Guest: Julie Parsons, Co-Founder and Managing Director, District Marketing Group
A clear brand identity doesn’t just shape messaging—it drives real-world results. In this episode, Julie Parsons, Co-Founder and Managing Director of District Marketing Group, shares how thoughtful brand strategy and early trade show planning create more engaging, memorable experiences.
Sean Riley: Hi, and welcome to another episode of unPACKed Exhibitor Edition. A clear brand identity doesn’t just shape messaging—it drives real-world results. In this episode, Julie Parsons, Co-Founder and Managing Director of District Marketing Group, shares how thoughtful brand strategy and early trade show planning create more engaging, memorable experiences. So with all the fancy introductions out of the way, welcome to the podcast, Julie.
Julie Parsons: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Sean Riley: The pleasure is all ours. So when I was thinking about this podcast, especially with a marketing veteran like yourself, my first thought was, with all the noise and the different channels, how challenging it must be, particularly in this day and age, for brands to stand out, and how it must change so fast. So with that in mind, is there a benefit for companies to review and assess their brand identity regularly? It seems weird to be checking yourself and to see what your identity is, but it feels like that might be something that's necessary. Am I on the right path?
Julie Parsons: I think we assume that this happens a lot. I think, to level-set, a lot of companies don't do this, so I think it's great to revisit where you are and what your brand identity is. As long as things are changing in marketing in the marketplace and how people consume information, which we know changes all the time, it's really good to reorient how you're going to market, who you are. I think in our day-to-day operations, we never really do anything and assume it's humming along in the background successfully, but with brand, we do. We have these foundational items that we think of as static, and they are not.
Sean Riley: But that's changed, right? It would seem that you would be able, I don't want to say to rest on your laurels, but in the past it was something where you had your brand, it was established, people knew who you were, you could check in on it every once in a while, but now it seems it's something you have to check in pretty regularly, right?
Julie Parsons: I think so, too, because again, with social media and just the proliferation of how often we are expected to communicate, like the 24-hour news cycle is relevant for us as companies, too. There's social media, and we're supposed to be posting and sharing, and that means our brand identity is not just this one nugget. It's a more three-dimensional thing, because how else are we going to have enough to talk about? And I think companies have a tendency to get into an internal mindset. We're so focused on our departments and our processes and our divisions and our goals.
We've done branding exercises with a couple of clients, and you realize the internal stakeholders are not aligned in what they think the brand is because everybody's off doing what they're doing, which is making the donuts. So I think it's important to level-set. And if you make it a three-dimensional thing, if it's more than just a vision statement that's positioning statements and then unique selling propositions, there's all these things you can build out that then lead into marketing strategy and make sure that you are projecting to the marketplace, going to market with something that's a little bit more robust.
Sean Riley: Then with this updating happening more frequently, how can we use that information to inform our marketing strategies going forward?
Julie Parsons: With a refreshed look at what your brand identity is, it's automatically going to set you up for some refreshed messaging, visuals, or a different look at how you're going to market. So if you go into an exercise and treat it like an exercise and you have an actionable plan with follow-up in mind, then you're going to improve everything, not just marketing but your strategic plans, how you train internally, how we talk to our staff about how we talk about our products and our customers. If you treat it as a three-dimensional process, you're going to answer a lot of questions and then lead into marketing strategy.
Sean Riley: This has had to have changed your job so much, or am I wrong? It just seems like 10 years ago, marketing versus now, how much different that must be.
Julie Parsons: Yeah. I think, honestly, this kind of question and conversation is so refreshing to me because the basic tenets of marketing are so focused on brand. And so I think everybody gets focused on all the channel changes, with AI and social media and digital, and all the opportunities we have for really deep-dive channel marketing. It's so nice to go back and look at, like I said, the basic principles of marketing, which is, do we know our brand? And so often, because we're all busy, we all wear a thousand hats, and you get very focused on getting to the goal.
And it's nice to go back and look at this, because this hasn't changed. The outcomes of it and how you can explore it have changed, how you can communicate on it, but brand identity is brand. You have a mission, you have a vision, brand, unique positioning, all this terminology, SWOT, all these old-school marketing terms that are still relevant, if you're doing an exercise to make sure that you're aligned on what you think your culture, your voice, your brand is.
Sean Riley: Well, we have PACK EXPO East coming up. You do trade shows as your forte. So, when is the best time for companies to start marketing for a trade show? When should they begin that process?
Julie Parsons: Right now.
Sean Riley: Yeah.
