

(21:30 – 21:44) 

A couple of things. One, I, I want to hit on that. And I’d also want to show and highlight some of these, this amazing, um, work and products in which you all have, but I definitely admire, I mean, you were talking about the importance of partnership.

(21:45 – 22:19) 

I, I value our partnership and it’s been a great partnership from our standpoint, but I, from the outside looking in, I loved to see all the partnerships that you have with the companies in which you, who are your clients, who you serve, your, your experiential marketing agencies who you work with. Um, it’s through, I mean, from start to finish of, of, of, of product. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to pull up a couple examples of, of, of, of some of these, of these, you know, these examples of, of work, um, and partners in which you’ve built to help them elevate their brand.

(22:21 – 22:49) 

I mean, this is, uh, obviously a, um, a beautiful structure in which you are again, are behind, but look at how many different variations that you are partnering with these agencies or, or companies just to take their, their, their company and their brand to a whole nother level. Yeah. And it’s about, you know, the, the thing that’s unique about, um, events, trade shows, exhibits, those kinds of things.

(22:50 – 23:06) 

And there’s a number of them, even the museums, um, somewhat, but the ones that are the most interesting are, first of all, it’s an environment that you’re experiencing. Right. But when you look at, um, you know, these experiences, the most valuable part of the face-to-face interactions and, um, right.

(23:10 – 23:22) 

So, but, but that’s, that’s a brand touch point. That’s in my opinion, is the most important touch point of all of them. Um, it’s, and it’s the reason we do these things as opposed to, I mean, you can, you can go online and learn all kinds of stuff.

(23:23 – 23:37) 

You can do a zoom call and have some interaction, but when you, when you’re standing there, you’re shaking hands, you’re, you know, you’re, that’s, that’s part of the reason that COVID hurts or hurts so much for everybody is because you, you couldn’t, we couldn’t get together. Right. Nope. Yeah. And, and I, listen, we need that. We’re wired that way.

(23:38 – 23:44) 

We are. Psychologically. We need, I mean, even scientifically, I mean, like we are talking about the far infrared you get from a hug or whatever, and how it affects you physically and in your health.

(23:49 – 24:02) 

So, you know, face-to-face person-to-person interactions are super important. And, um, for marketing, I mean, as well as, like I said, there’s a whole other discussion, but you know, obviously I’m not going to try to. But no, there’s no question.

(24:04 – 24:23) 

If we understand, if we understand each other, we’d get into the game. And that’s the same with customers too. You’re going to have conversations that you wouldn’t have had if you were just sitting across the table from them and you learn something and then you can learn how you can, as you’re, as you partner with them, get some insights and think, okay, oh, here’s another idea that can help elevate your brand.

(24:24 – 24:59) 

Because I didn’t know that before. So when you were showing those structures, um, you know, I mean, so you know a bit about us, but, um, for those out there in podcast land, you know, that I started to refer to brand touch points and that, you know, the pinnacle of that is that face-to-face, but, you know, if there’s a lot of ways to facilitate that and any experience that somebody has with your brand. And so there’s different directions of this, right? There’s, there’s like, if you’re an agency and you’re working with a brand, there’s a brand experience happening right here, right? Between those two.

(25:00 – 25:33) 

And, you know, that agency, um, that, that team has a brand. Are they fun to work with? They, are they pain in the ass to work with? Um, you know, uh, are they creative? Are they not, um, are they good at what they do? So, you know, and then how do they execute it? Is it a painful process? Is it easy? You know, what’s the work like? So there’s a, that’s a, and how did it turn out? Right? So like, oh, we were in the structure and it leaked and it was, you know, it didn’t look good and you could tell it was, you know, kind of wonky versus wow, they brought us a beautiful experience and it was tight and clean. And, and so there’s that brand touch point.

(25:35 – 25:51) 

But then when you look at the end, the audience that’s, that’s, that’s now perceiving what the brand brought to that experience. So that, that first, that face-to-face is most important, but everything around it that facilitates it, uh, it influences the perception of it. Right.

(25:52 – 26:15) 

So, um, if I, if, if I’m at an experience and, you know, so there’s things we can’t hit, we can’t do anything about, right. Like if the weather’s bad, if it’s, you know, if there’s a bunch of mosquitoes or you’re near us, you know, the venue is near something that smells, those are the things you, but all of these meters in your head are going to affect the way you look back at that experience. Right.

