AMT Lab Chief Editor, Samantha Sonnet, and Garrett Brooks, Creative Director of MAS, discuss all things experiential marketing. With over 10 years in experiential marketing, Garrett has been a part of projects for clients such as YouTube, Google, Facebook, Hulu, Netflix, LinkedIn, Bacardi and Pepsi and has activated executions at cultural touch points like the Super Bowl, CES, and SXSW.
As the Creative Director at MAS, Garrett works with an incredible team of creatives across every department, the team crafts award winning work by blending strategic insights with creative thinking to make the most of any opportunity. From massive consumer spectacles to bespoke intimate experiences, Garrett aims to infuse insights and observations with wit and culturally relevant ideas.
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transcription
Samantha Sonnet 00:10
Welcome to another interview episode of Tech in the arts, the podcast series on the arts management and technology laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. My name is Samantha Sonic with AMP Lab. Today I'm joined by Garrett Brooks, Creative Director for moss Garrett. Thank you for joining us today, I'm excited to discuss the world of experiential marketing with you.
Garrett Brooks 00:30
Very happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Samantha Sonnet 00:32
So, on your website, you describe yourself as an experiential creative director and creative, strategic developing award winning moments you graduated from Boston University with a BS in advertising,
Garrett Brooks 00:44
Go, Terriers
Samantha Sonnet 00:46
Your interests lie within music culture in sports. And I noted that it was specifically with the Red Sox and the Eagles. So can you give us a brief introduction to who you are, and basically just where your interests lie,
Garrett Brooks 01:00
Totally sorry, to everyone in Pittsburgh, who I spend with my sports take. So I have been in experiential advertising for over a decade now. And before that came from the world of music and music technology and festivals, but really interested in you know, creating moments for people around cultural tent poles or just kind of creating great experiences for them. Right. I think that that saying that when we think about experiential, sometimes it can seem like, Oh, it's just a pop up or it's a tent, it's like, no, it's a good experience. It's creating a user journey and creating an emotional response. And I think that's something that MAS is really, we're really focused on is, you know, evoking emotion is something that we talked about a lot. So even if that's as simple as like, how do we make this hallway feel more exciting? Or how do we create this stage that draws attention in great kind of like, this impactful moment? So it's really creating all of those kinds of things to evoke, evoke emotional response from people?
Samantha Sonnet 01:56
Yeah, I also noticed that over your career, you have been a part of projects, so many projects, so many impressive projects, may I add, for clients like YouTube, Google, Facebook, Hulu, LinkedIn, Pepsi, and so many more, and you have activated executions at cultural touchpoints like the Super Bowl, and South by Southwest. So can you tell us about one of those projects and why it still sticks with you today?
Garrett Brooks 02:18
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think a big one, a different cultural touchstone that I think about all the time is VidCon. And if you're not familiar with VidCon, it is it's really a place for social creators, YouTube creators to come together and to meet their fans. And to have kind of means with themselves. And this is a great, it's a great experiential opportunity. With this fan base is highly motivated. It also like blew my mind, the first year I went, because as someone who, you know, I definitely have my YouTube channels I follow that I like I'm deeply passionate about, but just seeing the whole culture around like fandom, as it exists in Korea, the Korean economy is so different, and it was kind of fascinating to see. But so last year, you know, with moss, we and our friends at YouTube, we did the YouTube shorts drive through building this, the actual drive thru restaurant in a parking lot, where we had kind of golf carts take fans around for creator specific snacks that were made to the Creator, and to their kind of interests and to their brand, really, and it really created this kind of amazing moment of seeing when you can give fans an experience they couldn't get anywhere else and connect with their Creator in a new way, this way through food and through kind of collectible trading cards really in like kind of this great environment. It's not just a fun experience, you can see that it really is about like, enlivening their passion point that they have for creators. And that's a super interesting place. Also, because everyone at VidCon has a favorite creator, they have, you know, the creators, they love the people that they're obsessed, so really fun to kind of be able to energize that with kind of a beautiful, you know, build and things and make it something that people you know, people care about. I think that a lot of it is also in I know, we're gonna talk about technology, for sure. But then part of it is also like how do you you kind of use physical and tactile things to give people a great experience. So you know, if you're making a drive thru restaurant, we were inspired by actual drive through, so you have to get the stucco, right? You have to get the roof tiles, right, you have to get all these details, right. So that people feel we call it very silly multitude, right, versimulitude being like, you have the appearance of being real. And it's also deeply silly. So, you know, making sure we were hitting that to really just make an impactful moment for the fans and for the creators who then get to see their fans come and be super jazzed. And when you're making content online, I don't think you'd normally get to you don't normally to get to see people live or react and see kind of the joy that they have.
