About Jenka
I write about marketing, culture, identity, and media, I brain for ad agencies and lifestyle brands for a living, and I never cease to be amazed that all that time I spent dancing, partying, and working in nightlife has ended up being research for developing experiential strategies. Party hard, kids.
I started promoting and producing art and music-driven lifestyle events in high school. I thought I wanted to produce movies, so I went to film school; I moved out to L.A., temped at a big talent agency, and quickly discovered I had no interest in working in the film industry. I fell into culture marketing while at an underground skate show at an abandoned motel pool up in the valley. Six months later I was conducting culture and consumer insight research at ADD Marketing, and a few months after that I was working on a Red Bull culture marketing campaign. Around the time when Twitter hit its tipping point and Facebook became open to more than just college kids, I was the Southern California Online Marketing Coordinator for House of Blues. I went on to direct the social media and web strategy for Live Nation, the largest live entertainment company in the world, on the Street Scene Music Festival campaign. In 2007, I became the Marketing Director for the award-winning event creations company, The Do Lab, and in the course of 3 years helped double their fanbase, and quadruple their festival attendance — all without buying any advertising; relying strictly on the strength of social media and community strategies. In 2009, as the Director of Social Media Strategy at EWI Worldwide, where I was pushing the integration of experiential, social, and digital strategies for clients like VW and Kia, I discovered a deep passion for cars, and the way I stare at certain automobiles now borders on downright harassment. In March 2010, I helped open the new U.S. office of Espresso, a progressive, integrated agency, where I helped develop branding and digital strategies for video game and education clients. I’ve been writing at social-creature.com for the past 4 years (epic highlight: Jon Favreau retweeting a post I wrote about Iron Man! OMG!) but as the first-generation product of a culturally-mixed upbringing I’ve been analyzing all this culture / identity stuff pretty much my whole life.
Other stuff, in bullet points:
- SkinGraft Designs – This epic rockstar-couture clothing design house is Adam Lambert’s favorite, and has outfitted the likes of The Black Eyed Peas and half the vampires on True Blood. At a party in 2005, I introduced designers Jonny Cota and Katie Kay, who would go on to be the power-team behind line for four years.
- The Glitch Mob – The New Yorker dubbed these electro-rockers the harbingers of their own, uniquely new music genre: “Lazer-Bass.” I worked with them to create their online presence at theglitchmob.com, and consulted on various aspects of strategy and brand development.
- Lucent Dossier – When I was little, if I complained that I was bored, my mother would say (imagine it in Russian): “What? You want me to hire you a circus?” 20 years later, I became the manager for this vaudeville circus troupe. Careful what you tell your children is the antidote to boredom.
- The Dresden Dolls – My college job was assisting Amanda Palmer, then the front-woman for this genre-bending punk rock cabaret outfit. Their first couple of national tours I helped coordinate their fan performer community (”The Brigade”) at the shows in Southern California.
- The Lunatarium – The summer I turned 21, I helped promote the parties at this iconic, 20,000 sq. ft. New York warehouse space on the top floor of a building overlooking the East River, the Manhattan skyline, and 4 bridges. The New York Times dubbed it “The studio 54 of the moveon.org crowd,” which, at the turn of the new millennium, it truly was! Though sadly defunct now, it remains, a decade later, one of the most incredible experiences in the course of my nightlife career.
- Artists For Humanity – In high school I worked as a photographer for this amazing design company, which employs Boston public school kids on projects for major brands and local clients. Here’s some shots I managed to salvage of my long-ago portfolio.
- Art imitating life imitating art… – Before I, myself, became a film student at Boston University, I starred in a BU student film called Finale. In the course of my extremely brief acting career, I played a girl who runs away from the circus…. seriously. BE CAREFUL what you tell your children.
- The Floor Lords – Once upon a time, Boston’s oldest and best b-boy crew (they even had their own Saucony shoe) taught me how to breakdance. Here is what I looked like toprocking it in my old shell-toes back in the day when I was hardcore.
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Holla: jenka@social-creature.com
