Tameka Kee (TK) is a self-styled advertising futurist. A former journalist and analyst, she brings a deep understanding of how advertising and technology converge to influence how people think, dream and spend. She’s attended and produced dozens of live experiences, from conferences and workshops to international tradeshows.
On top of her extensive work in marketing, advertising and VR/AR, TK serves as the Director of Marketing and Comms for the Black Innovation Alliance, an organization dedicated to providing resources and support for black entrepreneurs. We spoke with TK about her background, her experience with the BIA, and her predictions for the adtech, VR and DEI spaces in 2023 and beyond.
Talk a bit about yourself and your background
I’m an advertising nerd and a writer—that’s what I’ve been my entire life. I went to school for communications, and wound up working in a variety of gigs before I got my first reporting job for MediaPost. That’s how I got introduced to some of the nuts and bolts of advertising. I was a search engine marketing reporter, which was a great fit for me. There’s also a publication that doesn’t exist anymore, Paid Content, that I wrote for, and I also worked for Digiday when it first launched. I was one of their first editorial and content leads. I have this knack for being at things when they’re first starting, because I can deal with the chaos and the lack of structure.
I’ve worked with a variety of events companies in the industry as well, almost always in the advertising sector. But one of the great things about that is that it’s allowed me to travel the world. So I’ve been to conferences in Barcelona, Mexico City, and all over America. I even went to C2 Montreal, which was a mind-blowing event underwritten by the city of Montreal and Cirque du Soleil. And I launched my own event in 2018, all about VR and AR.
In general, I’m always looking at what’s coming next, and pushing my clients and the people I’m around to think about those things.
What’s your relationship with John?
I met John when I was a reporter. John used to pitch me, and the pitches were always clean, concise and relevant to me, so I’d always check them out. We became colleagues when we worked at Wise PR together. John is one of those people who I would do pretty much anything for—one, because he’s genuine; two, because he’s a good person; three, because he’s extremely good at what he does. His ability to distill things down to what is going to be relevant to both parties, whether it’s the client or the report, is incredible. He’s just a genuinely, fun, cultured, interesting dude. I really enjoyed working with him. I learned from him, he learned from me. And he’s an amazing foodie! He’s one of those people where they will say, hey, we’re going to this restaurant, and I’m not gonna question it. So our relationship evolved from PR person and reporter, to colleagues, to friends.
Talk a bit about your experience working with the Black Innovation Alliance as Director of Marketing and Comms
Black Innovation Alliance is an organization that exists to create an ecosystem where black entrepreneurs can thrive. More specifically, our goal is to help build the kind of ecosystem that can sustain a million black entrepreneurs by the year 2030. We do that because entrepreneurship in and of itself is hard. So many businesses fail, and it’s risky. But black entrepreneurs face very specific challenges that white entrepreneurs do not. And the infrastructure to support them—whether that’s accelerators and funding, mentorship and resources, or even just people to bounce their ideas off of—doesn’t exist as robustly as it should. And so BIA exists to support that.
We do that by supporting organizations that support black entrepreneurs. One of them is Macon Black Tech, based out of Macon, Georgia, which is a coworking space and community program that supports black entrepreneurs in the central Georgia region. Black Innovation Alliance provides the founders of Macon Black Tech and organizations like that with funding, resources and education.
What are some of the most notable trends you’re seeing in adtech, VR, and/or DEI?
We’re in a space where we’re seeing the convergence of those three distinct areas. First, from an ad tech standpoint, all the privacy regulations and attention to data are fundamentally changing the way we all do business. And I think it’s only going to continue. I don’t know what is coming, but I do know that we’re not going back to doing business the way that we were before. And I think we might actually start to see people be more concerned about their data and their privacy and things like health care apps, like your Fitbit or your Apple Smartwatch. Just the elevation of consciousness around data collection and privacy, I think, is fundamentally changing every aspect of our lives.
Looking ahead, do you have predictions for any of these spaces (adtech, VR, and/or DEI) in 2023?
As someone who has been a VR and AR nerd for a very long time, I’m excited about the fact that there are chief metaverse officers emerging all over the place. But I’m less excited about the hype and the soullessness that is coming along with it. A lot of these companies are just trying to get in on a land grab and don’t actually think about the broader implications. But there is a movement called the Center for Humane Technology, and my hope is that the growth and evolution of emerging tech like VR and AR coincides with this humane technology movement—so that we lean into making more things that help people as opposed to harming them.
From a DEI perspective, some of the hype is settling, and I think that’s a good thing, because it needs to be integrated in everyday life. It needs to be integrated in business. But one interesting trend that I am seeing is advertisers wanting to make sure that they reach diverse audiences, and use diverse media companies to do that. They can’t just go to NBCU and Viacom and these major mega brands. These brands reach a diverse audience, but there’s a difference between that and, for example, this Instagram brand called It’s Honey, Child for black women over forty. And the same people who might advertise on, say, Sex and the City, might be wanting to reach me, a 40-something-year-old black woman with high disposable income, but they can actually get me on It’s Honey, Child, which is a much smaller publication that they could probably do a less expensive deal with, and actually build a really meaningful relationship with me as a consumer. So DEI initiatives are starting to come with tactics to actually make them effective.