Episode 11: Katie Kern of Media Frenzy Global on Diversity and Inclusion

The COO of Media Frenzy Global offers some frank observations on the real and superficial changes in the marketing world’s push for more diverse and inclusive workplaces.

Transcript:

Rudy: Hey everyone. I really enjoyed this conversation with Katie Kern who’s a partner and COO of Media Frenzy Global. We talked about entrepreneurship and creating a personal brand, but it was the diversity and inclusion conversation that really resonated with me. Now, frankly, whenever I’ve discussed it with people in marketing, I usually get a vanilla sort of kumbaya response. Katie’s narrative was very different and felt a lot more real and powerful. I’m really excited to share this episode with you. Welcome to Marketing Upheaval.

Announcer: You’re listening to Marketing Upheaval from Creative Outhouse.

Rudy: Welcome to Marketing Upheaval. My guest is Katie Kern, partner and COO of Media Frenzy Global, a PR and content marketing firm that’s strong in the technology space. Before joining Media Frenzy, Katie owned her own lifestyle PR agency. She was selected to be part of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program to help train and support entrepreneurs. And she writes and speaks about diversity and inclusion, has won many awards. So really excited to talk to her today. Katie, thanks for joining us.

Katie Kern: Thanks for having me.

Rudy: The fact that you switched from fashion to technology, I thought, “Wow, those are real different.” So do you see any overlaps, anything in fashion that helped you with technology?

Katie Kern: You know what’s interesting? I think technology companies want to be in the fashion industry because we’re the cool kids to a certain extent, from a creativity standpoint, everyone who wants … Everyone loves the glitz and the glamor of fashion, and they see how fashion brands actually kind of go to market once a season. It’s not once a year. Most technology companies, if you think about how companies market themselves, they put together a big marketing campaign for the entire year and then go from there and kind of deploy it. Fashion, we have to be a lot more kind of on the ball thinking.

Rudy: Constantly flexible.

Katie Kern: Constantly all the time thinking about, okay, there’s a new collection coming out. We have to market it differently. Maybe a different demographic. You never know.

Rudy: It’s a complete emotional sell, fashion. I’m sure there’s logic in the decisions, but it’s an art.

Katie Kern: Well, I think the creation of fashion is an art. The selling is that there’s definitely has to be some logic there.

Rudy: Yeah.

Katie Kern: Have to know your customer for sure. So I think they both go hand in hand. You think about Apple with a smartwatch. It’s a fashion piece. Think about …

Rudy: And you mentioned I’m wearing a Fitbit with a red band.

Katie Kern: Exactly. Think about Amazon, it’s the fashion platform where you actually purchase merchandise. Google, same thing. Google actually partnered with Levi’s to do a collaboration. So there’s always that crossover. And I think both industries are very much interested in one another for sure.

Rudy: So technology is obviously the reason the world is changing so fast, including marketing. What are some of the more surprising things you’ve seen changing in some of the areas with some of the clients you work?

Katie Kern: What’s changing is probably the consumer has power.

Rudy: Yeah.

Katie Kern: And I think marketers are seeing that and taking notice. Customers are much more involved in the decision making process and how they’re being marketed to. So that type of power is changing the way that we are working within the industry. We’re paying a lot more attention to what our customers are saying, that listening tool that on our social media platforms, we’re definitely listening. And then from there, I think a lot of campaigns are being sparked from those. I don’t like to call them influencers because I think influencers are passe. They’re super fans.

Rudy: Yeah. What is a super fan?

Katie Kern: So a super fan is someone that you don’t actually pay to market your brand.

Rudy: I got you.

Katie Kern: An influencer is someone that come up with some various hopefully strategic content strategy to roll out to their followers. But super fans are the ones who have been with those brands from probably the beginning. You don’t have to pay them. They’re loyal by default because they’re actually getting a good product or service.

Rudy: And they will defend you if something goes wrong or someone says something bad about you.

