The World’s First PodFerence
About 6 months ago, I was in a meeting with my team at Mediacom and media publisher. We had tasked this publisher (and many others) to identify a new and innovative way for Dell to bring Small Business Month (May) to life in a way similar to how Amex built Small Business Saturday. The meeting with this publisher was fine, but like all of our prior meetings with other publishers, the activation ideas felt basic or expected. Until we wandered down a hole during a complete sidebar about Podcasts. During this discussion, we were discussing custom podcast episode I did for Reebok and the Iverson drop. We partnered with a sports/culture podcast, Black Opinions Matter, to do a podcast about the cultural impact that Allen Iverson, and his shoe, had on basketball and culture in america. The podcast was a huge success, and played a very small part in the successful re-launch of the Iverson shoe. While the idea of a single custom podcast wasn’t totally extraordinary, I stumbled into an idea that was.
What if instead of putting on a traditional conference, one hosted in some ballroom at a fancy hotel that only 1,000 people could attend, we hosted a digital conference that anyone could attend, from any where, at any time? What if we replaced keynotes and panel discussions with podcasts? Thus was the beginning of my idea for the world’s first “PodFerence”.
My team at Mediacom, our clients at Dell Small Business and a few key publishing partners (Entercom, The Athletic, Wondery and NPR) worked tirelessly to get 15+ big name podcasters (Like Michael Lewis and Malcom Gladwell!) to produce a custom episode that would provide real advice or guidance to small business owners and entrepreneurs. We then enlisted the help of the creative systems team at Mediacom to build a microsite and custom playlists on Spotify, iTunes and Radio.com to help bring all the content together in an easy to consumer format. It was an exciting and innovative way to bring to life a conference that you didn’t need to leave your home to attend. Which, because of the devastating Covid-19 quarantine, turned out to be quite the coincidentally important component.
After months of hardwork, 6 weeks ago during Small Business Month, our team launched the inaugural Dell Technologies Small Business PodFerence. While I can’t yet share the results, I can say that they were extremely positive. And, I couldn’t be prouder of our teams or our clients for bringing this idea to life in such an amazing way - under the most challenging of circumstances.
If you’d like to read more about the Podference checkout this article in Mediapost.
The Sneaker Industry Paradox
It all begins with an idea.
A few weeks ago, for Sneaker Week, I had the pleasure of writing a piece for TrueHoop about how the sneaker industry is paradoxically elevating and exploiting black culture. The article, which leans heavily on my real-life experience as a marketer and publicly sourced data, uncovers how marketers use the influence of black america to drive mainstream (white) adoption. The only problem is they tend to market their highest price point items, to the audiences who can least afford them - thus perpetuating subconscious beliefs about self-worth being tied to consumerism. While none of these tactics are implemented maliciously (neither the agencies nor the brands are truly aware of what they’re doing), the article explores how important it is for us to address this reality and how probably only one man, LeBron James, has the power to change it. Take a read and I hope you enjoy it:
