How Brands Can Stand Out at Trade Shows Using AI, Experiential Marketing & Interactive Engagement

OPENING PAUL WRIGHT Hello everyone and welcome to a bonus episode of the Link Thru Social Podcast. That's right, a bonus episode. We've been doing a lot of interviews lately, and we want to get all this information out to you. So in addition to our regular Thursday release of the Link Thru Social Podcast, we will be putting out some bonus episodes in the coming weeks. This week it is a bonus episode with Richard Emmanuel from DMA Events, and that will come to you right after this break. SPONSOR MESSAGE - SMART POST APP SPONSOR MESSAGE Tired of stressing over what to post on social media? Meet Smart Post App, your all-in-one solution to create, schedule, and grow your content effortlessly. In just a few taps, you can generate engaging posts, stay consistent, and keep your audience coming back for more. No more guessing, no more burnout, just smarter content faster. Whether you're a business owner, creator, or an entrepreneur, SmartPost helps you show up like a pro. Start posting smarter today at SmartPostApp.com. Smart Post App because your content should work for you. INTERVIEW - RICH / DMA EVENTS PAUL WRIGHT & RICH And welcome back to the Link Thru Social Podcast. Well, we have a wonderful guest for us today. It's Rich E. Foltes, and he's with DMAGlobalEvents.com. Rich is an experiential marketing entrepreneur and founder of DMA Events, a company that has produced more than 1,500 events and brand activations worldwide for corporate clients, luxury brands, trade shows, conferences, and live experiences. Rich, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much. Great to be here with you. Yeah, so why don't before we get into some of the things that you do, Rich, why don't you tell me a little bit about your background and how you arrived today with your company DMAGlobalEvents.com. Sure. my father was a photographer, and that brought me to go to university. I went to Ryerson, got a degree in media arts, which was in film and photography, digital media. And I did movies for a while, but I realized there's so many people involved, and one person could ruin a whole movie, which happened, you know, when I was in university, the sound guy messed up and the whole movie went. But we were we were just students, so I get it. So I decided to go to photography because it was just me. I can't blame anybody, and it was just kind of a solo show. Gotcha. So did the photography gig, pushed the envelope, ended up working with the royal family and presidents of countries and world leaders. You know, that's a whole other story, but it really pushed the envelope in my photography career. Right. had a few different companies doing different types of photography, and then I got into the activation world. Believe it or not, I was watching the Academy Awards and I saw people would go backstage and they would take these photos on these little machines, which were called photo booths at the time. But back then, they were not aesthetically pleasing, they were big, bulky, and just did not look good. So I literally sketched it on a napkin of what I thought it should look like small, slim, and beautiful. And then realized that as I was doing these types of photo booth activations, people were giving me their data, their emails in exchange for the photo. I thought to myself, you know what, corporate needs this. agencies need this because you know, 15 years ago, nobody was gonna just give you your email. No. so, but the exchange worked because we were able to provide them content, really beautiful, glamorous images, and in exchange, they would do that, and we would use CASL compliance to legally do this exchange. Right. And so fast forward to today, you know, DMA. it's funny because a lot of people think we're experienced or experimental, but it's actually experiential, and it's called experiential marketing, which short form is XM. And so that's kind of the arena we went with. And this day, what we do is we have three pillars that we help our clients with. It's either entertainment, branding, lead generation, or all three. So people want, for example, like we work with the movie companies like Cineplex, they have a movie coming out, they're interested in branding, they don't need the leads. So we would do pop-ups where we would promote the movie, make people feel like they're in the movie. So, yeah, so the other day we did an activation, we took a we took your photo, and all of a sudden you're on the cover of the movie. You're like, oh my god, this is so great! All the you're pushing it to LinkedIn and all your social media, and you're branding them so they're happy, you're happy, everyone's happy. And then other clients like Airlines, for example, they want the email so they can put you on the hot list. So we do these activations, whether it's a photo booth or AI, which is super powerful right now. Yes. because with an AI photo activation, we can work with any theme. So whether it's a Western theme or you know Matrix or whatever you can imagine, we can take your image live and automatically you're now in the theme. So it is wonderful, people love it, it's entertaining, and the quality is amazing. And so these are pretty much experiences that people just want to go through. So when you're at an event, okay, you're