Katie Kern: Oh my gosh, they’re the best. When it comes to defending a brand, having someone to speak up outside of a press release, when something goes bad with a company, they’re ready to release some sort of news announcement apologizing or having some sort of rationale on why they’ve done something. That super fan, no matter what, they’re going to be there in their corner backing them up.

Rudy: How do you create super fans and that’s the …

Katie Kern: I think it’s just from loyalty. I think a lot of brands really don’t capitalize on how they can create loyalty within communities. Kind of take a step back and look at what Gucci did. There was a huge debacle with Gucci from a diversity and inclusion standpoint. They did a lot of putting something very derogatory towards African-Americans on a shirt that went down the runway. And you had these super fans actually come out and say, “We understand it was art. It was creative.” People actually defended them so they didn’t have the backlash that they could have if they didn’t have the super fans in place.

Rudy: This has been a common theme as I’ve talked to more and more people. The way that technology has made our business change is that consumers have more say. They are part of the brand.

Katie Kern: Yeah.

Rudy: So my belief is that the reason people defend something or become maybe super fans is because it becomes part of them. It becomes part of their own identity.

Katie Kern: Starbucks is a great example of that. You see people. They identify with Starbucks, a second extension of their hand almost that Starbucks cup.

Rudy: Yeah.

Katie Kern: It represents something.

Rudy: It’s not just coffee.

Katie Kern: It’s not just coffee. It’s a status symbol.

Rudy: Yeah.

Katie Kern: Like I can afford $5, a $5 coffee every day when I walk out. I’ve made it. I’ve arrived. It’s a status symbol. So those types of brands, they can really create that type of loyalty amongst those super fans.

Rudy: How do you use that in the technology space though?

Katie Kern: One thing that technology companies unfortunately do is they kind of stick to the script. No one wants to be the early adopter to kind of a new marketing strategy. It’s kind of the same old, same old. Once a company actually steps out and does something differently, those are the companies that are going to create those fans per se. I think about right now SAP has a really cool marketing campaign that that’s really geared towards the customer experience. And they’ve gone to a place of humor. You wouldn’t necessarily think of a technology company like SAP to incorporate humor. So I think that more and more of technology companies taking that risk, doing something that’s a little bit more emotional versus kind of selling products and features and benefits.

Rudy: Bullet points.

Katie Kern: Yeah, exactly. Then you’ll see kind of that shift changing.

Rudy: Well good because that’s a plug for creative, and I’m always, I’m always on board for that. So tell me about the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. I had never heard of that and now I’m intrigued by it. It’s obviously a very selective process. And you were chosen?

Katie Kern: I was selected, yes. Someone nominated me for the program. Goldman Sachs and Babson College actually partnered up. That’s the curriculum is through Babson College.

Rudy: Yeah.

Katie Kern: It was a grueling 12 week process. It’s like an MBA condensed into 12 weeks basically. And you learn everything from how to develop a company culture to how to better manage your finances and even to an exit strategy.

Rudy: Wow.

Katie Kern: So it’s a pretty intense.

Rudy: So what did you learn there you think that shapes the way you handle, let’s say the change that’s going on?

Katie Kern: I think more than anything that I learned from the Babson program was probably my attitudes towards entrepreneurship. They definitely teach you how to work on the business versus in the business.

Rudy: What does that mean?

Katie Kern: So my day to day, normally in the past prior to Babson College was really getting into the kind of arms and legs of the business, really talking about strategy, going to meetings, meeting with clients, doing a lot of things that our team could actually do. Me kind of stepping away and saying, “You know what? I need to put on my COO hat and really kind of dedicate myself to building processes and procedures so that I can hand those over to our team so that they can better efficiently work day to day.” It’s like you’re constantly in the grind and taking a step back and kind of looking at the company from a bigger picture and making decisions based on that versus just that day to day grind.