(26:16 – 26:34) 

Like if you’ve ever done something and you were sick that day, right. Might’ve been a really cool thing, but you don’t look back at it as a great experience because you were sick. And if you’re, if you’re at an event and you know, there’s all of these things, I like the picture of this big dials and there there’s positives and negatives and in between, I want them all turned positive.

(26:35 – 26:50) 

Um, and we can affect quite a number of them. So those brand touch points of what’s, what’s the structure look like? What’s it feel like? Oh, is it, how does it sound if it’s raining? Right. Is it, it’s flapping around or is it like a, Hey, I feel like I’m specifically to our structures.

(26:50 – 26:59) 

I’m in a building. This is, this is secure and safe. So, you know, are we going to climate control it? Because maybe it’s hot or, you know, are you undercover because maybe it’s raining? So some of those things that you might think we can’t control, maybe we can.

(27:03 – 27:20) 

And if it’s a hot, miserable day and they step inside my experience and it’s climate control and nice in there, what did I just do? I mean, I took that where they weren’t even thinking about the weather and they turned now I’ve got a huge positive out of that, but all those details, you know, and that we, that everything that we can, these are all parts of a branded experience. 

(27:24 – 27:55) 

And we, we attribute, um, our perception and honestly, there’s all kinds of, there’s books and books and tons of stuff on branding and how people, and how people, the lizard part of your brain is what really attached to, to a brand and this color versus that color. All of these things are things that we’ve built up and, and, you know, if we’re going to go do a brand, if we’re going to do an activation, um, if we’re going to be at a trade show, if we’re going to do a conference, whatever, and we’re interacting, they could be our own internal employees, right.

(27:57 – 28:08) 

At a sales meeting or something. Um, we have the ability to have them feeling really good about the company they work for, or we have the ability for them to walk away disappointed, pissed off, irritated. Maybe I should get my resume.

(28:10 – 28:38) 

All of these, so it’s not always even the audience can be our own, our own selves. So, but all of those things impacted and some things are really easy to affect the number on that dial. And one of those is just, you know, I would say the partnerships you choose, the kind of work that they do, the solutions and the products that they bring, um, you know, I’ll toot your horn for you for a second, as you said, as you said, Stacie, we’re a client of yours.

(28:39 – 28:55) 

And, um, you know, we moved our business over to you guys, um, because we were working with you on the, your space side. And we really liked the way that you worked. Um, one of my favorite things about you guys is, um, that you’ll bring things to us and say, Hey, we, we were thinking about this and we noticed this and you can do this.

(29:00 – 29:06) 

Or, Hey, here’s a cool idea for this. Um, like they just, uh, they just showed us some new images. Hey, um, you know, Jane’s been playing with AI.

(29:09 – 29:34) 

What do you think about these images? And I’m like, well, these are awesome. We gotta, we gotta change this stuff because it’s not what we make right here, but we can, so, but, and we just had, we literally just had a meeting yesterday on that, but, um, I love the way that, um, because it means so much to me, the way that we behave. One of the reasons I came to Highmark is that, you know, if you, if you put your, if you put your client’s needs, obviously you got to make money.

(29:38 – 29:34) 

Right. I mean, we’re all, we’re all in business back to you. It comes back to you.

(29:42 – 30:01) 

Right. But exactly. But I guess, but if you put your client’s needs and what’s going to work for them above what’s going to work for me right here in this, I think that’s not only putting their needs ahead of yours, but also thinking there’s this idea that you become, we talked about branding a minute ago.

(30:02 – 30:13)

There’s a, there’s a point you go from, I like this brand. I’m going to buy that brand. And, and then it’s, it’s gosh, I’m dancing around religion all over the place, but that’s okay.

(30:13 – 30:36) 

Where you become, you believe in something enough where you become an evangelist for it. And you start to share that with other people and you start to say, Hey, well, you know, I know this, I know these guys that do this over here and you really should talk to them and you, and you, and you start to think like, Hey, and you go, you have relations, you have a relationship with us and I have, you know, we’ve got other, like I said, parallel partners. I’ll go to them sometimes say, Hey, I was thinking about the way you guys do this.