there to have dinner, you're there to have drinks, you're there to have networking, you know, there might be a DJ, there might be a band, but what other experiences can people do? So a photo booth, for example, is an experience. But people ask me, Rich, why do I need a photo booth? I have a cell phone, I could do the exact same thing. I said that's a great question. I go, but look over there, there's a lineup. Why are all those people lining up? They all have cell phones, and the answer is it's an experience, just like going on a roller coaster ride. It's an experience that people want to do experiences together. So, fast forward now from photo booths, we now got into robotics, robots that move around and take your photos. We've got now humanoids that walk into an event to create a splash, something viral. You know, you put a t-shirt on the robot, and it's like a celebrity. Everybody wants to take a picture with it. So, experiential marketing is exactly that. It's when brands are looking to brand themselves or they want to do some kind of lead gen, these are the kind of opportunities that you can do, and it's really exciting. Oh, it sounds very exciting. And I can your passion resonates as you're as you're telling me about this. Now, just before we came on the podcast here, we were talking about the World Cup and it's of course being played out in Mexico, the United States, and right here in Canada, in Toronto and Vancouver specifically. And there were some numbers that were coming out from Toronto that gonna be, you know, four or five hundred thousand people in the city. And it's not just because they're all going to the game. A lot of them aren't. You know, the takeout prices are pretty outrageous, and you know, some people can't afford it, but it's about the experience of being together and enjoying it together or doing different side events have to do with them experiential marketing live brand activations. That's a very exciting line of working brand. How is AI changing the future? Yeah, so AI is definitely a game changer because you can create these environments in high quality. So, for example, FIFA, coincidentally, we're doing activation starting tomorrow, and so people will be able to choose their favorite team, they'll be able to go up to the kiosk and you know, and either choose team A, B, or C is the hotel that we do the collaboration with. And so, for example, if you choose team A, we take your photo and all of a sudden we make it look like you're wearing the jersey and it looks like a trading card. And so, and it's customized with your name as well. So now we can actually customize these experiences. So, in the end, you're gonna get an image that looks like a real trading card. That is then goes to our special printers that we cut and then we put in a special hard case. So now you're walking away with what looks like a collector item trading card, the real deal. And now you can keep this, show it to your friends, you can put it, and it's it's almost like a collector's item. And the venues love it, the sponsors love it because we can put their branding on the back of it. That's just one idea. Other things we've done with it, which is super cool, is you can do the same concept, and then when we print it, we put an NFC chip inside the actual image, then we put it in it like a lanyard or what have it. So let's just say it's a lanyard, and now this image could be tapped, and you can, you know, it could have your social media, it could have your website, and we find doing these it's called a smart badge, is people will keep it. You keep it in your bag, and all of a sudden it's just another way to transfer information. realtors love it because we can we create these really official looking real estate badges with their photo on it, and now it's got this chip. So, yeah, it's it can be used in any way. like for realtors, it's great because if you're into a land or a luxury or apartments, I could take your image and put you in that theme. And I could add a little bit of makeup for you, I could change your outfit. It's phenomenal, but you gotta be careful with AI because if you don't do it properly, it looks fake, it doesn't look real. And so, as easy as it sounds, there's a lot of prompting and algorithms that go into it to make it look like amazing. And that is that is the goal. So your team must be working constantly on keeping up with all the all the advances advancement that AI is going through you know on a daily basis. And you know, for smart brands that use QR technology or AI sky's the limit where we're we're going with this. what are some of the things that are coming up in the future that you haven't quite released yet, but you might be working? Well, right now what's hot and trending is AI video. it's basically I could take now a photo, and we just did this for a fashion show event. So we would have somebody standing there, we take their photo, boom, they're walking on the red carpet, it's glitz, it's glam, the flashes are going off. Incredible. Or for a car company, I take your photo, all of a sudden you're getting into the car and driving it. It's like a movie, it's very, very cinematic. So AI video is amazing. The robotics is really next level. you know, we started a site called buyandrentrobots.com because I realized at the time when I was getting into robotics and for events, there was no there's not much availability around the world. And so clients want to do the next new thing, which is robots and humanoids. And I'm not talking about a person in a robot outfit, I'm talking about a humanoid robot that walks and talks, and we can train it to learn everything about your business. So when it comes on set, you can have a conversation with it. it'll do a special presentation, it'll do like a dance or like a martial arts routine. Yes. But now is the time because it's new. In the next 12 months, 24 months, everybody's gonna have robots cleaning their you know, laundry and dishes. But yeah. I'm not sure of your age, but the old Jetsons cartoon. These things are coming true now. It's absolutely amazing. Are you gonna be integrated into marketing and absolutely incredible? Now, everyone really well knows about SEO search engine optimization, and it's always been a key for many years. Why don't you explain a little bit about G what it is how you're utilized? Sure. So basically back in the day, I went on ChatGPT and I searched for my name and it didn't show up. But I was I was ranking on Google, and so I made it my life's mission to you know change that. And so we got a team and we were able to build out the algorithms and do all the data to be found on the LLMs. So whether it's ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and so on and so forth. And so basically, these days, you know, when I search for something, I would say more than 50% of the time, maybe 80, 90% of the time, I'll search for it on you know ChatGPT or Claude. You know, I'll still use Google here and there, but I realize that I've been using search engine optimization, or sorry, not search engine, but these chats. And AEO stands for answer engine optimization. So once we did a case study for our company, I started to do it for a few colleagues, and now we take a select few clients who are wanting to be found, and we just have our team help them with their AEO. So it's a it's a different strategy, it's faster, you can get on there much quicker. And I just feel that the future is this AEO because for whatever reason people think it's godly. You know, if you ask a question on ChatGPT, what's the best restaurant in the neighborhood? It's like that's gotta be the answer. Because ChatGPT said so. I know. Because Google, when you ask a question, you get you know, 10 pages of options, right? And so, you know, we thought to ourselves that this is the future, and we definitely want to be there and definitely want to help clients you know, get to that location. So that's super exciting, and that I feel is something that you know most businesses, if they're not doing it already, should definitely like search for themselves. And if they can't find themselves there, then you know you can definitely get some help. You can reach out to us or anybody that can help you with that. That's a great point. We have to recalibrate our minds because for years have to use keywords and the back end of your website, so SEO, well stuff Google and all that. And now, yeah, we have to recalibrate again. Can you see a time where I know companies like yourself are gonna be helping businesses or brands with their GEO. but can you see that there's gonna be like with Google for many years, where you have to pay to be found and do these paid campaigns and that type of thing in the world of artificial intelligence, AI. Yeah, you know, I feel that in the future they're gonna go that route, like you know, what Google's doing. So now is a good time definitely to get in there. you know, if you search for yourself and you can't find yourself, start now. Okay. You can just, you know, you know, where we when we work with clients, we'll start at the simple. Give us what you do. I'm a florist and I live in Boston, you know, for example. Let's start there. And takes time and there's a lot of work to do. It's a full-time job, but just like Google Ads, it's gonna help your business. You definitely wanna you want to be found in all these, you want to be relevant. And I think that's definitely something that again, if you can't find yourself, then we know that we gotta you know take the next steps. Absolutely. Now, if someone is using ChatGPT, and they have for maybe a few months, and you know, they might have designed some things for their small business or you know, a larger business or brand. you were saying if you can't find yourself, if you now do a search on ABC company that you own, or that's your brand, because you've been doing searches and getting things done, marketing the posters or that type of thing, will that get you found just because that you've you know what I'm saying, that you've you've been doing something about your company. Will that will that remember it in that, or should you have somebody else try to search it on their ChatGPT? Or if that isn't relevant at all. Yeah, no, just looking for yourself is not gonna get you there. it's you know, these are long tail keywords, and you need basically just like Google, they're changing the rules every day. And the same thing is with AEO. you have these agents that are scraping, they're looking for information, they're looking for information in different places. you know, you have to definitely change your website, you know, to be relevant. so no, no, this