 This is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Rusty Komori. We broadcast live every Monday at 10 a.m. from the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. My guest today is Toby Tamayi. He is the president of AT Marketing and he is recognized as one of the top marketing professionals in Hawaii and often referred to as the digital Superman. Today we are going beyond marketing. Toby, great having you here today. Great being here today. Yes. You know, I had a feeling that you were going to dress up in a suit and I needed to kind of keep up with you. Thank you. You look very good my friend. You look very good. This is the first time I'm wearing a suit on my show. You should wear suits more often. Yes. Suits always make a man like that. So you always look good. I see all these networking events and you always look good. So I have to keep up with you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad to wear a suit. Thank you so much. I want to ask you, Toby, about your background. Can you share with me some of your history? Absolutely. So I was actually born in California, San Diego. Oh, wow. Missed my chargers, but it is what it is. I lived there for a couple months and then actually moved over to IA. Went to IA. Intermediate as well as Alpha Scott Elementary. Then most of my childhood in IA, after my sophomore year of high school, I actually moved to Kona and graduated from Kona Wainah. Spent two years there. Very interesting neighbor island experience compared to actually being in IA where I was right across the street from Colorado Ridge Center. But anyway, that was how I spent my childhood here in Hawaii. Did you have a far drive in Kona? Yeah, actually. So when I was going to school, they didn't have the second high school in Kona, so I actually had to travel 30 miles to go to Kona Wainah. 30 miles? No, bus. Wow. Well, so you appreciate having cars now? Yes. Well, I appreciate living in town now and just moving around my biky and Uber. It's much more easier than going 30 miles on a bus. Awesome. Now, you went to University of Hawaii. That's correct. And what did you study and why did you study what you did? So, one of the things that I did is I majored in management. I've always kind of wanted to start my own company and I've always been in marketing, events, promotions. You know, even when I was in the dorms, I was throwing some of the biggest parties there. And I'm still doing those kind of things today and I had a big focus on Japan. So a lot of my electives are always built toward Japanese business, Japanese speaking and writing. And that's kind of where a lot of my focus is today for my company. Great. And I want to know, Toby, what boards have you served on or you currently serve on? Currently, I sit on the board of directors for the University of Hawaii Shilor Alumni Association. I've been on previous boards in the past, including the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. That was a very intimidating board for me. But you know, I learned a lot and met a lot of great people. We're always looking for ways of diversifying my skills in terms of different boards and helping them do things that are really beyond marketing that they really don't know about. Yeah. And you run some of the best networking events in all of Hawaii and I love attending your networking events. Thank you for coming. Thank you for inviting. But how often do you tend to do these networking events and why do you do it? So one of the things about Hawaii that we're very unique is that we just have a certain population that allows us to really be able to have a big network, yet we're not really lost in the shuffle like being in Tokyo or LA and San Francisco. And so a lot of times I advise professionals take advantage of living here in Honolulu and going to different events. I probably go to between two to four a week. Sometimes it's two to four at night, depends what's going on. But you know, we're always trying to build our presence in the community, our presence in terms of who we're connected with out there. And it's very also, it's very good to just be out there and support different organizations that are really trying to get people to get involved. And it's always over good food and drink as well, so it's very nice. Before I see you, you always look so happy and you have an awesome job. Thank you. What is a typical day like for you? So one of the great things about what I do for your AT marketing and I have a great staff behind myself and we're really built on relationships that we can carry over by actually working at home. And so a lot of the things that we do is wake up in the morning, I'll check emails and I'll do those kind of things. I'll go to certain meetings during the day and at night usually there's some type of event that I have to attend. Sometimes there's a lunch, like one of the biggest things I do right now is I go to Yelp and look at new restaurants and that's how I determine what I'm going to eat for lunch. I've got to make sure that I'm there and make sure I tell my people about what's going on with those restaurants. But a typical day is about food, it's about meetings, it's about emails, it's about networking. I do a lot of business in Asia as well, so a lot of the big bulk of my afternoon is spent communicating with some of my constituents in Tokyo and Hong Kong. Great. Now you're the president of AT marketing. That's correct. And how and when did AT marketing begin? So this is now my 18 year of business. I've been lucky enough to develop different programs in terms of marketing to both the residents and the visitors here. But of course, nine, ten years ago I really got involved with social media and that's became a big part of our marketing programs. So about 18 years, it's always diversifying. We're always trying to find out what's going on. We're always trying to utilize what we have and what we know to help people today but also figure out how we can help them