Rudy: Talking about small business and entrepreneurship, and couple of small business entrepreneurs stats are for stat nerds like me. 99.7% of all commerce in the US is conducted by small business. So yeah, yes, according to the SBA. 9.9 million are women owned or 36% of small businesses.

Katie Kern: Yeah, yes.

Rudy: And have almost 30 million US small businesses, about 8 million are minority owned. And over the last 10 years, more than half of all the new businesses started are minority owned businesses. And I know you speak a lot about inclusion and diversity and the number of minority and female owned businesses is growing. So my question is this. Because on the one hand that’s great, but on the other hand I have to ask myself, is that because there’s more opportunities opening up for women owned businesses and minority owned businesses, or is it because they are not finding their way or a path up within the larger corporations?

Katie Kern: I would say maybe that’s probably like a 60/40 split on that, 60% knowing that there was a glass ceiling there for African-American women. I can only speak to that group because I am an African-American woman and have tons of African-American women who I know have gone through that whole entire corporate process. And there is a glass ceiling there. And it’s hard to break. And it gets very frustrating and lonely and you know it’s time to exit.

Rudy: We were talking about at Alicia Thompson, mutual friends.

Katie Kern: Yes.

Rudy: Majority of the people in PR and advertising are female. And yet, if you look at the leadership of most large corporation is male.

Katie Kern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rudy: And she pointed out that maybe that’s why there are so many small and medium size businesses owned by women. So that’s why I wonder. Do you think things are changing within the corporate world or how do you think these smaller companies are changing the world?

Katie Kern: My definition of change and other people’s definition of change are probably different.

Rudy: Oh, I want to hear yours.

Katie Kern: When someone says, “Oh, 5% increase in this industry, 5% more C-suites,” or whatever, to me that’s not really change. When I think about change, I always think about when we stop saying the first black woman CEO or the first … There’s always that first. We’re still saying that. When we’re not saying that anymore, that’s what I consider change. And I think that sometimes some companies have been hit on their wrists with the say you need to hire more minorities and they’re doing it for public persona.

Rudy: I wonder that myself. I’m probably naïve. But I think most people are good people.

Katie Kern: Yeah.

Rudy: In that they wouldn’t purposely go out and hurt another person. I think. I’d like to believe that anyway.

Katie Kern: We all do.

Rudy: I think people have blind spots. People tend to hire people who are like them.

Katie Kern: Absolutely.

Rudy: In it without thinking about it.

Katie Kern: Absolutely.

Rudy: And that is not just their same skin color, but also there’s gender but also their personalities. So how do you make someone who is making hiring decisions that are not diverse, open let’s say his eyes and say, “Hey, there’s a blind spot here”? How do you talk to that person and let them know a blind spot exists?

Katie Kern: It boils down to this. I think that there’s a lot of conversations happening. And people love to have conversations. That’s always kind of the starting point. I think we’re past that now. I think if people really want to understand and have compassion for others through the hiring process or whatever a diverse community looks like, it really comes down to action, and that action meaning if you want to know more about me, you have to literally want to learn about me, about my culture. It can’t be, I’m going to watch, this is a horrible example, Atlanta Housewives to learn about black.

Rudy: Oh, my gosh.

Katie Kern: Probably not the best thing to do. What I would like for people to think about is learning about other cultures, really engulfing yourself. Think about do I have neighbors that don’t look like me? Am I really interested in learning about my neighbors? Am I really interested in learning about another culture and maybe taking my family and my kids to different areas of the country or even thinking about Atlanta. How diverse is Atlanta? But it’s such a diverse mixed race, culture, religion city. And we’re so fortunate.

Katie Kern: It’s hard to think about when you think about it from a larger perspective. There’s a great book that’s out right now by Minda Harts. It’s called The Memo. And it really gives a talk about leaning in. That was a great book that everyone was just like, “You know what? I’m leaning in now. I’m going to these meetings and I’m leaning in.” But what did that mean for black women? We can’t lean in the same way that a white woman can, or a black man can’t even. It’s completely different. You have to think about what our experiences are within the workplace. And people think sometimes it’s exaggerated, thinking about the microaggressions that may happen within a workplace, they’re not taken very seriously, and that to me is the ultimate problem.

