Transcript | 3: Taking Your Brand on the Road with Brian Moore | The Experiential Table Podcast

CYNTHIA SAMANIAN: Hi, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to the experiential table. In this episode, we are talking all about tours. That's right, mobile tours that bring your brand to life on the road, city to city. You might be thinking, "wait a minute, what tours, Cynthia?" Because at the time of recording this episode, the event marketing world is a total standstill due to COVID-19. But guess what? Now is exactly the right time to think about how your brand can show up big once events are happening again. I don't know about you, but I cannot wait for that day. When it comes to mobile tours, there's no better person to talk to than our guest today, Brian Moore. Brian is a VP of Marketing and Business Development at Turnkey DOT, a nationwide event management and transportation company. From operating mobile marketing vehicles across the nation to creating custom experiential campaigns, Brian and the team at Turnkey can do it all. And trust me, I know this because I've gotten to work with them firsthand. More on that later, but for now, let's dive into the interview.

Welcome, Brian, thanks so much for joining us today.

BRIAN MOORE: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

CYNTHIA: Me too. Me too. I'm so glad we're doing this episode. This show today is actually one I wish I could have listened to when I started out in experiential marketing. You know, in our industry, you start uncovering all these niches and specialties. And fortunately, if you're lucky, you get to connect with really talented people who you can trust on all of these topics. And Brian is absolutely one of those people. Now, let me take this back to November 2019. One of my clients Cora, a feminine care brand came to me with The dream of having a branded luxury bathroom trailer. That's right. A luxury bathroom trailer stationed at the women's march in Washington DC this past January. Pretty cool, right? Well, I had never done anything like that before. So without hesitation, I reached out to Brian, Brian and his team manage the sourcing, logistics and even custom wrapping of this luxury bathroom trailer. There is absolutely no way I could have pulled off the activation without his team. So needless to say, I knew Brian would be the perfect guest to share his experience in mobile tours with all of you so you can start dreaming big about the future for your brand. Now, Brian, welcome to the show. Can you tell us a bit more about your background and how you got started in experiential marketing?

BRIAN: Absolutely. Once again, thank you for having me and I love the story in your introduction. Your example of finding a bathroom trailer is exactly why I love this industry because when I get that phone call, I just immediately say yes, because that's a new challenge to take on. Well, it wasn't the first bathroom trailer I've had to source, believe it or not. It was very unique in its own way at the Women's March. So I love that project through and through. So to give you a little background on myself, I, like I said, have loved this industry kind of from the moment I was introduced to it. I'll embarrass myself right off the bat. I was involved with Radio Disney, through college putting on events and I have no shame doing some choreographed dancing and making the crowd excited. And then going from there working at a sports marketing agency. From the sports marketing agency, I kind of took my childhood dreams of being part of Chicago sports teams and put on promotional events for the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Bears, which was kind of a dream come true for a kid from Chicago that loved sports. Until I really dove into this niche, as you say, of mobile tours and event services, which it's a unique need that I feel like a lot of brands and agencies, they come up with the whole concept until they need to make it happen. And that's where we come in.

CYNTHIA: Got it. Wow. So from Disney, to the Cubs, to bathroom trailers, and I thought we were your first but it sounds like we weren't.

BRIAN: The first one we've wrapped so I'll give you that. And absolutely, I think I can confidently say the most beautiful bathroom trailer I will ever see.

CYNTHIA: Amazing. Well thank you and for those of you who don't know what he means by wrapped, you'll see photos if you head to our site, and I'll include the link in the show notes here. But essentially, the bathroom trailer had a white exterior and using vinyl, basically Brian and his team were able to find these awesome suppliers who were then able to wrap it in this custom branded vinyl that was designed by the Cora team. So some of you may not even have even heard what what wrapping is, and that's that's what it is in this space. So that's, that's awesome that we are the most beautiful trailer that you've that you've worked on bathroom trailer, I should say. So I hope our listeners understand what exactly does mobile marketing mean? So what should they be picturing in their heads? When you talk about the type of work you do? So we've talked about a luxury bathroom trailer, but what are other examples of activations you have helped produce?