tomorrow with different programs. Spam Jam is such a huge popular event in Waikiki and you're the organizer of that event and you've done such a great job with that. Can you tell me more about Spam Jam? Yeah, the Waikiki Spam Jam is now the largest one night food festival in Hawaii attracting about 35,000 people. We have 20 restaurants, three stages, it's a really great environment for both locals and visitors. In fact, I run the Spam Jam Facebook page and about every other three days I'll get another person saying, hey, you know what? I am making my flight to see the go to the Spam Jam in 2019. And that's exciting. People are actually loving this event so much that they'll actually come down to Hawaii and plan their vacation around. It's really just a festival about fun. One of the things that we're trying to develop is AT Marketing. It's developed a lot of these food festivals here in Hawaii that are not necessarily a paid festival. It's an open festival that really has more fun about food. I think the food here and the culture is amazing here in Hawaii, probably one of the best places in the world. And so I think we need to explore and use events more to really get more people involved in seeing really amazing restaurants and dining we have here in Hawaii. Spam Jam is just part of that. Yeah, and when I attend Spam Jam, and I absolutely love that event, it's very important for the businesses and for tourists and locals. Now, what are you hearing about why they love it so much? Well, it's a corny event. And I tell you, one of the funny things is we actually have a Wikipedia page for it. Really? Yes, it's that popular. Wow. And I just think that people are always looking for those unique experiences when they're traveling abroad. If I go to Tokyo or if I go to LA, I'm always looking for events that weekend. In fact, when I go to Tokyo next month, later on in a couple weeks, every weekend I have some type of bone dance that I want to attend or some type of festival that I'm interested in going to. So I think people are really planning their experiences around these kind of events. And as Hawaii produces more of them, we're going to be seeing much more happy visitors. Yeah, and it's very unique for sure. And it's a great draw. And I know for you, you're never complacent, and you're always innovating. And you've organized, you're one of the main organizers for rice fest and noodle fest. That's correct. Can you tell me more about that? So I've been helping out rice fest for a couple years. It's currently at the Howard Hughes Corporation. It's a celebration of rice. Why not here in Hawaii? We have a fantastic lineup of food and vendors. And then recently in March, we started a new one called the Noodle Festival. And that was actually very successful at 15,000 on our first event. That was also with the Howard Hughes Corporation. And so our job right now is to really partner up with restaurants, partner up with different venue spaces, and create amazing free festivals that the public can go to, families can go to. Hey, we're pet friendly events with the amount of people that are growing in the Kakaoka or Alamoana area. We're giving them a walkable event that's going down to them. That's really exciting about what we're trying to do at the Rice and Noodle Fest. And we're looking for more festivals to start developing in 2019 and 2020. Great. Your company offers such a wide range of marketing. Why are you so good at public relations? Public relations. Again, Hawaii, we have a certain type of space that we're in. And we're PR. We're very lucky that there's just so much media that are out there. And so relationships is all about. I've been doing this for 18 years. I've built relationships with some of the people out there, including, I think, Justin Cruz here one day. So we're having a lot of great people that we're connecting with all the time. We're also always looking for brand new things. We're looking for new stories and new angles and trying to be part of that. And I think that's what makes us so strong as a publicist, is that, hey, Toby, something new. Toby has this. And this is kind of things that we're doing to help us grow our, I guess, our network with the media. And so what really makes us good is really relationship. It just takes time to build relationships here in Hawaii. But when you build them, you can be a fantastic success. You've definitely built tons and tons of great relationships with a wide range of people. And your company develops marketing programs, obviously in English, but also in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. That's correct. Can you share more about that? So one of the interesting things that we've been doing over the past five years is developing more programs into the digital marketing for tourists. Right now, we're getting about 2.5 million tourists from Asia, which is a big amount. And they mostly come here to Waikiki. So I'll just say, right now, we develop actually Facebook in English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese languages. Twitter in Japanese and Korean. Instagram in Japanese, Korean. I have blogs in Japanese, blogs in Korean. And then I also run the micro website Weibo for China. And so we hand these packages over mostly to hotels and shopping centers. And we're really developing a comprehensive program to be able to communicate with tourists before they come here and after. One of the things that we're also trying to do is we see a lot of differences. Today is about beyond marketing. Beyond marketing yesterday was print, online, radio, and TV. And today, we have such a huge market of digital that we have to really grasp. But people don't understand that that digital marketing is different in every single country. Japan is very similar to us. Korea is China. China is not even close to us. Oh, wow. But people would be surprised that Hong Kong is the number one user of Facebook in the world. Really? Yes. Why is Hong Kong the number