Rudy: Yeah. You spoke, we talked about being the only.

Katie Kern: Yes.

Rudy: And can you explain that?

Katie Kern: I can take that all the way back to like literally elementary school to even today. It’s always when you are thinking about opportunities that are being presented to you. There’s normally always one spot for an African-American male or female. And that space of being the only one, especially in marketing, especially working in corporate America, there’s like one African-American there or I’m the only one there. And it’s a lonely place to be because there’s not an understanding of who I am, where I came from, my background, because everyone thinks either they have already preconceived notions of who I am based on being a black woman, or they’ve seen television or had a bad experience with someone of that race and gender that has kind of determined who they think that I am.

Rudy: You hear the phrase diversity inclusion.

Katie Kern: Yes.

Rudy: There’s so many companies now that are bringing in people in sort of officer level, higher level who are directors of diversity inclusion. What do you think of that movement? I mean, the fact that it’s needed is sad, but what do you think of at least that?

Katie Kern: I think the position itself, it has no power. It’s a dotted line to the CEO of the company. They really don’t have power to make decisions. They’re part of a conversation. They’re at the table. Do they have a voice? More than likely not. There’s actually a study that came out this past year surveying director level and hire a diversity inclusion and they said they’re tired.

Rudy: Did they expand on that?

Katie Kern: It was just kind of like, “We are trying to move things along. We’re trying to implement certain strategies,” but they don’t have any power. There’s no one in that role who can say this is what the hiring strategy is going to look like from a diversity inclusion standpoint.

Rudy: So what needs to happen?

Katie Kern: I think ultimately the hiring structure and most companies need to change me. I mean, think about how right now you can go to most major companies. You go online and you submit information online. Prime example, Katie Kern. Katie is not my birth name. It’s Ekaette.

Rudy: Okay.

Katie Kern: Which is African origin. I changed to Katie because I was not getting callbacks when I started applying for jobs out of college. So prime example, how is that going to look when someone’s inputting information into a computer system when a computer system could possibly be biased based on who set up the actual standards of … from a hiring standpoint, even HR. I mean, look at most HR departments are unfortunately not very diverse. Mostly female. Maybe the head of HR is maybe a male. But it’s not very diverse. And if you’re hiring people, you’re going to hire people that probably mimic your every day.

Rudy: So we’re going to make you in charge of everything.

Katie Kern: Okay.

Rudy: Okay, so what do we do? What do we say to these HR people and these CEOs? What do we do?

Katie Kern: I think that it should be probably much more of a collaborative effort. The entire company getting involved with the hiring process versus just HR. HR is normally kind of the gatekeepers. I think that that’s the wrong decision. I think that it should be opened up to more like if I’m working in marketing, marketing shouldn’t get involved on the back end, like once we narrow down to the like the top three candidates. They need to be involved when we’re starting to vet out the top 20 so that there is kind of a fair playing field per se, much more involvement from everyone in the company, from the bottom up.

Katie Kern: And then even where you’re recruiting. A lot of these companies are recruiting at various places. And I think that go where there’s going to be a diverse group of people, not just only go to the Ivy leagues for supposedly the best and the brightest. There’s a lot of HBCUs out there that are, have top talent as well.

Rudy: Sure.

Katie Kern: So making sure that that’s kind of top of mind when you’re doing the recruiting outreach.

Katie Kern: I’m such more of a realist when it comes to the reality of where things are right now. This conversation, even the word diversity and inclusion, I feel like it’s almost a trending hashtag. I feel like it’s very popular to put diversity and inclusion on a hashtag so people can feel like brands are, or even companies are doing the right thing. When if you look at the unemployment for African-Americans right now, it’s just like, my goodness.

