Where to Next with Experiential Marketing:
A Year-Long Journey

Where to Next with Experiential Marketing: A Year-Long Journey

Once the fastest growing brand activation discipline, Experiential Marketing has been upended by the advent of COVID-19. Many marketers shifted their strategies in the immediate and short term but as vaccination rates are rising and infection rates dropping, what are brands doing next? What is the next step on this return to “normal.”

Building on the success of our initial panel in April 2021, we’ve created a year-long series; each quarter, we will feature the biggest brands and the brightest minds as they share their thoughts on the future of the industry and share some highlights of their plans over a tumultuous year-long period.

February Panelists: (see executive bios below)

Shenique Coston
Vice President, Experiential Marketing
Empire State Development

Tameka Rish
Vice President, Events and Game Experience
AMB Sports + Entertainment (Mercedes-Benz Stadium)

Arielle Swanson
Head of Experiential Marketing
Michelob ULTRA


Panel Moderators:

Dee Hall
Executive General Manager
Advantage Marketing Partners

Cliff Rigano
Creative Director / Head of Culture, Content & Experiential Marketing
Jägermeister

Panelists

Shenique Coston
Vice President, Experiential Marketing
Empire State Development

Shenique Coston is an award-winning marketing executive and event experiences architect. She currently serves as the Vice President, Experiential Marketing for Empire State Development. In her role, she defines and implements event strategy for New York State’s chief economic agency to drive tourism growth under the I LOVE NY brand and advance business development opportunities under the NYS of Opportunity brand. Shenique has spent most of her 15+ year career using insights to build innovative and disruptive business building ideas, develop marketing strategies, curate experiential activations and operationalize business plans for entrepreneurs, small businesses and category leading companies such as Samsung Electronics, Procter & Gamble and MTV Networks/ Viacom. Shenique holds a B.A. in Economics from Boston University and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. 

Tameka Rish
Vice President, Events and Game Experience
AMB Sports + Entertainment

Tameka Rish enters her 20th season in the National Football League and her 18th with AMBSE. As Vice President, Event and Game Experience, Rish leads the operations and experience of any major event in Mercedes-Benz Stadium including the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United. She oversees Major Events (all publicly ticketed events), Live Events (event activation), and Game Presentation (in event production). Rish took on this newly created role in 2020.

Prior to this position she was the Vice President of Corporate Partnerships, which led the consulting team that develops and maintains corporate partnerships for Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Atlanta Falcons, and Atlanta United. This includes managing numerous experiential events, activating promotional rights, television, radio, print, and digital advertising, custom experiences, game day activations, hospitality and signage build outs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

During her time in Atlanta, Tameka has not only ensured that Falcons corporate partners receive the maximum return on their partnership, but she has also been responsible for the development of several sports marketing careers as more than 80 former interns and associates continue to work within the field today. When not working for AMBSE, Tameka has served on the boards of Leadership Atlanta and the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s Sports Network Board. She also focuses on humanitarian efforts to fight human trafficking both locally in Atlanta and in countries like Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines. She was the Chair of the Marketing and Communications Task Force for the International Human Trafficking Institute located in the Center for Civil and Human Rights from 2018 - 2020. The Task Force launched a month-long awareness campaign that was featured on CNN’s HLN. Rish is a member of the University of Georgia’s 2018 40 Under 40 Class and the 2020 Class of Leadership Atlanta.

Prior to coming to AMBSE, Rish worked for Octagon out of Connecticut on their Drive for the Cure mobile tour with BMW and Susan G. Komen. She interned with the Carolina Panthers, and her NFL career started with the Houston Texans in 2003. While in Houston, she worked on Super Bowl XXXVIII as a part of the NFL’s PR team. She began working in football in 1998 at the University of North Carolina in their Football Coaches Video Department videoing practices and games, creating highlights and cuts-ups.

A native of Sylva, NC, Rish holds a bachelor’s in Journalism with a focus in Broadcasting and Public Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master’s degree in Sports Management from the University of Georgia.

Arielle Swanson
Head of Experiential Marketing
Michelob ULTRA

Arielle Swanson is the Director of Experiential Marketing at Anheuser-Busch InBev for the Michelob ULTRA brand family. She started her career during the height of a recession maneuvering through a spectrum of agency cultures, client portfolios and methodologies all leading her to her current role and solidifying her passion for experience-led marketing. She oversees the activation strategy for all rented and owned properties across Michelob ULTRA’s portfolio and helped spearhead the first-ever fitness festival led by a beverage alcohol brand to prove health and wellness could not only cohabitate with a premium beer brand, it could live harmoniously as a preferred lifestyle. Ari is based out of New York City and holds her degree from the University of Florida.

Moderators

Dee Hall
Executive General Manager
Advantage Marketing Partners

Dee began her career at Leo Burnett where her lifelong passion with advertising, albeit with a twist, was born. Her 30 plus-year career has spanned media, retailtainment, promotions, sports and experiential marketing. Combined with her 13-year stint at agency ownership, she leverages her multi-disciplinary expertise to consistently deliver integrated marketing best practices and solutions.

When her agency launched Coca Cola's Fruitopia beverage in the mid 90’s, her boutique shop was lauded in the industry as being pioneers of experiential marketing. In 2005, her agency then joined forces with FCB Chicago, to enhance their more traditional advertising offerings. While there, Dee was instrumental in the development of multiple award-winning experiential marketing campaigns.

More recently, Dee is leading agency services for the Advantage Customer Experience division of Advantage Marketing Partners and its collective of award-winning general market and multicultural brand activation agencies. Her team spearheads a diverse client portfolio including, consumer package goods, entertainment, retail, beverage, adult beverage, pet specialty and QSR.

Dee brings an entrepreneurial and collaborative spirit to everything she does. She embraces building agency culture, teams, and people—all while retaining her zealous belief in the power of creating human experiences.

Cliff Rigano
Creative Director / Head of Culture, Content & Experiential Marketing
Jägermeister

Cliff is the Creative Director and Head of Culture, Content & Experiential Marketing at Mast-Jägermeister US. As part of the brands’ Marketing and Commercial Leadership teams, Cliff is responsible for driving conceptual thinking, vision and interpretation of brand strategy, creative, content and design through internal teams and agency partners. His creative oversight includes Brand Marketing, ATL Advertising, Innovation, Social and Digital Marketing, Commercial Programming and Distributor engagement.

In addition, Cliff is also responsible for delivering a global brand strategy focused on entertainment, lifestyle & pop culture content & conversation. This comes to life through strategy development, talent relations, sports partnerships, content creation & experiential marketing.

Prior to joining Jägermeister in 2012, Cliff was Director of Marketing for Universal Motown Records and Republic Records, leading the marketing campaigns which broke some of today's largest artists including Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Black Sabbath and many more. In addition, Cliff ran label partnerships for some of the largest songwriters in the industry including Linda Perry, Thurston Moore, Pete Wentz and many others.