Samantha Sonnet 04:54
And you also presented on this at the experiential marketing summit this year, right. I believe you did that with Rob Blasko. Oh, am I correct in saying that?
Garrett Brooks 05:02
I did that with Jack Cooley, who is the creative lead at Google?
Samantha Sonnet 05:06
Okay. Did you present with Rob on something else? I thought I had seen that somewhere.
Garrett Brooks 05:12
I don't think so.
Samantha Sonnet 05:13
Maybe I made that up. Okay. Yeah. Well either way,
Garrett Brooks 05:16
Rob, Rob is great, I would love to present with him on something.
Samantha Sonnet 05:23
He must have posted you on LinkedIn or something. But anyways, you presented this at the experiential marketing summit this year. So I'm just curious to know, like, what that presentation looked like, just to other arts marketers, and creatives, like, how did you give that presentation, just like, explaining to them how they can reach their audiences in a similar way that MAS is?
Garrett Brooks 05:44
Yeah, I think that, you know, what we really wanted to take people through was where it was a couple things. I mean, one thing was talking about Gen Z, who was the target for that, and who are a unique audience to market to, because generally, there's a an aversion to like overt advertising and overt marketing in a lot of ways. So it's how do you create something that doesn't feel like that, that feels fun, it feels and that's really part of were very silly multitude comes from and I think that with talking to any marketer, on the creative side, it's always kind of like the two fold thing of like, it was so cool. We did this, this and this, like, we got the this stucco. Alright, we did these amazing graphics, we did all this. And then there's the next part that's like, so what are the results? So a lot of it was also taking people through I mean, it was incredibly successful, we talk, you know, 1000s of people, huge content creation online and on site, right. So taking people through kind of like, what the results were, I think, is key kind of in any experiential moment, you know, we, we don't have the KPIs in the same way as kind of like, I always use like this example, which feels so dated now of like a banner ad on a website, where it's like, oh, it's got this many impressions and this many click throughs, like, experiential doesn't have that. But we can show the impact of great experiential moments through kind of just different metrics and things. So that was a lot of what we kind of talked about. And also just like, shut off that like we did something super cool.
Samantha Sonnet 07:14
Super cool.
Garrett Brooks 07:15
There's like a little, like, just like flexing a little bit. Yeah, absolutely.
Samantha Sonnet 07:18
Give us like, I have a shameless plug right now. I mean, I think that everything that MAS does is so above and beyond you guys really go above and beyond to make the whole experience just such a creative one. And if you're listening to this right now, go check out MAS's Instagram. I'm not sure exactly what the handle is. But you post so many of your experiential marketing events that you do, everything is so impressive. So shout out to Harry Mags, our girl Harry Mags.
Garrett Brooks 07:44
The Harry just killing it on the killing it on the Instagram?
Samantha Sonnet 07:48
Absolutely. All right. So moving on, like you said, we're definitely going to talk about technology on this podcast. It's a must. So my next question is talking a little bit more about AI? So I'm interested, what you think with recent developments in tech, like AI? Where do you see the future of marketing headed? Is AI a competitor to marketers or an aid?
Garrett Brooks 08:09
I think, right now, I think we're in a place where it's, it's at best, it's a tool. Right? And I don't think it will replace great designers and great copywriters, and great creatives coming up with great ideas or, you know, great television writers or actors, right, I think we need to put protections to make sure that doesn't happen. That's just my little thing about the WGA. But I think that right now as a tool that actually can be incredibly helpful, whether it's using things like Midjourney to, you know, visualize things in different ways than you wouldn't. And also visualize things quickly. That can be a really helpful tool to then spark more inspiration, bring in kind of more ideas using things like ChatGPT, sometimes there's a thesaurus, sometimes just as like, Hey, I just want to read more about this brand that we're working on. You know, using them as tools, I think can be helpful in the process, because of the speed that it can do it and I think the best stuff will always have that human touch and that human connection and the lateral thinking that creative people on creative and production and interactive can do connecting those dots. That feels still very human to me.
Samantha Sonnet 09:26
Yeah, absolutely. leaning more into the world of social which is your favorite topic to discuss. I've noticed that MAS is obviously heavily involved on social media, but you're notably not present on Twitter or Tik Tok. I'm sure that there's a reason for this. So please explain to our listeners what has driven that decision.