Rudy: Yeah.

Katie Kern: Every time I see an announcement on LinkedIn, this black woman just became the first CEO of this company, I’m like, “Great. Another one.” But it’s like another first. That type of content that’s constantly coming through these social channels, it doesn’t always necessarily make people feel good. It lets us know we have a such a long way to go.

Katie Kern: Just think about when Jackie Robinson or some of these people who are like first in a lot of different areas and people were just so happy. I mean those were proud moments, and we’re still having those moments today. But it just feels like there’s still this fight that’s having to happen. There’s still a long way to go.

Rudy: And incidentally, I was going to say when you mentioned, your name is …

Katie Kern: Ekaette.

Rudy: Ekaette.

Katie Kern: Yes.

Rudy: My real name is Rodolfo. Similar reasons. Just harder to spell every time I make a phone call.

Katie Kern: Mine’s harder to spell and hard to pronounce. I mean, the first day of school was always literally the worst day of my life.

Rudy: You know your name’s coming because they’ll go, yes.

Katie Kern: Yeah. And then you’d have to blurt it out clearly so everyone gets it. Yeah.

Rudy: My favorite is telling marketers, by the way, because they don’t see the name until the call comes up and say, “May I speak to … ” I know it’s a telemarketer.

Katie Kern: Yeah. It’s … Yeah.

Rudy: So what other than the ethical argument of you should hire a diverse staff, what’s the business case for that? What’s the cold logical reason why someone should have diversity and inclusion as part of just their normal process?

Katie Kern: Innovation. We all know the stats are there that literally major companies perform well when there’s a diverse group of people working collaboratively together. Work performance. People thrive in situations where they’re being challenged on a regular basis. It’s a win-win for everyone. It’s not just about for the sake of having the look of a diverse group of people. Just think about internally what that looks like and what that means for a company. It comes down to the bottom line. I know for a CEO, if revenue is increased or profits go up when you have a diverse group of people working together, why not? It’s good for business.

Rudy: Because you get thinking from different, completely different perspectives.

Katie Kern: Completely different perspectives, and that just doesn’t come down to race. It’s religion. It’s age, gender, whatever that looks like for anyone. It really does make the entire work experience that much greater.

Rudy: So here’s a topic that I’m personally curious about.

Katie Kern: Yes.

Rudy: You are, if you don’t mind me saying …

Katie Kern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rudy: Great at social media and you’re great at creating a narrative for yourself and putting it out there. I look at your career path and your personal brand. And you’re really good at promoting your personal brand and letting people know your story. How have you been able to … Obviously, you’re very intelligent and very skilled. What advice can you give to help people kind of spread the story about themselves?

Katie Kern: I think the first thing you have to do is kind of know what your story is. That’s really important, that I feel like if you’re all over the place, it’s kind of a little bit more difficult for people to take you seriously and to really follow your path. But I’ve been, I think for the most part pretty authentic at how I’ve, my journey, how I’ve chronicled my journey, especially my professional journey on social media. I share things with people that I think will benefit them and be helpful. It’s really all about educating and really connecting to. I get tons of messages, especially from young African-American women just wanting a minute of my time. And I do make time for people who reach out to me.

Katie Kern: It’s really about making sure I’m putting my best foot forward. I consider myself a role model. I have nieces. That’s really important to me, the type of content that I’m putting out there, so that when people do kind of search for me or look me up, there’s something there with some substance. I’m authentic. I’m approachable too. That’s important too, being approachable.

Rudy: Was it hard finding your voice? How do you find your voice?

Katie Kern: Wasn’t hard finding my voice because I have a really, really great mom who instilled that in us very early on, to make sure that we had a voice, because my mom used to always say, “If you don’t speak for yourself, someone else is going to speak on your behalf and you may not like what they have to say about you.” That was really instilled in us very early on. So finding my voice wasn’t very difficult. It’s muting it a little bit, that’s the problem.