BRIAN: Sure, I'll take it back to the time when I was not alive, but I think it resonates with pretty much everyone. So 1936, the Wienermobile. I feel like that kind of really resonates with pretty much everyone. In that time, the Oscar Mayer family created this hot dog-shaped vehicle where they call them the hot doggers. They were driving around giving out whistles to promote Oscar Mayer hotdogs. Anyone who has seen it, it's an impressive vehicle. And it is absolutely head-turning. But to your question, we operate food trucks, trailers, double expandables. And there's a lot that goes into getting these units from event to event working with logistics and routing. When it comes to DOT compliance: the driver, the insurance that goes behind that and then the setup, activation and breakdown. So our company pretty much takes on all of the headaches that go into putting on an event so your team doesn't have to.

CYNTHIA: I love that you, first of all, mentioned the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile because I read a while ago, I want to say a few months ago that it's one of the most competitive jobs to get as a marketer like to actually be one of the brand ambassadors in the Wienermobile. It's coveted. It's highly respected. And it's really, really hard so that Wienermobile is going strong, I think still right, nationwide, and you said it started in 1936. Is that right?

BRIAN: Yeah, and you're absolutely right, those hot doggers as I say, take pride in that community. And I think they all, I wish I was a hot dogger one day. I mean, I've been on the road. I've been a tour manager in the past. I can't put that on my resume, but they come with that position.

CYNTHIA: Yeah, it's never too late Brian. Just remember. So okay, and I'm also glad that you mentioned some of the nitty-gritty that goes behind what you do at Turnkey. So I've been in this position and I know a lot of brands listening, and marketers as well think about, "Oh, wouldn't it be great if we did this tour and we got to, you know, drive our food truck around to five different cities", but you actually handle the logistics of like, who's driving it, right? And what does insurance look like and permitting, as well? Is that correct? Those are some of the key areas that you cover.

BRIAN: That is all correct. A lot of brands, marketing agencies, they come up with a concept, they're looking at the whiteboard in your office, and you're thinking we really want to take this idea on the road. This would do so well for us if we were able to make stops at college campuses, or festivals or sporting events, being able to sample the proper service or product to get into people's hands. So while all of that is excellent, and then gets the point of execution, that's more or less when we come in, how can we make it happen? How are we going to get this on the road and in front of the people, it's really the nitty gritty that goes into being able to make it happen. Oftentimes, I joke, it's we're the last thing I thought of, but perhaps the most important because if the assets don't show up, the show doesn't go on.

CYNTHIA: Absolutely. That is so true. And, you know, running an agency myself, we're always trying to do more and offer as much value to our clients and frankly, not bring in 10 other agencies, but I think Turnkey is a perfect example of the type of agency you want to bring in even if you have your own experiential marketing business because you are so highly specialized and you know, sometimes the issue is that you don't know what you don't know. And you don't know what questions to ask if you've never done a mobile tour. So leaning on an expert is just super invaluable. And I'm going to stop praising you and the team nonstop on this podcast. But it's really true. Okay, great. So let's shift our conversation a little bit to something that's really top of mind I think for brands listening here. If they were to think about having a tour, let's use the example of just a general food brand. They have a great product, they're in stores, and they want to take their brand on the road and showcase it. How would they even decide where to begin? What's kind of that first step in understanding where to go and how to move forward?

BRIAN: Sure, no, absolutely. And I think that once you have your concept in mind, next is trying to understand who your audience is and picking your location. So maybe you've already done some geo-farming, some geofencing of our audience is here, and this is our target market. The word mobile speaks volumes in itself that allows us the flexibility to visit multiple markets with a hyper-focus on where you want to be. And a tour allows brands to engage with tons of consumers that fit that demographic that has the buying power for whatever they're trying to sell. So any brand could really do the research prior to the kickoff to know where that target audience is, and what type of events that are attending. If this is a B2C tour, generating tours that already have a built-in audience is always going to be a lot harder. If you're going to try to create an event on your own then going to maybe a sporting event or a festival, a food and wine fest that already exists because one, you have that built-in audience and interaction. And then to be honest, your permitting is going to have a lot less troubles. And it's going to reduce your stress. You can say, I'm going to go pick some spots at different markets where I'm going to pull over on the side of the street and sample my food product. But that might be different with every municipality that you're working with. It could be different in Chicago, where it's going to be really challenging based on the parameters they have. That could be different than Austin, where it might be a little bit more of a liberal conversation with what's going on. So I think really understanding where your audience is and where the locations that you're able to do it are key. We help a lot of clients and partners understand what they are able to do in each city when they're going through a routing and logistics exercise. This is where we want to be. This is who we want to talk to.