Garrett Brooks 09:44
Yes. And I will also plug our Instagram handle which is @experiencemas. So check that out. Yeah, I think that I mean, there's a really like, there's the boring quotidian answer of like resources, but I think that the the other piece is, you know, our work. No matter if it's big or small, we want it to be visually stunning. We have incredible designers and art directors and producers who make sure that these things are beautiful. And so Instagram feels like a natural fit for us, right? It is a photo first platform, a place to kind of have those conversations be able to showcase those things in real ways. versus something like Twitter, which is more text based and or sorry, X, which is text based, and just have to, like,
Samantha Sonnet 10:31
Don’t get me started on that
Garrett Brooks 10:33
know exactly, you know, so rather than saying like that, you know, we are active on LinkedIn in kind of a more b2b capacity. I think that part of it is also that tick tock as a very new platform are great. It's like learning how to speak in the language of, of Tik Tok, and how to be part of a conversation on that platform feels very different than kind of Instagram and things. So maybe, you know, that's one way it's like, maybe one day you'll be seeing @experiencemas on Tik Tok, and we'll be like, killing it with some cool walkthroughs. But right now we're doing all that kind of video and and graphic content on our Instagram.
Samantha Sonnet 11:07
Okay. And while we're talking about Instagram, I have to ask, What about Threads? If you're gonna stay on Instagram, are you going to join Threads?
Garrett Brooks 11:15
I will, I will give my personal opinion on that. Which is I don't know if anyone's going to be on Threads in a little bit. Now. I think maybe at some point, but again, like I think as a visual first social network, Instagram is the kind of a no brainer. And if threads becomes more visual, at some point, doesn't it become Instagram again?
Samantha Sonnet 11:39
Right?
Garrett Brooks 11:39
Like, it feels like it's either. It either needs to be it's a Twitter clone, or it needs to be something completely different.
Samantha Sonnet 11:48
Completely agree. I just wanted to hear your opinion. Yeah. So I want to lean more into things back about you. So as a creative director, can you tell us what tech is imperative to your work?
Garrett Brooks 12:00
Yeah, I mean, I think that there is a lot of different answers to that. I think there's like the very basic things, which is, you know, there's a lot of great resources online for inspiration, whether that be Instagram Behance, even just looking through things like Twitter, I mean, back in the day, my Google Reader, where I had all my RSS feeds all these different websites, right, I think that that is, you know, some of those great websites, I really can spark spark that innovation, I do really love, you know, with gonna be aI conversation we were having, utilizing those tools as well to kind of just like, put my brain into a different place kind of work through things in a different way. Those are comparative to me. And then obviously, the things that are like, you know, Zoom, and all of the remote, the remote working things. But for me, I think that like the technology that really excites me is the stuff that allows me to curate the world that allows me to see different kinds of new inspiration, take that in and bring that into into my life.
Samantha Sonnet 13:07
So it sounds like you use these AI platforms mainly as like a source of inspiration
Garrett Brooks 13:11
for me. Yeah, I think that for me is where it's the most interesting. I think that a lot of it when we try to get into like, how do we fine tune this exact image to looking for me, I think so that is the four finger problem. Right? So as AI generated people, you're just like, wow, they're missing appendages, just like they're just like, odd vibes. But I think as like a place to just start to like, think of new words, think of new ideas, give it some prompts, how to throw some things back at you can be helpful. My I was. And I was just thinking about this is sort of totally off topic. But about the I have, you know, my dad gave a toast at my wedding this year. And the first thing he did was run, toast by a different comedian through AI was just sending me like, here's what Rodney Dangerfield would be. Here's what Jerry Seinfeld's would be is, and it was so funny of like, oh my God, these tools are like, really, for everyone. Like, I was like, Don't do any of these. Let me hit the toast from you. But no, I was just so interesting. It's like a tool to then be like, Oh, he then edited some of those and put it in his notes. Like that was a really funny thing to see. So even just in like non creative work, that has a place
Samantha Sonnet 14:26
everywhere. That is so funny. I love hearing that like in a real world experience, because I feel like a lot of people are using it just in every type of like sphere for just a way to spark innovation. And that goes back to my first question or a couple questions ago, where I asked you about, is it an aid or a competitor? And I think it depends on the person using it right? You can use it as an aid or you can use it as something that's going to eventually
Garrett Brooks 14:49
Yeah, you can use it as time that like replaces the work but I just do feel like that human touch is so important, right? Like, I think that even when you Use that for inspiration. Like, you have to start with the prompt and you have to edit what it gives back to you like it has to be imbued with like a person to bring it bring it to life.
Samantha Sonnet 15:10
Absolutely. Yep. I couldn't agree more. So, back on the topic of experiential marketing, why do you personally think it is still valuable today, and especially in an era of large scale social media marketing, virtual events and other digital first experiences?