Rudy: How do you find an audience? I mean obviously you have your voice and who you are and what’s important to you. How do you match that with an audience that is open to what you want to say?

Katie Kern: I think ultimately it starts to become organic. You start creating these communities where there’s a safe place to talk about various things and you’re open to listen and to provide feedback and recommendations everyone having a voice within that community, and then other people wanting to join and be a part of that.

Rudy: Is that hard because obviously that’s what we do for clients all the time? And it’s for me easier to do for a client than it is for myself because I can’t be objective about myself, or at least I say I can.

Katie Kern: Yeah.

Rudy: But I really think I can’t. How hard is that, to do that for yourself?

Katie Kern: You have to be brave because if you say something that people, that’s not popular, you may lose some fans or followers. It’s just about staying true to who you are and keep it honest. That’s what I always say, just really keep it honest.

Rudy: So what are some of the bigger changes you see going on? I mean, you’re in the technology space. What are some of the bigger movements and things you see happening?

Katie Kern: From a marketing standpoint I think a lot of brands are going back to basics, really focusing on content creation, whether that’s in the form of video or social media, that small snackable content, I think that people are really going back to the roots of content. I know that there’s a lot of brands right now that are doing a lot of short films to tell their story, which I love. So much more digestible. So much more interesting.

Rudy: Yeah.

Katie Kern: Just imagine, I mean, putting out an announcement through a short film versus a press release going over the wire. I mean, it seems very dated.

Rudy: Or even the standard video where it’s interview, B-roll, interview, B-roll, interview B-roll.

Katie Kern: Absolutely.

Rudy: And like 10 people watch it.

Katie Kern: 10 people watching it and then no one’s ever going to go back to it ever again.

Rudy: Yeah. Another plug for creativity. So that’s two.

Katie Kern: Yes.

Rudy: We’re doing good. So all the changes going on that you see because you’re involved in a lot of areas, what excites you the most and what scares you the most?

Katie Kern: Probably what’s exciting right now is that I think that we’re able to get closer to the customer. The days of just focus groups happening and you’re selecting people, it’s like you don’t even have to select anyone anymore. I love the concept of just being so much more closely in the minds of the customer, knowing what they think, and even caring about what they think. Before it was just like, “Ah, we know better, we’re the marketers.” Now it’s like we’re listening to them and they’re guiding the way that we are marketing to them. And I think that that relationship is so much more exciting than the days of, “We tell you exactly what we think and we’re going to advertise and market to you the way that we want.”

Rudy: Well, thank you for saying that because you did write something about that, about focus groups. And for years, decades I’ve sat and watched focus groups, and I thought, “This is nuts,” because you’re trying to … It’s like the Heisenberg effect. We’re watching you. We have cameras on you.

Katie Kern: Yeah.

Rudy: Hey, what do you think, and you’re … as if you were going about your daily life. People don’t. “I’m in a room. I’m getting paid $70. I have a bunch of strangers around me,” and [crosstalk 00:28:28]

Katie Kern: Exactly.

Rudy: You’re right. Now we can actually hear people in their environment and what they think.

Katie Kern: Absolutely.

Rudy: So yeah. You were the first person I saw bring that up. Like, “Yes, thank you.” That’s what bothered me about focus groups.

Katie Kern: Yeah.

Rudy: They’re so natural.

Katie Kern: Very unnatural.

Rudy: What scares you the most about all the changes going on?

Katie Kern: What scares me the most probably is that technology tool of social media. I think we’re not far from the true Black Mirror experience. I don’t think that we’re that far off. I think that we’re getting closer and closer to living our daily lives that way. And I think marketing is going to take lead in that entire evolution.

Rudy: And by Black Mirror experience, you think that our lives would be very defined by technology and so defined that we will just be followers?

