Lesson 1:
It’s not “Why this?”. It’s “Why you?”.

Every year at CultureCon, Bembury-Coakley tells me, people make a run for Activation Alley the moment it opens.

It’s not just that the activations are amazing or that a particular brand is there — it’s that CultureCon’s attendees have high expectations, because they trust that this year’s activations will be as good as the last's. (More on this in a minute.)

With events and experiential spaces becoming ever more saturated, I ask Bembury-Coakley how she stands out in a crowd. Her answer is deceptively simple: Instead of answering the question, “Why do this idea?” answer the question, “Why do this idea with me?”

“It’s not just about it being a unique idea,” she says. “Oftentimes, people can’t answer the ‘with me’ question.” To answer it, evaluate your cultural relevancy, your community, and your consistency.

And think of it as a lens. When you focus your ideas through “why me,” you can frame your deliverables in a way that makes it “as easy as possible to get buy-in.”

Lesson 2:
Build trust before opening wallets.

Trust was a through-line in our conversation, both interpersonally and between brands and audience. Bembury-Coakley credits much of her success to having had amazing advocates throughout her career — but "it's double-sided,” she says. “It comes with the very heavy responsibility of making sure that you're also fulfilling your promises on the back end.”

In other words: Trust is not something that Shareese Bembury-Coakley takes lightly.

She carries this responsibility into her work with brands and partnerships. I ask her what makes her say “no” to a CultureCon partnership, and she immediately says, “anything that would betray the trust we’ve built with our community.”

Trust is the underlying reason that Activation Alley is so popular — brand activations “aren’t a necessary evil that you’re connecting with for a free water bottle,” Bembury-Coakley says. They’re “a testament to how authentically our partners have showed up in the past.”

The secret behind the Activation Alley hype is pretty simple, really: Consistency. 

Lesson 3:
Creators have audiences. Brands have bosses.