CYNTHIA: Right.

BRIAN: I think that's really the key at first and then developing now what's the right fit in terms of a unit? Is this a food truck? Is this your standard like step van? So you think like ice cream truck? Could it be a trailer pulled by a pickup truck? What is going to be head turning like that Wienermobile? You know? We've done a campaign or television show Impractical Jokers where we drove around a food truck shaped like a giant potato. I mean, that resonated right away with the fans of the show and the events that we were going to and even if you didn't know Impractical Jokers, you're probably gonna want to check out what is that giant potato?

CYNTHIA: Yeah, I want to see it right now. So help me understand it. Does it actually look like a huge potato that was on wheels essentially...or?

BRIAN: It was a step van, so picture an ice cream truck where the top looks like the top of a spud. And then there was a specific episode that went viral called scoopskis potatoes, and we were sampling potatoes to everyone. So for that example, if you're a food brand, we worked with every different city municipality on what is required from that standpoint to be able to cook potatoes, put the accouterment on it - bacon, sour cream, cheese, what have you - and being able to give that to the fans and the people.

CYNTHIA: And that is absolutely something that should not be underestimated. I mean, I did a prior to the Cora activation I worked with a brand on a pumpkin spice latte truck and the company was Native. They make a pumpkin spice latte deodorant. And we were going to do this whole giveaway. And we did. And it was a one-day pop-up in downtown San Francisco. And we worked with a donut and coffee company that already had permits in place, so it made it so much easier. But I will say, just dealing with one city and having myself on it full-time was a ton of work. And I can't imagine scaling that to multiple cities and having - I literally visited the City of San Francisco Public Works office multiple times to make sure we had the permitting and the signage. And for brands listening, like most of you are in food. This is something that is really, really important, right? We can't just be handing out samples that aren't permitted or that don't meet the guidelines of each city and they are all different, right? So if you're a food brand and you're local to San Francisco, or you know Austin very well, that's great. But when you take that to New York or another city, across the nation, the rules are going to be different. And there's no way you'll be able to stay on top of that. So having someone who can dig into that more is highly valuable, and you can take it from me firsthand, it is not something you want to spend your time doing.

BRIAN: And one thing to kind of go off that point. While a city official, they, I'm not going to say they don't care about your marketing campaign, but they might not care as much as you. So you want to touch, check your boxes, make sure that if you are getting pumpkin spice lattes on a beautiful fall day on people's hands, that you have everything from a permitting perspective to be able to do so because you put so many hours into figuring that out. And when someone comes by to say, are you permitted to be here or can I take a look at the fire suppression system? You have everything that you need to be able to get that coffee in someone's hands.

CYNTHIA: Yeah, you have so many details. And like you said, this is the stuff that I know I don't think about in the beginning when we're looking at shiny concepts and dreaming big. So if anything, I'm hoping this episode gives our listeners insight into all the things that are involved in the tour and not to discourage you. But just to know that when the time is right, chances are you're going to want to lean on an expert or start really small so that you can control some of these variables before you decide to go big. Now, what about actually staffing it? So what you're telling me is that, you know, the owner of the food business isn't the one driving the vehicle. Is that right? And then there are probably brand ambassadors involved. We actually just had Jessica Shields who you introduced me to.

BRIAN: Yes, that's lovely.

CYNTHIA: Yeah, she was on our podcast.

BRIAN: Shout out to Jessica.

CYNTHIA: Amazing. She dropped some serious stuff about staffing. And I mean so much great information. So bring her in, if you can on this. But let's talk about staffing. How do you actually make sure that the right people are representing your brand on the road? Is that something the brand does? Is that something that you would want to work with an agency on?