(30:40 – 31:07) 

And have you ever thought about this? And you be, there’s the relationship that you have where you’re literally thinking about someone’s brand and the business that they’re doing. And maybe in some way that they might be able to, uh, an idea that you have that they could benefit from. That’s a different way to work than, um, somebody whose primary goal is what are we invoicing? How do we increase that? Um, you know, and, and there are, there are plenty of businesses that work that way.

(31:11 – 31:32) 

I think long-term the ones like, and that’s what I love about your company is that you think that way you bring ideas to us. Um, and, uh, you give a bleep, right? I mean, we fall in love with our clients in the, in, in their products and services. And when you do that, you think of them when they’re not, when they don’t even know you’re thinking of them.

(31:33 – 31:44) 

It’s the same thing that you do for your clients. I mean, the importance of partnership, we’ve talked about it over, I mean, lots of multiple things. And that’s where, again, the magic happens because you go that extra mile, you, you learn that extra thing.

(31:46 – 31:56) 

And then, you know, uh, and then you enjoy working with them too. Makes a whole lot heck of a lot better when you’re like enjoying working with, you know, who, who, who you spend time with. Um, a lot easier to elevate a brand like, uh, Highmark tech systems.

(32:01 – 32:09) 

Uh, when you know what kind of people are in the building as well as what kind of product and service they deliver. So that’s just good stuff. Yeah, agreed.

(32:10 – 32:38) 

And it’s, you know, it’s, uh, it goes both ways, right? Whether they’re your client or whether, whether they’re your supplier partner, um, I hate the word vendor. But can we, can we shift gears for one second? I want to highlight because I, I used this example internally about what you guys did at the EMS, um, experiential, uh, expressional marketing summit. I mean, you, I mean, literally, as you’ll see, I’m going to share, share your landing page on this.

(32:38 – 32:41) 

I know what you’re about to say. Rocked it out of the park. Right.

(32:42 – 32:59) 

And I see, this is your, your rock and roll days coming in, coming back to, to, uh, to, to life. We had a lot of fun with this. I mean, you really, I mean, I don’t know how, how many, how long did you start thinking through the whole, the whole process? I mean, you, this is your, your, um, you know, your structure.

(33:04 – 33:17) 

Um, I mean, I’ll, I’ll put probably a Texas too. You can see a little bit of, I mean, just the, the whole, you know, just the whole, visual of how you probably like everybody was coming over and checking you out. Right.

(33:18 – 33:30) 

Yes, for sure. Well, part of that’s automatic because we’ve got the biggest space at the experiential marketing summit. We actually, yeah, we partner with, um, the show and we’re actually one of the official like venue or like presentation environments.

(33:34 – 33:37) 

Yeah. So, so yeah, so we’re right in the middle. They actually brought us that idea in 2017.

(33:40 – 33:59) 

Okay. So when they knew we were going to be launching our outdoor stuff and said, Hey, what do you think about? And they called it the high Mark hub and they were going to put programming in there. It’s a perfect, it’s a great example of, of, so, I mean, they’re, they’re an industry publication, but they’re, they’re all, we’re also a client, right. Right. We could call them a vendor. They’re not there.

(34:00 – 34:18) 

They’re a partner. And, and literally they spend time thinking about our business and, you know, things that we should be thinking about. And because the space that they specialize in is a little bit, a little bit different than our traditional historical core business, which is more of the trade show side where this is more about, you know, experiential agencies.

(34:22 – 34:35) 

But yeah. So if I were to get, if I gave you the history, you asked a couple of questions about where this came from. So I’ll pull back the curtain in the back of my mind, it’s been running frantically where the, where the, where the idea came from to go rock here.

(34:38 – 34:50) 

And if Debbie was here, she’d kick me and she would tell me and remind me, I’d be, oh,yeah. I’m thinking it actually came, it might’ve come from EMS. It might’ve been them that mentioned this to us.

(34:53 – 35:09) 

So I’m going to dial back a couple of years earlier. When we came out of the pandemic, we’d always done some cool stuff, but it was really around our brand at EMS. And coming out of the pandemic, they told us that since there were no shows for a while, 2021 was the first one where we came back and it was in Chicago.

(35:14 – 35:30)

 It was really sparsely attended. It was, you know, but, you know, God bless them for actually, you know, doing it again and say, listen, we got to make these things happen. And so they said they were thinking about the idea of they were, they were looking at this as like a family reunion.