Katie Kern: We’re going to be followers. I think that we’re going to walk through our life and anticipate someone liking us as we are walking down the street in our J Crew ensemble. And if we don’t get the amount of likes that we want, we’ll detour to a bathroom and immediately change into something else, because we are that, we care that much about it. And I think that marketing will probably take full advantage of those insecurities that are being exposed right now.

Rudy: That scares me too because if you look at the things that get passed around, things people take action on, it’s usually an emotion that causes a physiological change, like fear.

Katie Kern: Absolutely.

Rudy: Laughter’s one, but certainly fear. And we see that. When you make someone afraid, you can manipulate them unfortunately.

Katie Kern: Absolutely.

Rudy: Yeah. Well, that scares me too. Tell me about Media Frenzy Global.

Katie Kern: So Media Frenzy Global, we are a content creation and public relations agency. Our main focus, our area of expertise, what we do well is create content for our clients. And that’s in the form of a lot of different, whether it’s short form with social media, long form especially dealing with technology companies. We create white papers, ebooks, videos, that type of content that’s really going to educate. So we’re all in. We’re in the business of educating on behalf of our clients, creating content that educates.

Katie Kern: One of the great things about Media Frenzy is that we look at each one of our clients as a partnership. So when you think about creating content like that, there has to be, that’s a collaboration that’s going to happen. It’s not just going to come from just that copywriter. There’s going to be tons and tons of interviews with subject matter experts within that company to actually unfold a great final product. So that’s critical.

Katie Kern: If I’m sitting on a panel, I am that person in the room who questions the conversation because I feel like it stays very surface level and very comfortable because no one wants to get into confrontation within that type of setting. But for me it’s always important to make sure that I’m speaking my truth and that I’m standing up for a group of people who don’t necessarily always have someone standing up for them. It’s really important for me to make sure that I’m speaking for a group of people who don’t always have a voice.

Rudy: I am the same way. You point out something that’s wrong and needs to change, I don’t mean to be negative, but what are you going to do? Just say everything’s fine?

Katie Kern: Yeah. And that’s the thing. I will be walking like a … I’ll be a walking zombie if I actually walked around and thought, “Things will just get better.”

Rudy: And seeing the world through somebody else’s eyes is not something that comes natural to most people. You have to make yourself do it. You have to make yourself go, “Wait a minute. What did I just say?” Or, “Why did that person say that that way?”

Katie Kern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rudy: You know? So yeah, you have to shake people up.

Katie Kern: Yeah, it’s a fine line. It’s a very fine line that you have, you walk, but it’s always necessary. I sat on a lot of different boards and I always make sure that people understand that it’s not about me, but I make sure that this is all about black women and I don’t come with my own agenda, but I do want people to understand that we’re part of this community as well. We’re part of this money community, this world, we want to be heard and we should be heard.

Rudy: Well, thank you so much.

Katie Kern: Thank you.

Rudy: This has been a lot of fun and very enlightening.

Katie Kern: Yeah. Thank you guys so much.

Rudy: Thanks for listening to Marketing Upheaval from Creative Outhouse. If you want to learn more about Media Frenzy Global, visit mediafrenzyglobal.com. For show notes, previous episodes and previews to upcoming episodes visit creativeouthouse.com/podcast. And if you liked this podcast, please give us five stars, subscribe, and share it with your friend.

Rudy: Our producer is Susan Cooper. Special thanks to Gopal Swami and Acoustech Music for creating our earcon and to Jason Shablik for his continuing audio advice. That’s it for this episode of Marketing Upheaval. And remember, if the current state of marketing has got you confused. Don’t worry. It’ll all change. See ya.

Podcast credits:

Host: Rudy Fernandez

Producer and Cover Art: Susan Cooper

Earcon sound design: Gopal Swamy

Audio Consultant: Jason Shablik

Post production provided by: Music Radio Creative

Hosting provided by: Buzzsprout Affiliate Link

Transcripts by: https://otter.ai

Email us at info@creativeouthouse.com and we’ll send you a free vinyl sticker featuring our Marketing Upheaval cover art.