Julie Parsons: We do trade show marketing to attendees, and we're starting eight months out. So if you're an exhibitor, there's no reason not to start when we start. We're communicating about the show across industries, not just with PACK EXPO. So as soon as you book your booth, you can start, because I think what a lot of exhibitors do—and we see this in exhibitor surveys and people's experience on site—is don't treat it like a date in the future, an event on the calendar. It's a campaign. Start now, and start thinking about it as a campaign. Get other team members involved.
Because I think if you look at it as a mapped campaign, who's going to be in the booth? What's going to be in the booth? Do you want to communicate ahead of time? What are your visuals? What are your customer pathways as it relates to general sales, and how does the trade show fit into that? What's your goal? All of those things. If you start asking those things, not only will you start marketing, but you'll start creating milestones along the way.
If you want to announce your presence on social media but you don't have much of a social media presence, start now. Start to get some of your narrative out there and build that audience. So I think start early, because then your onsite experience is going to be a lot more successful.
Sean Riley: Okay. And I guess deeper into that, what kind of specific things can you do early to get noticed, and then going forward on-site? What things have you picked up, tricks of the trade, that you can do early and then on-site to make your marketing stand out?
Julie Parsons: Pre-show marketing and onsite experience are probably two different things. The onsite experience should fulfill whatever you've said in this campaign leading up to it. But I think if you first and foremost have a plan, treat it like a plan, and start communicating. You need to let people know you're going to be there. So I think if you're an exhibiting company and you think about your customers, your audience, your industry contacts, let them know you're coming. Use your channels. It's great to have something to talk about. A lot of times with companies on social media or press releases, we don't have a lot to say, but we're required to push narrative and content out there, so use this as your brand story for the next couple of months.
I think the other thing is that people need to realize that show organizers, especially PMMI, have so many resources for exhibitors to use and a lot of tools for promotion. Not as many exhibitors use them across shows as you would expect, so take advantage of that, because every show organizer that you engage with is just as invested in your success as you are. Just start looking at what those tools are. What are the opportunities available to you? If you're communicating to your own customers, that makes a big difference as well as communicating to the broader trade show audience, what the trade show organizers are already doing.
And then when it comes to on site, have an engaging presence. We read a lot of trade show surveys where people are in a side aisle, and it's quiet, and I think people expect people just to come to them, but you have to create the experience. Exhibitors have that accountability to make something happen in their booth. We're not all Coca-Cola, so you have to have a reason to stand out. Show organizers are always focused on building hall traffic during quiet times, so look at what the show organizer is doing.
They're going to do a giveaway. They're going to have an education session. They're going to have some kind of eventized thing on the show floor, so look at that and create an experience in your booth, so let people engage with you. Have a contest, have a giveaway, have an expert, have a thought leadership. It can be something very austere and brand-related or it can just be something fun, so that you have some resonance rating as you're on the show floor.
Sean Riley: I like that. Do you have one that you can think of, a particularly compelling branding experience that you've seen at a show that was engaging that you could share with us?
Julie Parsons: I was at a show once where the whole booth was pink. Some of it is just capturing an impression, what packaging you have. Do you have seating? Do you have coziness? And some of that can tie to your brand. I'm not saying just create a thing. We had one trade show in the attractions industry where they had the most tattooed man in the world in their booth, so anything that creates a draw.
We were at a homebuilder show once, and a small builder, who was only focused regionally, and they happened to be from Texas, so they had a Texas-themed party in their booth. So they leaned into something that was their brand, which was Texas and their region. So if your brand identity is family-owned, or pricing, play The Price Is Right. There's so many things you can do that are fun, to bring people in without feeling like they're just going to be hit with a salesperson.
One of my favorites, I was exhibiting at a beverage show once, and the guys next to me had a new brand. They were beer guys, but they didn't have any money. They had a 10x10 booth, and they had created a magnetic flip-cap game. They were just throwing beer caps at a dartboard, but their brand was them. They were this small brand, and they had people, and the next year they were there, and they had a 20x20, and they just kept coming back. You don't have to spend a ton of money, and you don't have to be Coke.
We work in the attractions industry, and there was a guy who had a pizza machine for on-site at amusement parks, and he let people come in and throw pizza dough, and then he baked their pizza, and he put it in a box with their name on it, and they came back and picked it up. I have seen handwashing machines, and trade shows are dirty. Just going in and washing your hands. Letting people come in and engage, have some fun, get something to eat, talk about something fun, or play a game. Anything like that is going to be successful, I think.
Sean Riley: I love it. Well, Julie, this was great. Trade shows are going on constantly, so you're constantly working on a different one, but thank you again for coming on here and helping our people out with PACK EXPO East.
Julie Parsons: Thanks. It's a lot of fun. I appreciate it.