(35:33 – 35:42) 

Our light bulbs all went off and said, oh, can we grab onto that? What you guys are talking about? And just, I want to dig, I want to lean into that. We’re going to make that our theme. And they’re like, yeah, great.

(35:44 – 35:53) 

So we actually did a whole booth around all the graphics. You know, I designed a family reunion t-shirt, right? Because you got to have that at a family reunion. I dug in, I decided I had to have the perfect family reunion playlist.

(35:59 – 36:09) 

So by the way, and there was some really cool stuff, but there was also like, there’s some of the cheesy tip stuff that you have to have it. They play celebrate by cool and the gang and every family reunion. And we had a bunch of like awkward family photos on the graphics and screens and stuff.

(36:15 – 36:23) 

Pretty minimal structure, but people loved it. And so the next, but it was really sparse attendance wise. So the next year we actually, we, we rewrote the family reunion.

(36:26 – 36:47) 

It did it a little bit differently, but we use some of the same theming. So in 2020, and so we, I guess we were getting this kind of people were really looking at what are they going to do next? Cause that was pretty, you know, they were starting to notice the experience as much as they were our structures, which is actually a challenge because they’re like, well, what do you guys do? I’m like, well, you’re standing in it and around it. You know, we make all this stuff that, you know, the structures.

(36:49 – 36:59)

 Um, so 23, we did, they told us they were going to do an 80s theme. So we’re like, oh yeah, we’re, we’re in on this. So I went hardcore.

(37:00 – 37:08) 

Um, I did, it was a, it was a mixture of video games. Like I turned our, our, our logo into the Pac-Man. I used Pac-Man.

(37:09 – 37:11) 

Okay. I thought it was my brain was going right there. Yeah.

(37:11 – 37:19) 

I did eight bit graphics and, you know, um, like just, you know, Miami vice kind of stuff. Yeah. We even had like magenta carpet.

(37:22 – 37:38) 

It wasn’t supposed to be, but the truck didn’t, the truck driver got arrested in like Oklahoma or something. Didn’t make it to Vegas. So our awesome supplier partner that does the carpet Brewmark, they said, listen, here’s what we’ve got that we can pick from, you know, this here in Vegas, you know, cause that’s one of the things that makes a great partners.

(37:40 – 37:46) 

Stuff goes wrong. How are you going to, how do you fix it?You know, and, and they were able to turn it around fast, print some stuff locally. Um, and so shout out to them.

(37:48 – 37:54) 

They, they always do a great job for us and with us. Um, but so we had this eighties theme and people really loved it. We had break dancers.

(37:55 – 38:23) 

Um, in fact, there’s some, there’s some clips of that on our, on our feeds as well, but it was, it went over so well that it was, and by the way, I’m scared to death at 2025 because of where I’m going with this, because a lot of people are like, what are you going to do next year? That was awesome. And, um, and, and by the way, we used another, we brought in an AV partner that I used to, that I’d done a lot of pitches with in the past. Then, uh, stamp media, they brought, they did a full led wall for us, all kinds of great sound.

(38:23 – 38:32) 

It just really amped that up to a whole different level. So what we did in 23 was kind of over the top and it was the, it was, but it was very eighties. And, um, by the way, the eighties playlist is, was, is one of them.

(38:36 – 38:42) 

So you have to send that to me. I want the eighties playlist and I can maybe even add it to our site. I would like to, yeah, I’ll send you, I’ll send you a few.

(38:46 – 38:55) 

And the fact that the eighties, I had three different ones. I had the general eighties theme, but we had a dance party, uh, both nights at the end of the night, Debbie’s idea. I want to have an eighties dance party.

(38:56 – 38:58) 

I’m like, that’s awesome.  We’re totally doing that. And then we’re like, and I want break dancers.

(39:00 – 39:12) 

So, um, so I want to tell you the whole story of how we got to break the answers there, but that was fun too. So anyway, so I had a break dance playlist also. So, um, and back in the day when I was about 15, 16, I used to do a little bit of that break dancing.

(39:12 – 39:19)

 So, um, see, I got this whole, I I’ve got dad lore. My son told me, dad, your dad, Laura’s like off the charts. So anyway, um, I was a break dancer and a DJ.

