It’s a marketer’s dream: Internet hosting a sold-out occasion for 10k attendees. That manufacturers are begging to be part of. Oh, and that was headlined this 12 months by none apart from Taraji P. Henson, Kerry Washington, and Jennifer Hudson.
That’s Shareese Bembury-Coakley’s actuality as one of many driving forces behind CultureCon, the world’s largest pageant for Black creatives and entrepreneurs.
Right here’s how she makes the magic occur.
Meet the Grasp
Shareese Bembury-Coakley
Vice President, Enterprise growth and partnerships at CultureCon
Declare to fame: Efficiently offered a partnership between the TV present Killing Eve and buy-now-pay-later service Klarna; deliverables included an in-app expertise that sourced items from Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh’s (actually unimaginable) wardrobes. (Lesson 0: Search for viewers habits which you can amplify. Bembury-Coakley had famous that viewers have been asking questions on social media about designers.)
Lesson 1: It’s not “Why this?”, it’s “Why you?”.
At CultureCon, Bembury-Coakley tells me, folks make a run for Activation Alley as quickly because it opens.
It’s not simply that the activations are superb or {that a} explicit model is there — it’s that CultureCon’s attendees have excessive expectations, as a result of they belief that this 12 months’s activations will likely be pretty much as good because the final. (Extra on this in a minute.)
With occasions and experiential areas turning into ever extra saturated, I ask Bembury-Coakley how she stands out in a crowd. Her reply is deceptively easy: As an alternative of answering the query, “Why do that concept?” reply the query, “Why do that concept with me?”
“It’s not nearly it being a novel concept,” she says. “Oftentimes, folks can’t reply the ‘with me’ query.” To reply it, consider your cultural relevancy, your neighborhood, and your consistency.
And consider it as a lens. While you focus your concepts by “why me,” you possibly can body your deliverables in a means that makes it “as straightforward as attainable to get buy-in.”
Lesson 2: Construct belief earlier than opening wallets.
Belief was a through-line in our dialog, each interpersonally and between manufacturers and viewers. Bembury-Coakley credit a lot of her success to having had superb advocates all through her profession — however “it‘s double-sided,” she says. “It comes with the very heavy duty of creating certain that you just’re additionally fulfilling your guarantees on the again finish.”
In different phrases: Belief is not one thing that Shareese Bembury-Coakley takes flippantly.
She carries this duty into her work with manufacturers and partnerships. I ask her what makes her say “no” to a CultureCon partnership, and she or he instantly says, “something that may betray the belief we’ve constructed with our neighborhood.”
Belief is the underlying motive that Activation Alley is so standard — model activations “aren’t a mandatory evil that you just’re connecting with for a free water bottle,” Bembury-Coakley says. They’re “a testomony to how authentically our companions have confirmed up previously.”
The key behind the Activation Alley hype is fairly easy, actually: Consistency.
Lesson 3: Creators have audiences. Manufacturers have bosses.
“Creators ought to at all times keep in mind that their level of contact has a boss,” Bembury-Coakley says. “Normally the individual they‘re speaking to is a stakeholder — but it surely’s usually not the key stakeholder.”
“Something that you are able to do to be a useful resource to make it simpler in your companion goes to extend the probability of them working with you once more,” she says. “I feel generally you take a look at the manufacturers as an entire, however they’re [made up of] people.” It’s straightforward for creators to neglect that “figuring find out how to navigate these manufacturers internally in a means that makes it straightforward on them” — and that makes them extra more likely to need to hold working with you.
And on the flip facet, “the model ought to at all times bear in mind why they needed to work with that creator to start with.” What usually occurs, she says, is {that a} creator’s content material could be barely controversial, however as soon as they’ve signed with a model, the model “needs them to be extraordinarily brand-safe in a means that may be betraying their viewers.”
See? All of it comes right down to belief.
Masters in Advertising was a proud sponsor of this 12 months’s CultureCon, which occurred October 4 – 5, 2025.
Lingering Questions
This Week’s Query
Relating to constructing partnerships for CultureCon, how do you resolve which individuals to collaborate with — whether or not that’s audio system, creators, or neighborhood leaders — to verify they authentically characterize CultureCon’s mission and resonate together with your viewers? —Deesha Laxsav, Senior supervisor of name advertising and marketing, Clutch
This Week’s Reply
Bembury-Coakley: At CultureCon, information is paramount to every part we do. So, we‘re not making assumptions about our viewers, we’re not simply developing with concepts. We’re actually letting that [data] inform every part that you just see.
So, the programming that you just see being hyper-relevant? Our communities instructed us what they needed, the manufacturers that they like to interact with, the audio system they needed to listen to from, and we listened to them.
I feel a variety of manufacturers and communities are generally attempting to go towards the grain, attempting to push one thing on their viewers, and it‘s not what they need. We evolve and iterate [based on data], and that’s why the manufacturers and the neighborhood and the audio system can come out and have a good time.
Subsequent Week’s Lingering Query
Bembury-Coakley asks: I feel nostalgia is one thing that‘s been overdone. I’d like to know: What’s a greater means for manufacturers to interact with communities or shoppers that they need to join with?