BRIAN: Yeah, so this niche that we have created of doing mobile tours, we have a Rolodex of drivers that are staffed by Turnkey DOT. And there's a number of factors that can play into finding the right fit and finding the resource that fits your brand. I mean, the tour manager is another brand ambassador, oftentimes training the brand ambassadors, and they're on your front lines that are making a lasting impression on consumers on behalf of the brand. So you want that person to represent properly and have all the messaging correct. So I mean, it's unfortunate that like truck drivers if you will sometimes get a bad reputation. You might think of a truck driver and think of someone who is lazy or just over the road trucking and doesn't have the knowledge of marketing skills. Well, we always say we're more than just drivers. Many people will look to us to have someone who can have their CDL license, which is a commercial driver's license. So that means you can drive a vehicle that's over 26,000 pounds, but you can also be knowledgeable on-brand messaging, set up, activate, and breakdown. And you want that person to be the first impression for a consumer and representing your brand properly. There are a lot of kind of nitty-gritty regulations depending on your tour that I won't dive too deep into from DOT certifications for drivers, CDL, as I mentioned, or even just having a driver that is ServSafe certified and able to sample food once they pull up that truck and are able to cook food and get it into people's hands.

CYNTHIA: Got it. So help me understand. Is the driver the same as a tour manager? Do they sometimes wear both hats? Or is the tour manager someone separate? BRIAN: Yeah, that's a good question. And that is unique to the tour. We have tours that have been on the road for two years. So that's a team of five that has been living on the road doing events every week, and there will be a driver who is his sole responsibility is to drive a branded, fully custom built bus set up and that is his job. Now on a smaller tour, where there is a food truck or a smaller set up with a trailer, that tour manager is the driver as well. And it's a full encompassing position. So you only need to worry about that one representative being your driver tour manager.

BRIAN: The way you asked the question, originally, it actually put a smile to my face because you said will a marketing manager just get behind the wheel or will you find someone who is going to be the person to be leading the tour? And a lot of brands will start that way. And if you feel you're ready to do that, I encourage it and I salute you. I will say we have gotten quite a few calls for consulting of how do I do this and then they put the marketing manager, the intern, behind a truck because they're ready to go and hit the road. And then we get to call two weeks later, where they're on the side of the road with pardon my French and an oh-shit moment of, can you help me get out of this? I have an event in three days. A DOT officer just pulled me over and I need to get out of this situation because I've been put out of service. So if you do your homework, absolutely, I encourage it. If you kind of fly by the seat of your pants and just say, we have this beautiful new trailer or truck, and then you just put someone behind it and say good luck. You might regret the decision.

CYNTHIA: Got it. So is there, I guess what's the entry point? So if a brand is listening and they are at a place where they want to dip their toes into this, but they're not going to do the tour you mentioned earlier that, you know, is two years long and it's basically like you've got this band, touring, living out of the tour bus, but they want to get their feet wet with it. And perhaps they have experience doing pop-ups and doing smaller events. And now they're like, okay, we want to do something along the California coast, for example, and hit up three or five different stops, right? What's their first step in that process?

BRIAN: Yep. So I would say first and foremost, consider obviously leasing an already existing asset before you look to buy anything. That's probably obvious knowledge. But what is the unit that makes the most sense to me? I want a step van that is perfect for food sampling. It has my vending window ready to go, and it fits with the brand and what I'm trying to sample. You can lease those for a month at a time, three months at a time. And then you should always I would advise that some of these trucks like an ice cream truck while it looks beautiful, it might not be suited for a nationwide tour. So if you're going for the cheaper option, just know you might pay for it in maintenance down the road if you're trying to go the entire coast of California. And I'm not saying - there are affordable options that can take you 2000 miles and you're going to be okay. But those are things to absolutely consider.

CYNTHIA: So what would happen? I mean, what do you mean by maintenance issues?