(39:25 – 39:19) 

So I wasn’t very good. I want to see this. I was a better DJ than I was break dancer, but so anyway, so that went really well.

(39:33 – 39:50) 

And then, so we’re, we were, we were thinking, you know, we really want to promote the premium nature of our structures, not, so we’re trying to tie that back in this year. And we were going with, uh, the theme we were kind of calling it. Um, actually it was one of the guys at EMS told us that’s what the name of this architecture was his new West.

(39:51 – 40:13) 

And it was like this, you know, if you’re in Aspen or, you know, uh, I’m, I’m not one of the cool skiing guys that goes out there all the time, but, uh, try to think of a couple of the places he mentioned, but where there’s these really high end ski resorts, really nice, you know, residential architecture, light woods and blacks and crisp whites. And it’s, and I was down the road on that. And we had a call with, I’m pretty sure it was with EMS.

(40:17 – 40:26) 

And I don’t remember if they told us they were going more rock or something, how it just came up. But afterwards we decided, I think we need to change the theme. We, we need to go with a rock and roll theme.

(40:28 – 40:34) 

And I spent two or three days over the weekend. I came back to Matt and Debbie on Tuesday. I said, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t have it.

(40:37 – 40:45)

I just, there’s not. And I was, it was, I was too complicated, right? The way I was trying to tie this together in my head and Debbie starts to, I think we can make it work. And she was kind of going and a couple of things she said, just triggered.

(40:49 – 40:55) 

And I mean, it doesn’t, it doesn’t, this doesn’t need to be that complicated. And it was actually a graphic that I had used in the eighties theme. Cause there was some hair metal 80s stuff in that whole thing too.

(40:59 – 41:07) 

It wasn’t just, it wasn’t just, you know, a new wave. And there was one that I did where we combined a bunch of different bands, you know, fonts and logos and stuff. And it said event structures that rock.

(41:09 – 41:32) 

And I said, that’s, let’s just, what do you think? She’s like, yep, let’s do that. So from there, but, but the goal still was that we needed to show the premium nature of what we did. So it wasn’t, and I didn’t want to like, you know, some of our graphics, like the main theme graphics definitely were a nod to a late eighties, you know, my daughter did that.

(41:32 – 41:37) 

She hand painted that album cover as we called it. And I said, I want to do an album cover. That’s every cliche, like all the main cliches we can think of.

(41:41 – 41:56) 

The only thing we didn’t have were like, you know, guns or something on there, but we had a skull with a rose in its mouth, but you had dark water underneath with flames coming out of it. And you had like black birds in the sky and it was, it was a lot of fun. And I mean, it’s all the details of the wallpaper kind of thing too.

(41:59 – 42:25) 

So that was the other thing too, from the outside there was this, and we even had like a CBG style, you know, like graphic treatment over on the one side and the closet and stuff with band posters, real gritty. So we wanted that on the outside, but when you came in this idea and we didn’t want it to be one genre, right. And the playlist and the stuff that we did and the band photos, they went from, you know, like Elvis and The Doors, not a lot of the Elvis because it wasn’t so much rockabilly, but like The Doors, you know, of course stuff you would expect Guns N’ Roses and Aerosmith.

(42:31 – 42:45) 

Yeah. But I mean, we had a lot of, we had a lot of 90s stuff in there, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and Nirvana and that kind of stuff. And I even, there were a few songs in there where they even just a few years old, you know, I had, I had some Fall Out Boy in there and some, a couple of things from the last couple of years.

(42:45 – 43:09) 

I wanted to, I wanted to arrange, but they all needed to feel like genuine ass kicking rock and roll. And it did. When you’re in the, and it did, when you’re in the inside that, yeah, the, the, the, the like Damask wallpaper and, you know, switched it, you know, velvet couches and Debbie’s  idea for the crystal chandeliers hang in there and the zebra, like the idea was if you were in Steven Tyler’s house or Lenny Kravitz’s house, like.

(43:13 – 43:23) 

That’s what it would look like. More money than you knew what to do with and kind of outrageous taste and you were rich, but you were rock and roll royalty. What would that feel like? So that’s kind of what we did with the inside.

(43:26 – 43:34) 

And there were, there were some fun details. Like I got the idea to put, cover the beam covers with red alligator skin, faux leather. And that was a lot of fun.

