When Jeremy Stennett founded The Lifestyle Agency, an activation marketing agency, he probably had no idea that he would have a parallel career as a youth advocate.
Fundraising, awareness campaigns, recruiting, and mentoring for youth are areas of concentration for the minority certified agency. As a teenager, Stennett was influenced by his participation with youth organizations like the Catharine Street Community Center and Nubian Directions. The experiences prompted Stennett to pay it forward.
As a youth advocate, Stennett volunteers with World of Money, Project Thunder, i-Can and many others organizations supporting youth cultural awareness, academic enrichments and cancer awareness.
Whether Stennett is volunteering or hiring summer interns at his agency, he wants to offer resources he never had. He shares, “I’m passionate about helping our youth grow. I know we can teach young marketers that want to deliver great work.”
Being the first one in his family to have a Bachelors of Art degrees, this Jamaica native didn’t have professional mentors growing up. He selected advertising because he instantly fell in love with it after having some exposure in school and knew this is to be a profession he could even do for free. Voilà! His passion was born.
When Stennett was asked to name his professional mentors, the strategic director of The Lifestyle Agency coincidentally named four business influencers who happen to have New York in common:
Influencers:
David Ogilvy: “Businessman and advertising educator, his books are wonderfully enlightening”
Donny Deutsch: “He transcends being a marketer and media personality to help others”
Spike Lee: “Beyond his filming, it is his convergence of industries like media and brand services”
Douglas Vincent: A personal mentor that taught “Understanding with your heart, as opposed to your drive for money”
Stennett utilized the philosophies of his influencers for the agency’s recent boot camp makeover which offered brand building ideas and strategic consulting for start-up companies, and big innovative and customer-centered tools for existing national brands. He mentions, “The Lifestyle Agency is a great ‘agency’s agency.’ We work with other agencies to achieve and execute their goals (i.e., creative, sampling, social media, mobile activation to grow client’s market share).
“The Lifestyle Agency was created because the founders knew they could make a difference reaching and motivating not just multicultural but all audiences through relevant, engaging marketing and advertising, and now the agency and I have added developing and supporting our future youth marketers as well,” he closes. –marcia paige
For more information about Jeremy Stennett or The Lifestyle Agency, visit Lifestyleagency.com.