Garrett Brooks 15:29
So when I first started in this experiential racket, working in experiential advertising, it really coincided in in part powered by what's happening technologically with Instagram, I remember when Dan launched at and you know, had that huge moment itself by and then all of a sudden it was what's the photo moment? What is the thing that what is the moment that people are going to take the put on their Instagram, put on their Twitter put on their live socials. And it was really this kind of symbiotic relationship of, you're doing person things to feed content to the internet, which I think is still part of what we all want to create spaces that are shareable, and capturable. And beautiful. I think that, especially now, you know, we had a year and a half of exclusively virtual events, which there are some great virtual events, there are some that really, I think, leave people feeling isolated. And I think what we're seeing now, with the emergent reemergence of experiential is not just Yes, it could feel content, for Instagram and for Twitter and for any sort of form for Tik Tok. Yes, it can act as this kind of It's the highlight great technology. But people fundamentally like being in the same room together, it's the same thing. It's like, it's the same thing as like, going to a show, like, this band is really good on record, being here with 50,000 people singing the same song is special, right? And I think that goes to even if you're at a conference, right, just seeing other people seeing them react, and then be able to have those kinds of conversations the human moment, and I think is so key. And is really still a way for brands to stand out and create real memories with consumers, right? Like, with the way that our like watching habits have changed so much like there's no like, there's no TV ad that very few TV ads that I'd be like this is connecting people making a true connection to its audience, right. It's like, this isn't a pre roll ad that I see before I watch a video of solving a Sudoku, like, this isn't creating a real connection as as a brand, but like if a brand invites you into a space, and can make you feel something, give you a great experience, teach you something, give you joy, give you anything, you are going to like have much more affinity for that brand, right? It's, it's so powerful, still kind of an in person moment,
Samantha Sonnet 17:49
Kind of going off of that. Now, I'm curious, what how did moss adapt during the pandemic as an experiential marketing agency? You know, I mean, what kind of events were you creating? Because you were so limited?
Garrett Brooks 18:01
Totally. So we were I mean, I think a lot, we're doing a whole host of things, but you know, including, you know, kind of standard virtual events, which we're still you know, we find ways to make them fun. And you kind of we learned the rules of virtual events, right when it came to, you know, the quality of production, but also what kind of breaks people need, what kind of how much attention you can really get right? Like I I joked, like other times, like, when you have an event and you have like a keynote presentation. In person, you're like not just captivating the audience, you're kind of keeping them captive, like, there's so there's like a social like, no, like, I if I'm in the center of a row, I'm not going to stand up and then walk away. But like during virtual events like that can happen. But I think the really the more creative stuff that we did that was more exciting. were things like, with our friends at YouTube for their brand casts at home, we delivered cuts of pizza making kits. So you got to customize your toppings. And then we sent you this box, and it was dough, and you could get gluten free dough or whatever you want. And then you could make a pizza. And it was this way of kind of saying this is an experience like the unboxing experience isn't experience making a pizza is an experience. So like we would send out a lot of what we did with send out kits themselves were, you know, rethinking what experiential is because sometimes experiential can be at home.
Samantha Sonnet 19:23
Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's so important in the fact that you are able to maintain that tangible experience even while everybody was in the world of Zoom and seeing everybody virtually I think everybody craved that sense of community and just like, personable interactions, and that probably made people's days better than you would think. You know, just like so many small things. Yeah, and
Garrett Brooks 19:48
I think that like people and like personally like I really I think a lot about people want different tactile experiences, right like our our phones are amazing and have the world in them, but like, it's literally touching a piece of glass and directions to a restaurant wanting to go to or play my favorite song or text my friend. Like, it's just like tactilely like the same experience. So like, how do you give someone something that's like, Oh, here's something new to play with? Here's a new to do. And that's also environmentally, right. Like, I think it's transporting people to a new world into a different world into a different environment that I think people are really still craving, I think always crave.
Samantha Sonnet 20:28
Absolutely. All right, I'm curious to know, what is your most memorable experience in the creative industry? Overall. And I know, that's a big question.
Garrett Brooks 20:38
It's a really big question.