(43:36 – 43:48) 

And that, you know, some of those details just really like, it gave it like, it kind of gave it the authenticity of what it really was rock and roll. And, you know, my, it was kind of built. That’s my core of the kind of music that I love as well as Matt and Debbie.

(43:53 – 44:06) 

And, you know so yeah, there was everything in there from the cult to, you know, to the doors and Metallica. And there were some rock songs that I don’t love, but fit right. So, and it, but it was a lot of fun.

(44:08 – 44:24) 

And then we produced obviously a lot of the content that were on the screens. We had rolling videos and obviously still, but my daughter produced a couple of intro commercials because for some of the, some of the sessions, we, you know, we would, we don’t do a long one cause that’s annoying. Right.

(44:24 – 44:34) 

But we do a 15 to 30 second introduction. So we had a couple of really, really short commercials. And then I’d stand where I would, Matt would stand up and just talk about us for, you know, another 15 to 30 seconds.

(44:36 – 44:46) 

But the commercials that we did again, same thing. And we had fun with the social media leading up to it. We had the, we had my favorite video of all those was the one that, that my daughter came to me with.

(44:47 – 45:17) 

And it was started out with the 80s theme. It was, come on, Eileen. And it showed the stuff from last year and the break dancers. And then you get the needle, you know, scratch and the beastie boys kick in and, you know, and it’s, and it says, oh, you know, we’re ready to rock. And so it was, it was just, I had so much fun with it. It was the, it was, it’s definitely top five of all time for me as far as like, you know, but as far as, you know, things that I enjoy doing creatively, but that whole thing came together really fast.

(45:19 – 45:26) 

It was late in the game. We were down another path. And, and then we kind of decided to change direction and it was a lot of, a lot of props from Amazon.

(45:28 – 45:47) 

Right. But yeah, it was, it was really cool. And Corey was our, I’m sorry. They did a fantastic job. So yeah, it was, we really had great, again, exploring graphics and Brumark did supply that stuff for us and worked with us and they just did a fantastic, you know, job supporting us. And anyway, but yeah, you can’t, you can’t pull something off like that by yourself.

(45:51 – 46:04) 

You need a great internal team and you need great external partners. And again, Stammedia, gosh, I’d be an idiot if I didn’t mention what they, they, they brought so much to it. One of my favorite things about them is like these, Hey, we thought of this that you didn’t ask for.

(46:05 – 46:11) 

What do you think? I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is so cool. So, you know, again, like I said, you guys do that. I, I try to do that in projects that I work on.

(46:14 – 46:52) 

I think it’s a mark of a really great agency or supplier when they’re thinking ahead like that and, you know, you know, whether you want to call it plussing it or whatever it is, but yeah, this idea of bringing more than what was asked for. And, and the project, even though it came together fast and everybody brought their creativity, uh, their ideas and you had different partners who kind of, like you just mentioned a few that kind of elevated the whole game, but there was at every level, the creativity part, obviously the, the structure part, but, but the, the, the plan of the, the people part when you’re there, right. And as well in the offline too, I mean, from our standpoint, we were, I understand the behavior of your website.

(46:53 – 47:01) 

We were, there was some geofencing going on there. So there was every detail off at the location and away from the location. This is a project management going into it, ranking the shipping, the, the, the setup.

(47:05 – 47:31) 

So then, you know, the, the, the guys internally that handle all that, because we threw a lot at him at the last minute. Um, you know, Matt Andrews did a, you know, he was the captain of the ship on all that stuff on the operations wise, as he is for us in general. But, you know, he’s, he’s also like the main lead on site, leading all the lead guys, you know, and not only that he had great creative ideas as well, he was even texting me and hey, make sure we have this song in a playlist or whatever.

(47:33 – 47:47) 

So, um, it, it, again, it’s, it was a team effort there. And, you know, like I said, I mean, it’s, uh, he, he is such a badass on a show site too. And again, he’s somebody who’s, who, who cares about, you know, whether it’s ours or whether it’s a client’s or whatever it is.

(47:49 – 48:00) 

So, um, that’s what makes it so much fun to pull these off and see, you know, a whole team and really all the, you know, everything hitting on all cylinders. Well, I mean, it was a, it’s a great case study for anybody. It’s on, uh, Highmark, um, tech systems, uh, website.