BRIAN: Let's say you are sampling, I don't know, I was just gonna say soup. Soup can be heavy. Those step bands are typically meant to drive around neighborhoods. So they're not meant to take on the freeway, or they might max out at 55 miles per hour. And if you push them, you might just start slowing down sometimes and your driver might be calling you and saying there's some smoke coming out from under the hood and I think I should pull over and address this. So if you're doing a more local tour, absolutely go down that route. Just do your homework in the vehicle. Trust your partners of where you're leasing the vehicle from, and know that it isn't maxing out at 55 miles per hour and can withstand the weight, know how much weight can be held in the back of that truck when you're loading up all of your assets. Don't push it, the hydraulics might not be able to take it.

CYNTHIA: Once again, this is stuff I would have never thought of. I'm not in the auto world, I'm in the food world and so are my listeners. But that's good. That's good to know that there is kind of that entry point and you know, starting with you said the step-up van.

BRIAN: It's a step van. So just think of an ice cream truck is basically the best example and that's what a lot of typical food trucks are so that is why I continue to use that example. And I don't discourage if you're a brand starting out and you're wanting to do those four or five stops. No one is more passionate than you are about making those events happen the right way. So maybe test the waters, test it out on your own. If you feel comfortable doing all of this on your own. But once again, just make sure you're checking your boxes and ask for advice to know that you're going to a place that you're permitted the right way. You know how to operate the vehicle. And then if you want to bring that and build it out into a bigger tour, because it was a huge success, then have that conversation and blow it out. And hopefully you're in that position.

CYNTHIA: Yeah, so in terms of lead time, I guess the projects that you work on are pretty big, but I do know by working with you in the past that you can move pretty quickly. How far ahead should a lot of these brands be thinking? Especially, you know, say, take this scenario where they are going to bring in a partner like Turnkey, what's that lead time that's ideal so that they're not planning too far in advance, as if that is even possible, but they're also not scrambling at the last minute.

BRIAN: While you're putting me on the spot here. This is the golden question of everything. How quick can you get this done? We move quickly. And I would say we can pretty much make anything happen in two weeks, as long as it is not customizable. So when I say that, if you have a food truck that you are trying to just wrap and you already have the creative ready, you just need the right unit ready to go, a driver, and us to be able to consume the knowledge needed for the brand. Give us two weeks, we're ready to go. If you have a trailer that's going to need customization, I mean, you could go down a rabbit hole here of VR experience or a photo booth or a brand ambassador training to kind of have that full all-encompassing experiential marketing program, you're looking at months to be able to do something like that. It's really how ready are you to hit the road? And then if you have everything in place, let's take it from there and make it happen.

CYNTHIA: Yeah, yeah. And I will say that at least my experience in working with you and your team, you raise questions that I hadn't thought of. So I imagine rarely do you encounter a brand that has 100% of everything done and they're just handing it off. There's a back and forth. So further brands listening if you are going to do it yourselves or do it in a much leaner way. What I'm hearing is that the more time you give yourself the better, right? Because there are so many variables that come into play. And a lot of design decisions, a lot of revisions, so much to think about. And like you mentioned earlier Brian, you even just thinking about where your tour is going to go, you have to consider the calendar and what events are already out there that you can piggyback on. I think that was a really great tip from earlier. And I'm hoping that that stuck with people listening. You don't want to create your own event if you don't have to. Go where the people already are. So thanks for sharing that.

BRIAN: Absolutely.

CYNTHIA: Alright. Well, I feel like we can't wrap up this podcast without addressing what's currently happening right now. We won't go down every challenge in the event marketing world that COVID-19 has raised because that could be a series of podcast episodes. And no one wants to hear that right now, right? But let's talk about some good that is happening in the mobile tour space as it relates to this challenge of COVID-19. One thing that I've seen recently and I've shared in our private Facebook group and in our emails is a really great example by Miyoko's Creamery. They're based up here in the Bay Area, in Petaluma, and they actually had launched this huge national grilled cheese tour. And they make vegan cheeses and their whole goal was to change perceptions around vegan cheese by handing out free grilled cheese sandwiches. And it had multiple stops, I mean, this was a huge tour. And it kicked off I believe, in February, and their plan was to go to Expo West in Anaheim and debut it there as well. And Expo was canceled. And the next thing you know, everything was canceled because of COVID-19. So what they had done and this is what I really would love to kind of focus our conversation here on is this idea of, how do you pivot when you already have something or, you know, in the case that you'll talk about, you know, examples where you're able to bring the features of mobile touring to a cause. In Miyoko's case what they had done, which I thought was really fascinating is that they had already created this track, they already had all the assets. And they, rather than do this nationwide tour, went to local hospitals and provided meals to hospital staff and healthcare workers during this super intense time when you know, they weren't having access to a lot of great food. And so I think that was an awesome example of a pivot that Miyoko's made. Like I said, they already had everything created and they were able to repurpose it in a meaningful way. Can you share any other examples? I know, Brian, you had mentioned to me earlier that you had done something with the CDC. And I'd love to hear more about that.