Samantha Sonnet 20:39
Yes it is maybe one of the most memorable,
Garrett Brooks 20:43
one of the most memorable, I think, I have to say, early in my career, I had the opportunity to work on a recreation of the apartment from Seinfeld, for the launch of Seinfeld, to streaming. And that was just a really fun project. I got to watch every episode of Seinfeld for work. I remember the night before, having that moment that I think everyone experiential and events has at some point, which is, oh my God, no one's gonna come. Oh, my God, like, no one's going to be like four in the morning. And there was already a line. And it was like, people were like, so excited. And that feeling is something and then walking actually walked one of the writers of Seinfeld through the apartment, and they were like, how did you? Like how did like he's like, that poster that you have there? I have that in my kid's room. Jerry gave it to me from the set. Like, how do you have that? Like, why do you have that? But then again Like, it was like, oh, yeah, we did the work. Like we made sure we got all the details. Right. And that I think creatively like that, that was just like the payoff felt really good. Yeah. You know, I think that those are those are, those are special moments. Yeah, that like, see, see it, watching how people are gonna react to it. Right? I go back to like the drive thru. Right, like we worked on the drive thru for months. And then we were there and watching just like, people interact with the space exactly how we thought they would and then ways we completely never expected. That is such a joyful experience. Right? It's like we created this canvas. And now they're, oh, yeah, they're like they're getting getting the snack and they're unwrapping it at the exactly where the table is that we wanted to put it great. And then watching people create content that was like, Oh, I couldn't have imagined they would make that piece of content. Like I can't imagine that. No, it's incredible. Like just seeing people interact with it. Now that's a special thing about experiential as like an experiential creative that I think a lot of other creatives don't don't have that kind of feedback loop in the same way. Right? We were very lucky in that.
Samantha Sonnet 22:44
I think it's a very rewarding job to have is what it sounds like. Also while I have you one last question, because yeah, I remember the Mr. Beast gumball machine Yeah, MAS created and I just think you have to talk about that because that was one of the coolest installations I've ever seen. Not the person unfortunately but it was on the Instagram and other plug to the MAS Instagram go check it out. Yeah, please talk about that.
Garrett Brooks 23:08
Yeah, no, so that was part of the VidCon drive thru experience is next to a full a full drive thru restaurant was a 40 foot Mr. Beast, gumball machine with, you know, coins that were almost, you know, I think almost two feet and you put them in you turn it and you know, make sure to give that great gumbo like, can you got your prize thing from kind of Mr. Beast's merch, two games two chocolate bar is really just like a really fun experience and really like a testament to kind of like his fan base that like they were so hyped, and his team showed up one day, and that was kind of an amazing moment of watching him interact with people. But it was just this really, it was this really fun experience and you know, when you're building something like a gumball machine, there's so many fun, creative questions that you get to kind of answer of, well, this is obviously a gumball machine, but it's also sort of not like how will you know what goes in it? What is the piece that you know, we're not going to have gumballs dropped down Oh, we'll have balls kind of floating down different pipes and things to kind of give you that feeling of gumballs being delivered that I kind of talked about earlier, but like the click of a dial, right? Because we all remember like at the mall getting a gumball and clicking it and you'd hear the click of the thing and so it was like if it doesn't click it's not right like it has to actually you know in getting into those details like that is the stuff that's like the this will make this a memorable experience. This will make this like be saying someone is so hyped about is like getting all the details right. Yeah.
Samantha Sonnet 24:43
And that's truly what makes people so excited. The level of detail that you and everyone else goes into is truly insane but like also admirable because it's like that's what makes the experience holistic. And like makes it a true experience and like nostalgic like you just said, you know, the mall or whatever.
Garrett Brooks 25:05
Yeah, and I think that with like, especially with things that are like kind of more, like flexing like that that's like more absurd and like kind of larger than life like you don't want to take anything out of the reality of it. You don't want to like, you don't you want to do everything you can to make it feel as authentic as long as the very silly multitude of it, you're able to give them that.
Samantha Sonnet 25:24
I love that term. I'm going to start using that now. Do you have any like websites or socials that you would like to plug while we're here? I know you said the moss Instagram is @experiencemas. Okay.
Garrett Brooks 25:36
Yep. And then just to see more of more of our work, I would say, www.moremas.com. You know, you can check out all of our fun projects more than just the ones I've talked about. So many of them. Yeah, no, it's, yeah, it's, you know, we do a lot of really, really fun and amazing work. So I feel really fortunate to be here and to get to be a part of that. Yes.
Samantha Sonnet 25:58
Thanks so much.
Garrett Brooks 25:58
Really talented people.
Samantha Sonnet 26:00
Absolutely. All of you are so talented. You're so talented. I'm so glad you were able to come here and talk to me today. Thank you so much.
Garrett Brooks 26:06
Thank you so much.
Samantha Sonnet 26:09
If you found this episode, informative, educational or inspirational. Be sure to send this to another arts aficionado in your life. You can let us know what you thought by visiting our website AMT-lab.org or you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram @techinthearts or on Facebook and LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab. We'll see you for the next episode.