On today’s episode of the “Daily Variety” podcast, entrepreneurs Tina Knowles and Ashley Graham explain how they’ve paved the way to building powerful media and retail brands in highlights from a day’s worth of conversations at Variety’s annual Entertainment Marketing Summit.
The daylong event, held in Beverly Hills, featured sessions with the industry’s top marketers, brand managers, creators, talent representatives, ad sales executives, and media buyers. Videos of all sessions are available here.
Listen to today’s “Daily Variety” podcast here.
In a conversation with Variety’s senior entertainment writer Angelique Jackson, Knowles recalled her early days dressing as Destiny’s Child, the musical trio that catapulted her daughter Beyoncé to global stardom.
“I was doing everything as needed. I didn’t know that I was producing, I didn’t know that I was a creative director, there wasn’t even a term for that back then. I was just doing what I had to do, and a lot of the time it wasn’t appreciated. And I was fine with that. I actually liked being hidden and behind the scenes,” Knowles said. “I look back and realize that I was literally a country girl from Texas with big hair and this thick accent. And when I went on TV shows like ‘The Tonight Show,’ I had to fight with the lighting directors. And they were like, ‘Who? This is somebody’s mom, get me out of here.’ Please! And they didn’t take me seriously. But I’d be a pest. And I said, ‘Sorry, you got four black girls, you know,’ and they’d say, ‘Who are you to talk to me about lighting?’ But even though I was doing all these things, I didn’t feel like it was enough. I guess I was fine with someone pushing me aside because I didn’t feel professionally trained. ”
Graham, a supermodel and a pioneer for plus-size women in the fashion industry, and her UTA agent, Natasha Borki, spoke to Variety magazine’s senior business writer for TV and video games, Jennifer Maas, about Graham’s work designing a clothing line with retailer JC Penney. Graham then talked about how she ended up playing Roxie Hart in the Broadway tuner Chicago for six weeks, despite having never worked as a singer or hoofer before.
Ashley Graham at Variety’s Entertainment Marketing Summit, courtesy of Deloitte (Photo by Savion Washington/Variety)
Variety (via Getty Images)
“Friends, I don’t sing, I don’t act, and I definitely don’t dance. But for some reason, I just knew in my head that this was my goal. And I’m a big manifesto. Every year, I have a yellow pad. I write three or four pages, and then And when I first met Natasha and the whole team, they asked me, ‘What’s your biggest dream yet?’ It was no joke.
“Two months later, ‘Chicago’ called me and said, ‘We want you to audition.’ I wasn’t ready. I had no idea what I was doing. I used my own money to go find the best music teacher, dance teacher, acting teacher. I passed the audition. I played Roxie Hart in ‘Chicago’ on Broadway for six weeks, and UTA really helped me make it happen,” she said. “And what that did for me was it made me think I had to dream bigger, because if something happened where I didn’t have a natural skill set and I had to be trained for it, that means there could be a lot of training for something that I really want.”
(Top photo: Tina Knowles)
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