one? I think they just don't want to use Weibo, like Chinese and WeChat. I think they just want to separate from China as much as possible. So they're not using actually their WeChat and Weibo there, and they're using Facebook. So it's Taiwan. Taiwan is huge Facebook penetration. And so understanding these kind of things, and we don't expect everyone to understand that. And that's why maybe you should look for an expert like us that can really help you and guide you in terms of what is available for you, what kind of costs are available for you, and how does it maintain all that kind of stuff. We're doing a lot of translations now in four languages. And so a lot of the companies here are exciting for us. But it's also going to be a challenge for a lot of the smaller businesses here that are not able to do all these kind of things. And how do they market themselves to the new Asian visitors. And that's going to be a real challenge for a lot of people here in Waikiki and the Netherlands. You're definitely in touch with the current vibe that's happening in the United States and in Asia for sure. And I mean, you're doing your part to really keep Hawaii up to date in what everywhere else is doing. Thank you. You also do ticketed event development. Can you talk to me more about that? So one of the things that we're trying to do as AT marketing, or meaning personally as myself, is to assist events to become more relevant to today's market. I think the days of us having these sit-down 10-seat dinners and a gala and a performance is dying. And a lot of the non-profits and a lot of event planners know it. So what I've done is I've actually developed new events and new concepts and changed the concept of the events to be more relevant towards, I guess, our millennials and Gen X ticket buyers, as well as people that can possibly sponsor. And so you have to understand now what they're looking for. And what they're looking for now is they're looking for interaction. They're looking for an experience. Experience is not a sit-down dinner of four courses. They're looking for 12 restaurants. They're looking for wine. They're looking for socket. They're looking for some type of ambiance that creates an experience for them. So nowadays, what we're trying to do with ticketed events and we're talking gala, fundraisers, silent auctions, anything with those kind of premise, you need to really figure out your event today. And you need to figure out how you're going to survive the next five to 10 years. And you're not going to survive the same way you're doing it today. And if you don't change it, and it takes a couple of years to change it, you're going to be stuck with an event that's not going to be working. Now there's a problem now that we see here is that a lot of the people are not like us. They want to keep that same system of the 10-seat tables. And that's what they love to, that's what they're used to. And that's fine. So our job now is to find that balance and to find how we can keep both parties happy, how we can keep their traditional ticket buyers and sponsors alive, but also build their portfolios. And a lot of events nowadays, you have to start thinking about that. And how to even reach this market, right? It's not gala or email. It's a totally different way to reach this millennial Gen X market. So that's one of the big projects that we're working on right now is to really look into certain non-profits events, jump on their boards, or just jump on their committees, give them some insight about how to improve their restaurants, how to improve their drinks, how to improve their experience, how to improve their sign auction, how to improve their marketing, and how to improve, basically, going beyond marketing. No, that's great insight. And Morimoto's had their grand opening in Waikiki that I attended. And Joy of Saki is such a great event, too. It's such a popular event. Toby, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to talk to you about why you are the digital superman. All right, let's do it. You are watching Beyond the Lines with my guest, Toby Tamaye. We will be back in one minute. When I was growing up, I was among the one in six American kids who struggled with hunger. But with the power of breakfast, the kids in your neighborhood can think big and be more. Go to hungarees.org to make breakfast happen for kids in your neighborhood. One in three teens to smoke will lose years of these moments. It's your life. Don't miss a thing. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech, Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 PM. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 PM on Think Tech, Hawaii. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. In case you are just tuning in, my guest today is Toby Tamaye. He is one of the top marketing professionals in Hawaii and often referred to as the digital superman. Toby, you are the digital superman. Shhh. And you're an expert in so many things digital. Can you tell me about that? So one of the things that my company, Team Marketing, is really trying to strive for is becoming the digital experts. And when we're talking digital, we're talking so many different landscapes of digital, from social media to websites to online advertising, influencer marketing of social media, bloggers, news sites. I mean, it goes on and on, advertising on AdWords, advertising on Google, making sure your listing is correct. Just keeps going on and on and on. And we're just talking, again, one language, English. Let's separate this and go into multiple language. And we've got another way that we have to really figure out how to communicate digitally. So our job, just keep learning. We know that this is the way that the market is moving, or a lot of the shift to mobile as well. And so as we talk, as the viewers are watching this today, there's such a big shift in the landscape in terms of digital. And even for people like us, it's still hard to maintain and keep