BRIAN: Yeah, it's tough. I think most of us join this industry because we love to bring people together and learn from each other and see the excitement of events. And now we're preaching to stay home, to be apart so we can do what we love again. There's no doubt all live events have kind of been put at a standstill here, so we took our resources to the example you mentioned, and partnered with the Out of Home Advertising Association of America as well as the CDC, and took one of our box trucks and had our drivers, they went around the city and mobile billboarded the messaging on practicing social distancing. We just wanted if people were out at parks or in small gatherings just to go home, we need you to stay inside so we can go back out and do what we love when the time is ready, so we can put on awesome events again. We want to do our part with the resources that we have by just spreading the messaging.

CYNTHIA: I love that and how did that idea come about? I'd love to know the origin of it.

BRIAN: I'm gonna give that credit to our president Brian Killian. He has a background a bit in the out-of-home world. And so he used his contacts to be able to kind of pitch the idea of can we use our trucks that are going to be a big billboard for you roaming around the city, just to spread this message when we need it the most.

CYNTHIA: That gave me goosebumps. That really is such an inspiring example of ways that companies and agencies in our industry are really stepping up and like you said, it's a weird message to spread, given that we are all about connecting in-person and the power of offline experiences is what we've built our businesses on, but as you mentioned, we need people to stay home so that we can come back out again. And I love that you were able to use your assets at Turnkey to spread that message. I wish you did it nationwide. We need some of these tracks in other cities, too.

BRIAN: I think I'll put that in the ear of our president. We'll get out there.

CYNTHIA: Go big, go big. Awesome. Well, thank you, Brian. I am so glad we were able to chat today about all that you've shared on mobile tours, I know that this can be a pretty intimidating area of experiential marketing. Like I mentioned at the very beginning, this is the information I wish I had access to when I started out. So thank you for keeping it simple, breaking it down to the basics for us and also letting us know that we probably shouldn't go it alone, or at least we should consult with an expert in the space. So I'm sure listeners are going to want to know a little bit more about where they can find you. What you do at Turnkey DOT? Can you share some information about where you are online?

BRIAN: Yeah, I certainly encourage everyone to check out our Instagram (@turnkeymobiletours), as well as our Facebook which is TurnkeyDOT as well as LinkedIn, same - TurnkeyDOT. Our website is mobiletours.com, so check us out ad I hope to be talking with some listeners about some fun campaigns they're going to take on!

CYNTHIA: Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned it earlier, but is that right that you would do some consulting for brands who are looking to get started may not be ready to take the full plunge?

BRIAN: Absolutely. Especially when it comes to the DOT compliance and permitting. Those are, like you said, they seem overwhelming when you're kind of entering this space. I'm happy to break that down and be able to provide the important steps to be able to take your first opportunity on the road.

CYNTHIA: That's wonderful. Well, so fantastic chatting with you today, Brian. That is it for today's episode of The Experiential Table. I hope that this episode has inspired all of you listening to think deeper about what the future can hold for your brand, especially on the road, and especially once we're able to get back into events and get into the real world. For links to our show notes, transcripts and more, you can head on over to theexperientialtable.com. And finally, don't forget to join me and many others in our private Facebook group, The Experiential Table. We're talking all about creating experiences, not only offline, but also online given today's unusual times. I am so glad you tuned in and until next week, get excited to get experiential!