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The Beyoncé of the Business World, Brandi Boatner, on How to become a Socially Thoughtful Brand and Face Tomorrow’s Challenges
Brandi Boatner from IBM Was Interviewed by D S Simon Media at the PRSA Tri-State Conference
Brandi Boatner, Social and Influencer Communications Lead for Global Markets at IBM corporate communications, spoke with Alexa Ambroseo from D S Simon Media, at the PRSA Tri-State Conference. In her keynote speech, The Bold Type: Bending the Brand Backbone is Risky Business, Boatner talked about how PR practioners can help a brand become socially thoughtful. She also stressed that ‘tomorrow’ is the biggest challenge facing PR professionals in this this day and age.
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Transcript:
ALEXA AMBROSEO: Good morning, I’m Alexa with D S Simon Media at the PRSA Tri-State Conference. I’m here with Brandi Boatner, who just gave our keynote speech. Thanks for joining us.
BRANDI BOATNER: Thanks Alexa.
ALEXA AMBROSEO: And really quickly I’d just like to hear a couple of your takeaways from your speech.
BRANDI BOATNER: Sure. So, I talked this morning about, you know, brands doing social good and what that exactly means. I don’t want to say brands taking a stand because I feel like that’s been overused and overplayed. So, I just said, how are we as practitioners helping brands to be more socially thoughtful if you will. So, some of my takeaways were to really be the brand voice and align the values of the brand to your own brand or for the organization. So, it doesn’t get the brand promise and the brand values get too far apart.
BRANDI BOATNER: I really stressed that people need to stay woke, I think it’s funny. People are like: ‘you’re going to say stay woke?’ and I said ‘Oh yeah’ to keep things very authentic and very transparent. But I just kind of like the way it just says, ‘stay woke’. Like understand this and understand perception is reality, right. How people perceive you to be, that’s their reality even if it’s not true. So, to really practice having a spotless reputation and a positive perception.
ALEXA AMBROSEO: Thank you. And you mentioned that young professionals biggest challenge is tomorrow. Do you want to kind of explain how that ties into your whole speech?
BRANDI BOATNER: Sure. So, I believe that, you know where this intersection of strategy and creativity and technology because technology has been a huge game changer in how we practice just the ability to influence other people’s behavior and decisions and you know with social media. So, in order to kind of look at that you say ‘well, what’s my biggest challenge? Is it the new technology that’s coming out? Is it having the next social platform? And I say it’s tomorrow because we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I mean if you look at algorithms change daily from various search engines and social platforms there’s a new technology, there is you know a new strategy or new way to go about things, and people are creating just enormous ideas and things every day. So tomorrow really you don’t know what’s coming.
ALEXA AMBROSEO: Thank you so much. And do you want to try explaining your nickname quickly.
BRANDI BOATNER: So, I affectionately call myself the Beyoncé of the business world because I am a huge Beyoncé fan. If I had like I said the wind machine my hair would be blowing, but I really feel like when she’s on stage and she performs I feel that way when I speak to a group of people, like I’ve become like Sasha Fierce and you know the Beyoncé of business and I’ll lay down, you know, kind of the things that you should be doing. Like she says in her, you know, most of her songs. Just really makes me empowered and I feel like, well I’m the Beyoncé of the business world and I feel like if people say that about me enough that she’ll get wind of it and she’ll contact me and I can babysit the twins and she’ll be like ‘yes girl, you are the me of business’.
ALEXA AMBROSEO: Thanks again for joining us and your speech was great.
BRANDI BOATNER: Thank you so much.