up. There's the virtual reality part of where marketing is headed to. Can you talk about that virtual reality? Sure. So VR is a big project for ours. I'm actually traveling. I'll be in Hong Kong from July 15 to 17, visiting a VR studio there called Shadow Factory. It's actually owned by a local boy from the Big Island. He started the company about two years ago. Now he has 65 employees. It's a very large production now of developing VR and augmented reality. They actually have relationships with Facebook as well. So they're developing some programs at Facebook. Our job right now is to learn what they're doing in Hong Kong, learn what they're doing in their satellite cities, such as LA and Tokyo, as well as Taipei. Get that information, and bring it here to Hawaii, and show them, OK, this is what other people are doing. This is how they're interacting with the market. This is the products that they're selling. This is what they're doing for trade shows. This is what they're doing for events. This is what they're doing on YouTube. How do you get that information out there? And how do you build it? That is what we're trying to learn for now. VR is really what I think is the next step of marketing. First, you had social media that came in a little while ago. I think now VR and augmented reality and mixed reality will be the next medium that people have to learn from marketing. So you touched on augmented and mixed reality. What is that? So augmented reality, for people to understand Pokemon Go, it's basically just using a real world look and putting different type of filters in it. For example, what I think is going to happen one day is that you're going to be on Amazon one day. And Amazon will say, take a 360 pound of your room. Then you do it. And then you'll see, pick which lamp you want. And you can put the lamp in there inside an augmented reality. You can see exactly what it will look like you put on. You can put in beds. You can put in TVs. You can put in pianos. I mean, they're going to really look at this whole system as a way of you developing your lifestyle through what you see, but placing things in there that are not supposed to be there. That's exciting. Yes. And that's going to happen. That's happening already. It's happening now. It's happening now around the world. Hawaii is always a little bit late, but we're going to get there. Are you going to bring it to Hawaii? We're going to bring some good stuff here. We actually brought some programs with DFS and Michael Kors last winter. We had a gaming system where they actually started to catch Michael Kors bags. It was through VR. And it was for the winter at the DFS Waikiki. And so it was a really interaction for the guests. And what did they see? They see the bag. They catch it down. Oh, there's the Michael Kors bag around the ground. Wow. Ready to buy. That's amazing. So it's really about interaction and creating more engagement with people today. That's great. Yes. Now, regarding social media, a few weeks ago I had Emma Woe as a guest on my show. And I refer to her as the queen of social media. I could see that, yes. And I know that you are the king of social media. Can you tell me about why you're the king of social media management and advertising? Well, thank you for that, first of all. I give honest feedback. So you know what I do? I've worked hard. I've built a huge following on my Instagram, my LinkedIn, my Yelp, my Facebook. Huge, huge following. Thousands and thousands of people. And so what that has allowed me to is to really express myself in terms of promoting events, promoting restaurants, promoting people, promoting the show. Make sure you guys watch my show today. Really getting that together in terms of who I am, what my company does, and what I want to deliver through these mediums. I'm really excited about what social media is. I really advise, when I talk to a lot of the classes at UH and KCC, I always tell them, you need to build a social media network. How is that going to make me successful? It's going to make your living more successful than you are today. So I advise people right now to really look at their network and how they build. And if you get built, maybe the king of social media where I can promote stuff and bring people any time I need to, which is what I can do right now. With a point of a button? Totally. That's really exciting things to really know that's happening to this world. Do you feel that social media is just going to get bigger and bigger? Absolutely. We're just we're in the early stages right now. We haven't seen a lot of entrance come in. Snapchat was probably the last one that came in. But it's really Facebook and Instagram here in Hawaii, as well as around the world. So it's just going to get stronger. There's going to be more interaction when you're going to see what Facebook will augment reality, as well as what you're going to see how Instagram is delivering stories to people and how we're using them as actually influencers to help promote our brands. I want to ask you about that. What insights can you share about Instagram social media influencers? So right now, locally, we have about 250 people on our database that deal with food health. I'm sorry, food or fashion. And so we'll invite them to parties. There's one tonight. There's another one tomorrow. So there'll be a bunch of food influencers there that are locally that have 1,000 Instagram followers. And so what we're expecting them to do is post one on their Instagram and maybe an Instagram stories. What I'm trying to do right now is I'm actually trying to build. And if you guys don't know what Instagram posts and Instagram stories is, you should really know the difference because it'll help you out. We're really trying to build Instagram stories. So we're trying to build influencers. Recently, last week, we had six influencers from Japan. They all had 165,000 or more followers. And so I sent them to a restaurant and just asked for some