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The Keys to Building a Successful Career in Media, Marketing, and Branding · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So let's get into this. So, all right. How do
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you start your career? Right. Coming from East New York.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: What's your break into the industry and which industry do
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: you start first? Was it music, fashion, liquor? Like, how
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: did you actually, you know, get your stride?
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's funny. I started in media. So media
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  Speaker 2: is a big, big part of my my expertise as well.
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  Speaker 2: So I started at a small Internet company a long
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: time ago, like a long time ago, mid 90s. A
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: long time ago. I've been in the game for a minute.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I want to say it's 96. Okay. I made it myself,
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  Speaker 2: which is cool. But yeah, I worked for a company
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  Speaker 2: called iVillage.com. And they were like the first lifestyle website
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  Speaker 2: for women. And I was the 35th employee. I literally
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  Speaker 2: was just looking for a full-time job. I was in
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: college and wanted to make some money. I was putting
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: myself through college and wanted to work in advertising. And
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: they had a job opening and they hired me. And
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: amazing ride. Four years was a part of their IPO.
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  Speaker 2: Friends and family stocked it really, really well. They ultimately
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: got acquired by NBC. So I had experience in that
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  Speaker 2: space very early on in my career, but loved advertising
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  Speaker 2: and marketing, but really needed something that was speaking to
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  Speaker 2: me culturally. And so I don't know if you guys
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: know Keith Klinkscales.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, heard of him.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So I believe he created 30 for 30
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: with ESPN. He's one of the original pioneers in the culture,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: also launched Vibe magazine. Keith started a company called Vanguard Media,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: and they had three magazines, Honey, Heart and Soul, and Savoy.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: And Honey magazine was like the essence for young Black women, right?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Essence at the time was a little bit more mature and, oh,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: your man left you and you got a divorce. I
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm 20. I don't know anything about that life.
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  Speaker 2: But Honey was fashion forward and makeup and beauty and
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: music and all the things I loved. And I was like,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: you know what? I want to work at this magazine.
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  Speaker 2: So I literally wrote old school books. wrote my letters
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and my resume, mailed it out, convinced them to sponsor
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: a party at Howard University for Howard Homecoming. And they
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  Speaker 2: came in as a media partner and they loved the
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  Speaker 2: work that I did with my cohorts, DSMs, who I'm
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: sure you guys have heard of in the industry also,
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  Speaker 2: Sean Combs alumni and genius in her own right. She
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  Speaker 2: and I had a company and we did an event
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  Speaker 2: with Mark Barnes in DC and got Honey to come down.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: They loved it and they were so impressed that they
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: hired me. And I went into sales for Honeyheart and
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Soul & Savoy for about four or five years. Then
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: ultimately heard about me at Time Inc. They brought me
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: over to Time Inc. to work at their publications there.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: And then Glamour Magazine recruited me. And then Vibe recruited me.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And then Giant recruited me. And I was finding this
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  Speaker 2: whole pattern of people seeing excellence in the marketplace and
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  Speaker 2: calling me like, hey, we're here doing great things in
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  Speaker 2: the market. We'd love for you to be a part
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  Speaker 2: of our team. So that went on for about 15 years.
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  Speaker 2: And ultimately I burned out. Like I can't keep doing
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  Speaker 2: sales and teaching people how to spend money with black people.
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  Speaker 2: Cause it was a real challenge. It was like, no
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  Speaker 2: black people buy shampoo. No, we buy cars. And it
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: was constantly educating people to allocate money to us.
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  Speaker 3: Allocate money inside of the publications and outside of the publications.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: What exactly are we doing in sales?
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  Speaker 2: So I was selling advertising within the publication. So when
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: you go into a magazine and you see a print ad,
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  Speaker 2: I was literally selling those ads. So I would go
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: to companies, major companies like L'Oreal and some of the others.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And they just really didn't understand the segment of the
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: African-American audience in a way that made sense. And so
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  Speaker 2: they felt like they were capturing us if they ran
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  Speaker 2: a commercial on ABC or if they ran an ad
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  Speaker 2: in a white magazine or a general market magazine. And
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  Speaker 2: it's like, you need to be able to speak to
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  Speaker 2: us specifically in order for us to be loyal to
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  Speaker 2: your brands. So that went on for over a decade
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  Speaker 2: of constantly teaching people about our value And I realized
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  Speaker 2: that print was a dying industry at the time. And
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I was like, I need to do something different. And
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  Speaker 2: I'm really good at marketing. That's the reason why I'm
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: selling the way that I'm selling in advertising. And I
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: just started taking a bunch of informational interviews. And I
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: sat down with this woman. Her name is Imani Duncan.
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  Speaker 2: And at the time, she was the CMO of Bad
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  Speaker 2: Boy Worldwide Entertainment Group. Now Combs Enterprises. But it used
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: to be BBWEG. But now it's actually Combs Global now.
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  Speaker 1: Combs Global.
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  Speaker 2: And she asked me what my dream job would look like.
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  Speaker 2: And I just told her what it was. It was
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  Speaker 2: this hybrid between marketing and strategy, but still monetizing paradigm
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  Speaker 2: and monetizing process. And she was like, this sounds exactly
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: like what we're trying to create for our internal agency,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Blue Flame. And would you ever consider working for Sean Combs?
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  Speaker 2: And I was like, absolutely not.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: How come?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Who will work for Sean Combs? He makes people go
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: get cheesecake. He does all these things.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: So this is like early 2000s, making another band?
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  Speaker 2: This is 2008, 2009. And I'm like, you know, he's brilliant,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: but he also could be mercurial, right? Like really just like,
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  Speaker 2: go get the cheesecake. That's what we've seen, right? Now
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  Speaker 2: I've known him in business and I've known his brilliance
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: in business, but I just thought our personalities wouldn't work. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, upon further review and talking to a few colleagues,
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  Speaker 2: I realized there was a real opportunity here. What he
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  Speaker 2: was creating in the space, what the agency represented, and
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: what my skill set could bring to the table. And
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  Speaker 2: I was like, let me just take a chance. And
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  Speaker 2: it literally was the best decision I've ever made in
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  Speaker 2: my life, ever, hands down. I actually was promoted eight
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: times in nine and a half years. At the time,
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  Speaker 2: I was one of four people that worked on every
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: piece of his business. So like every piece. that you
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  Speaker 2: see in the portfolio at the time, there were eight
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: or nine brands. I believe when I was there, Derek Ferguson,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Dia Sims, a couple of other folks were privileged to
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  Speaker 2: have access at that level. And I was so blessed
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: to be a part of cultural definition, right? Like I
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: literally was on the task force team to launch revolt
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  Speaker 2: TV as we know it today. And when people were
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: talking about it, they were like, Oh, you know, Puff
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: has a new show called Revolt. I said, no, Puff
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  Speaker 2: has a network, a television network, like MTV. And people
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: really couldn't wrap their minds around what Revolt even was
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: because it was so big. And having that kind of
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: access to creating culture is bar none. You can't wish
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  Speaker 2: for that in your biggest dreams. And I think also
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: being that close to leadership at that level, like Sean
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Combs is brilliant as you guys saw experiencing him, right?
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Like I think people think his celebrity... is the thing
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: that has created so much success in business, or his popularity,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: or even his charisma. And all those things are accurate,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: but it really is his brain. He is a brilliant
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  Speaker 2: strategic marketer and cross-category. He can really look at the
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: vision and see where things are going. And so having
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  Speaker 2: that level of access to talent at that level, and
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  Speaker 2: then also the group of people that I worked with
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  Speaker 2: to build that company, bar none, best decision ever.
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  Speaker 3: So you're at the cusp of the beginning of Revolt.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: This is early, early Ciroc, because we're talking like maybe 2006,
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  Speaker 3: up to 2009. So the early stages of Ciroc. What
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: are those meetings like? Because this is an industry, again, that,
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: especially in Spirits at that time, that we hadn't really
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: ventured in at the level of success that we see
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  Speaker 3: Ciroc now. And I think maybe Oprah is the only
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  Speaker 3: one that had a network. So what are these meetings
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  Speaker 3: like that you're taking in?
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  Speaker 2: So a few timeline things. Ciroc actually happened quite a
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: few years before Revolt happened. But I was not a
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: part of the initial launch of Ciroc, the 2007 alliance.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: That's a DSM story. I give people their flowers. We'll
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: say the DSM is literally, she's the one. She is
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  Speaker 2: the one. I would never, ever, you know what I mean,
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  Speaker 2: like take away anything. the level of leadership and vision
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  Speaker 2: that she had in supporting Sean and where he was
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: able to take his company. And it was because of
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: her and a few other people, Derek Ferguson is another
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  Speaker 2: main one, that really helped to cement the infrastructure around
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  Speaker 2: all of the brands that sort of burgeoned after that
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Ciroc deal. I came in about two years after the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Ciroc partnership. To be a part of, for instance, the innovations.
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  Speaker 2: So Redberry and Coconut were the first two flavors to
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: launch on the Ciroc umbrella. So I literally rooted a
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  Speaker 2: tutor part of that initial team, launching bottle design, flavor profiles, strategy,
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  Speaker 2: all of those things. The idea of the flavors that
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  Speaker 2: you experience for Ciroc, Sean literally... He was the noser.
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  Speaker 2: He literally tasted every berry flavor. Apple came out. I
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: had to literally source apples in Canada. This is a
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: real story. Source apples in Canada because apple is one
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: of his favorite flavors. He loves apple pie. So when
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: we launched the Rock Apple, we had to find apples
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: from everywhere to make sure that we were really capturing
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: the essence of what apple represents. and literally work with
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: research and development to create a liquid that mimicked his
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: favorite apple. So when you're experiencing Ciroc as a flavor profile,
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  Speaker 2: these are literally things that he created from his mind.
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  Speaker 2: It's not like he was like, oh, let me taste
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  Speaker 2: this bubble gum or this cough medicine. He's like, no,
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  Speaker 2: I want the real mango fruit. And where's the best mango?
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  Speaker 2: You know, he's just a very best in class marketer.
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  Speaker 2: And to be able to be a part of that
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  Speaker 2: journey was really brilliant in building a brand.