(48:03 – 48:24) 

If you really want to see how you do it right, um, at an event that is, that is, that is a pure case study. Well, you know, before we kind of end this, I really appreciate your time, but is there, and this is a proof point, uh, um, podcast, is there any, you know, one or two thoughts that you have of, of, of making sure that we hit home, um, for those listening. Yes.

(48:25 – 48:38) 

I’d like to discuss the election. Um, but you know, I, I do think, I think those things are important and, you know, I guess the other side of that is, um, and I mentioned it before, nobody’s, nobody’s a perfect person. Nobody’s a perfect company.

(48:40 – 48:55) 

And, um, you know, I think one of the things that’s really important is, you know, companies are all made up of humans, right. Yeah. Um, and unless until we’re all AI, um, and you know, there are times we get great stuff out of that.

(48:56 – 49:16) 

There are times that are, there, there are struggles. Yeah. And, um, I think that one of the things that our partners, um, that we work with, uh, you know, like I mentioned a truck not showing up or whatever, how do you react? What do you do? Um, but again, if you, you know, if you, if you really are partnering on, it’s a two way street, right? Because they need to also think about what’s good for you.

(49:19 – 49:37) 

Um, and seeking out those relationships, I think is really important. Um, and those are the ones that are the most satisfying. And again, I think it goes back to this, you know, we’re built to interact with each other on a psychological, social, spiritual level, but also it’s, and I think that’s what makes, you know, doing business that way more satisfying.

(49:39 – 50:21) 

But I guess the big thing for me is that just in my own mind through this, and it kicked off when you started, when you gave me too much credit for our creative, um, is that I, I really do, um, I really love the team that we have. And, um, uh, I mean, I, I guess I get to be the face of creativity for us, but I mean, I’m a part of it for sure. And I love that, but you know, whether it’s, whether it’s our leadership or whether it’s, uh, the other, you know, the creative team intern, like my, you know, like I said, a pretty small creative team, it’s me and my daughter, but, um, you know, as far as, you know, that are responsible for it officially, but, you know, there’s a lot of ideas and a lot of other things that come into it.

(50:22 – 50:32) 

They’re small over the rest of our company and our leadership. And, and again, those, you know, those, those partnerships, I don’t think I, I don’t think I emphasize nearly enough. We talked about that EMS case study, if you will.

(50:36 – 51:25) 

Um, really the partnership with, um, event marketer and experiential marketing summit, the event marketer puts on the show experiential marketing summit and their team, uh, you know, I could, I could mention a bunch of them, but, um, I don’t want to do that because I’m, um, I leave somebody out and then they don’t care anyway, but, um, but they do a fantastic job of that and bringing ideas to us and making sure that if, if our space works better, the show is going to be better, right? If the show is better, our space is going to work better and it’s better for actually even our competitors are on the show floor. If that show floor is more vibrant, if it’s better, if we bring that, um, it, you know, the I’m firm believer in the, in the phrase or the cliche that a rising, a rising tide, you know, lifts all ships. And I think I butchered the exact wording of that, but, um, I really do believe that.

(51:30 – 52:05) 

And so, like I said, EMS, um, event marketer, especially Jessica and Dan, um, you know, they just, they do such a fantastic job with us. And we really do, um, you know, we wouldn’t be nearly as successful, um, there without them and hopefully, and I think they do feel like that that show is actually, um, I would toot our horn and say that if, you know, without the hub there that we’re doing, it would be pretty different and it wouldn’t be nearly as strong. And I’m, I’m proud of the fact of what we bring to that conference and, and we’d help to elevate it.

(52:06 – 52:13) 

Not only, not only figuratively, but also by bringing double decks. And that will throw that in there.  It’s important.

(52:14 – 52:38) 

We’ll make sure we’ll get a shout out to them because that is such an amazing, um, case on how to elevate, um, um, your business. And the, the, the truth is Highmark is a best in class when it comes to, um, elevating brands. Um, um, and so check, uh, Highmark out, uh, highmarktech.com, uh, we’ve been talking to Brian Baker with Highmark Tech Systems.

(52:40 – 52:50) 

Brian, thank you for joining our podcast. Thank you. It was my pleasure. And, uh, uh, what else? Thank you. That’s good. See ya.

(52:53 – 52:56) 

Thanks for listening to the Proof Point Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.