Instagram stories for trade. And so a lot of people right now are really looking at how do we get more influencers into the market from Japan, from the US, even here locally. Maui Big Island, that's where the control is of messaging now. But how do you know them? How do you meet them? How do you grow them? That's the challenge that we're having today. And you yourself is a major influencer. I do have some draw, yes. So how did you build your network? So one of the things that I do right now is, let's say I met you seven years ago, I would ask for your business card. Today, when I meet you, I ask for your Instagram handle. Really? Yes. Why is it like that now? I'll be connected to you. A business card is basically I put it on my desk, and that's it. And I probably won't see it again. But I'll see you in my Instagram feed. I'll learn who you are. I'll learn. And it's not like you're telling me, Toby, look what I'm eating. Toby, look what I'm doing. You're not telling me any of that. I'm actually going there and looking at it. And so much people come to me and say, you know what? I went to this restaurant because of you. I went to this place because of you. It feels so great to know that people are listening and being engaged and showing enthusiasm to do things that we're showcasing all together on social media. You have a great connection with the Japanese people. I mean, you love the Japanese people. I love Japan, yes. What do you know about the Japanese people that others don't? Well, so I'll be flying to Japan next week. OK, cool. I'll be there. That doesn't surprise me. I'll be there for two weeks in July, which is so hot. Don't go in July. But I go there every July. And so I travel there a lot. I know the food. I know the culture. I study music. I study news. Right now, unfortunately, I'm recording the World Cup against Japan and Belgium. Awesome. That's how much I love to really be connected to the culture. So people have to understand, if you really want to understand the culture, really be connected. You've got to do homework. And once again, beyond marketing, you've got to go beyond what you know, what you want to do, and keep learning. I wish I could learn Korea. I wish I could learn Taiwan. I wish I could learn Hong Kong. I mean, there's so many other cultures I want to develop. But of course, definitely Japan is my expertise. Flights to Japan are very cheap now. So why is that? Crazy cheap. Last year, two air carriers came in, Air Asia and Scoot. They're actually flying in through Osaka. And because of that, their low-cost airlines, they actually were able to drop the rates dramatically to the Osaka region. Unfortunately, it's not been happening within the Rita and the Tokyo market. However, starting next May, Air Nippon Airlines is supposed to be flying three daily flights, these large air buses that are double-deckers. And that's going to create more seats, and you might see better pricing coming starting next summer. So it's a very exciting time to go to Japan. Right now, Osaka will be priced very low for a while. And I see Tokyo being priced very low starting next summer. Great opportunity for the people of Hawaii. And the food is much cheaper. You'll be surprised. Hawaii is just a very expensive place. Sorry. And delicious. The food's great in Japan. I love even the food at the airports in Japan. Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah, in fact, one of the famous restaurants I just called Tsurutontou, and they're in the Haneda Airport. And they just actually opened up at the Ro Hawaiian Center a couple of weeks ago. So Hawaii is getting a lot of great restaurants. I mean, we're so lucky to live here, especially if you love Japanese food. And if you love Instagram, put it up and show everybody what's going on at these restaurants. Help them out. Really helps people out when you promote them on their Instagram. Toby, you're always so positive, and you're full of energy. What inspires and motivates you every day? What motivates me? I definitely got some motivation reading your book. Thank you so much. Beyond the Lines really gives me information and insight. I refer back to that book quite often. Thank you. Looking back at different things, you need to work on yourself all the time, and you need to really understand what you're doing. And for me, your type of book that self-help is very helpful. One of the things that I'm really saying right now is for people that want to be successful, go out and just learn how to be successful. Google will help you do that. You're actually self-taught. I'm self-taught. Everything I've done, I've learned myself. I'm actually now going to Google and learning how do you do mixed reality in an event studio? I got to keep learning. Thank goodness for Google. Thank goodness for Google. Yes. Now, you shared some great insights on where marketing is headed and just going beyond the conventional marketing. Absolutely. If people or businesses want to reach you, how can they reach you? Right now, the best way to reach me is to just connect with me on Instagram. I know it's kind of tough for a lot of people. You can also connect to me on Facebook at toby.tomai. But of course, Instagram and Twitter is probably my major ways of really getting connected with people these days. We really want to make sure that people understand that with social media, it's about connection. It's about delivering information. It's about supporting businesses. It's really about beyond marketing nowadays. Awesome. Toby, thank you for being here today. It was great having you share all these insights into marketing and why you're the expert and why you are the digital. You're too kind. You're too kind. You're too kind. And you're the king of social media. You're too kind. You're too kind. Thank you, Toby. Thank you, Rusty. Thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Rusty Komori reminding you to outdo what you have done and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.