Meet the Geeks! It’s Bryan

In our ongoing “Meet the Geeks!” series, it’s time to introduce you to our Marketing Director, Bryan Carr! Let’s get to it.

When you type something up at work, you don’t typically expect to hear someone read it out loud at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, but that can totally happen when you’re part of Geeks Who Drink. “That was the first Geek Bowl I attended, and I helped write a small piece of it,” Bryan Carr said. “Being in that room, seeing it come to life, and seeing this huge venue filled with people playing [trivia] and having a great time… I mean, even if I just wrote one question for the entire night, just being part of it was a lot of fun.”

Bryan, an Illinois native, started his trivia career writing for a company that was acquired by Geeks Who Drink. After his LinkedIn page and email address changed, he wrote for the editorial team at Geeks for three-plus years. “I’ve also worked in business development for a manufacturing company for the past 15 years, and when the pandemic hit, our entire business and revenue models at Geeks were obliterated overnight,” he said. “When it was time to start rebuilding, they said ‘We need your help,’ so I switched to Business Development here too.”

Although he says he occasionally misses writing — “now it’s all business and marketing, all the time” — Bryan enjoys telling bar and restaurant owners about the OFF-THE-CHARTS ENTERTAINMENT that Geeks Who Drink can offer, and he feels like his time on the editorial side made him even better at explaining what sets us apart.

“I’ve been sort of ingrained in the brand,” he explained. “Our editorial voice and our quizzes are what really showcase that. Moving into a marketing role, and being able to communicate that has been key, whether we’re focusing on our messaging to bars owners, doing private event outreach or working with potential sponsors looking to advertise to our player base, being able to communicate our value proposition using our voice has been key. If I came in cold, it could be very difficult to replicate, and it might even come off as phony.”

When he talks to potential partners, Bryan will explain the difference between generic “trivia nights” that everyone has heard of (and that everyone has probably endured at some point), and a Geeks Who Drink-style trivia night. “When you look at our brand, our artwork, our whole suite that explains who we are, we stand alone,” he said. “The name itself is catchy and gets people’s attention. We also have extremely great branding assets that we provide to bar owners that really stand out. We give bar owners all the tools — like posters, digital marketing assets, that kind of thing — that they need to extend their reach in the region they’re trying to grow their business in. When you factor all that in with our own social media following, we really pride ourselves at being a marketing extension for our clients.”

When bar owners sign up with Geeks, Bryan works with the operations department to make sure the clients get everything they’ll need to promote their new offering, so both new and existing customers will know what’s coming — and Geeks does a great job of keeping them coming back, too.

“I think if you play any competition night anywhere else, you’ll get the same run-of-the-mill type-questions, but when you come to a Geeks night, there’s a style that’s extremely unique,” he says. “That’s what we build the brand on, and that’s what brings people back.” (And we swear he’s not saying that because he used to write some of the questions.)

That same approach applies to private events as well, whether you’re just interested in doing something other than the Electric Slide during your wedding weekend, or whether you’re trying to do something cool for your employees who are finally back in the office. “Private events are just an extension of what we can provide,” he says. “Whether it’s a room with a dozen people, 100 people, 200 people, it will be fun. You can be a bar owner trying to bring in more customers, or the boss who wants to host a team-building exercise, and Geeks will be something you can look at to bring value to that experience.”

And if you talk to Bryan in-person, he might even drop some random knowledge on you. “When I was helping write for the Geeks Who Drink Duh! Book, I wrote an essay about Hidden Valley Ranch dressing,” he said. “I remember that the guy who invented it was a plumber in Alaska, working remotely. He ended up with an actual ranch called Hidden Valley, and he was serving this new ‘ranch’ dressing there. If you know me, you know I eat ranch with everything, so to actually learn where it came from was pretty fascinating.”

Cool, any chance you could explain why people put it on pizza?