is not something that your friend could do and say, hey, I'm on ChatGPT, make sure you remember me. No, it's not gonna work like that. No, no, no, no. No, no, it doesn't work like that. You need to you need to hire somebody who understands it and is able to give you results and tracking. you know, so you know what we've done for some of our clients is not only do we give them this opportunity, we'll also do articles for them once a week or once a month, and we give them data. And yeah, this is something it's it's just like Google, but you know, it's it's it's how much business do you want to bring in? What is the value? and if you feel that you know you want to grow your business, definitely keep an eye and be there because I could tell you right now, most people don't know what's going on, they don't understand what it what it is, and they just think that it happens by miracle. Okay. And you know, including ourselves, we have to change up our website for us to be found. Like there are steps to be done, but it's not rocket science. And you know, if you need help, just reach out, you know, have a conversation, and we'll definitely guide you in the right direction a hundred percent. And if you're having an event, you know, this is another way of marketing, right? You know, experiential marketing is being out. You know, people go to events, people want to be entertained. You know, if you're at a trade show, for example, you know, XM is also amazing. Like what we've realized is in trade shows, for example, you have a very small footprint. Okay, so when we're doing a big event, we could put our little kiosks anywhere. But a trade show is 10 by 10, tight, tight, tight. And so we want to help people in trade shows because I find that a lot, not a lot, but there's a majority of people at trade shows. You ever notice these guys who just sit there at their table looking down, don't talk to anybody, yes, yes, checking their phones, waiting for somebody to come by, and it's like a rock in a river. Everybody just goes around because it's so trade shows is psychology and it's a strategy, and we found that some people. Just don't have that experience. So we want to help people. So we did is we created a system that instead of a kiosk, imagine you can just have a QR code saying, Hey, make a trading card, click here, and have a chance to win a hundred dollar gift card of Starbucks. Okay, yes, yes. People will jump through hoop of fire to win. You're right. You're right. I could win a $50 gift card, $100 gift card, all I gotta do is take a photo and upload it. I'm in. You know, adding a contest, by the way, to these types of activations gives you X10. Okay? Yes. So what we started to do at DMA is we actually are giving $50 gift cards to any clients that take our DMA Engage platform, which is no hardware, no software needed. We just create a QR code, people can use their cell phone and have an experience. They we can do an AI image, turn them into Superman, turn them into Wild Western, turn them into the Matrix, whatever. We'll put the logo in the image and then just say, hey, hashtag XYZ for a chance to win, and all of a sudden, bam, it goes up. Now the trade show guy's got something fun, he's collecting leads, and he doesn't have to write them down because you know have you noticed that when people write things down, it's hard to read and you can't guarantee it's getting the right data, right? So we keep it all digital, and it's amazing. And we found that with that now, we can be, let's say, at a big event, like let's say a sporting arena. And now imagine that we put that QR code and say, hey, everybody in the stands, you're gonna create your own trading card right now. And now we can thousands of people in one shot, right? We can activate thousands. And now the sponsors are like, oh MG, where were you? Let's go. So these are the kind of things, you know, I find the people we try to help are people who are looking to brand themselves, they want to get out there. they're they're looking for leads, they're looking for data, they don't, they're not sure how to do it. So with our XM experiences, and as you mentioned, we work with companies across the world, you know, and we've learned a lot from these different organizations to kind of package it up to help people really achieve their goals. Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, the whole landscape is changing in trade shows, conferences, live experiences. Rich, this has been a fascinating conversation. I really thank you for coming on the show today. Again, your website is DMAGlobalEvents.com. love to have you back in the future to talk some more because I think we're just the tip of the iceberg here. But I wish you well in your World Cup events coming up here in Toronto. And once again, thank you for coming on the Link Thru Social Podcast. Pleasure to be on the Link Thru Social Podcast. Appreciate your time. Have an amazing day, everybody. CLOSING PAUL WRIGHT Well, that does it for this edition of the Link Thru Social Podcast. Thank you once again for building this community. We're all in this together. And you can follow us on our socials at Link Thru Social, that's T-H-R-U, and of course visit our website Link Thru Social.com. Until next week, my name is Paul Wright. That's it for another edition of the Link Thru Social podcast.