Rachel Potee
Manager of brand experience and influencer engagement | Bridgestone Americas Inc. | Nashville, Tenn. | Age: 36
What was your first job in the industry?
My first job in this industry was as a communications specialist for motorsports and sports partnerships, supporting our Firestone Racing team and other sports platforms.
What attracted you to the industry?
I had previous experience within the racing world and was attached to the opportunity to support one of the league's suppliers and be able to craft stories leveraging the brand's history within the sport.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced in your career?
Creating an interactive virtual media day for the Indy 500 during COVID-19 restrictions, called “The Indy 500 Digest.” I worked with the Firestone race tire engineering team to explain how the tires are made for the Indy 500 in a creative manner using everyday items like candy and glassware. We packaged all the items needed for the virtual discussion and shipped them out to registered media. The bags consisted of Oreos to explain tire tread thickness, gummy bears and Swedish Fish to talk about compound differences and a water bottle and pint glass to show how tire stagger works. On the day of the event, our chief engineer walked through each element with the media bringing a touch and feel moment to reporters at home.
Who has had the biggest influence on your career?
Gregory Lee Hendricks.
What is your biggest accomplishment in the industry?
One of my biggest achievements at Bridgestone is something I consider to be a work in progress, and that’s the creation of the influencer marketing discipline. While Bridgestone had previously worked with influencers on and off in different ways, I was tasked with creating a strategy and best practices that could be used across the company to optimize our impact. I made a scorecard that can be used to help us identify if a creator is the best fit for our business objectives and goals. I also established definitions for our influencer work to ensure we speak the same language across the company and business units. In our first year, we leveraged influencers at various activations that resulted in 77 pieces of branded content and 21.79 million potential impressions.
Tell us about your current job and responsibilities. How do you spend your workday?
I manage Bridgestone’s brand experience and influencer engagement. This is a relatively new practice within the company, which I’ve worked the last two years to help build. I look at what I do as storytelling. I get to tell brand and product stories through our events and the creators who work with us. This allows us to engage with customers where they are most passionate and show them in an authentic way how our brands support those passions. My team is responsible for working with our different business units, from marketing to OE replacement to OTR to retail, to help provide strategic guidance on engaging consumers. This work takes great collaboration between the groups to understand all the business objectives and goals before developing a plan and executing it. Day to day, I lead the influencer selection and management of creators who help share our brand story with auto enthusiasts through their content. From an events standpoint, we look to find events that tap into different lifestyles, like off-roading or sustainability, to align our brand message and educate consumers on how we fit into that lifestyle with the products and solutions we offer.
What's been the biggest surprise of your current job?
How quickly everyone has accepted influencer marketing and how eager they are to try to leverage it for their business unit.
Tell us about your family.
I am an only child with a close relationship with my parents. I also have a large friend group from college that is like my sisters.
If you could wake up tomorrow with one new skill, what would you choose?
Language learning. As we become more collaborative with other regions of the business, I would love to be able to speak more languages.
In a single word, how would your friends describe you?
Resourceful.
If you could switch careers tomorrow, what would you want to do, and why?
I would focus on brand strategy. I love looking at a problem from all sides and creating a solution using different means to achieve that solution.
What's the biggest issue facing the tire industry?
I think there are a few issues, from material circularity to efficiency, but the biggest one is that the younger generations aren't driving or purchasing cars.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
As a kid, I wanted to be a dentist with a dental spa overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
How do you unwind after a stressful day?
I like to go for walks with my dog, read a book, or dream plan my next trip.
What goal did you set for yourself this year? Are you on track to reach it?
I wanted to expand our influencer marketing to at least one other business unit this year beyond consumer replacement and brand. I achieved this with our OTR team and selected an influencer to work with us on speaking about our mining tires.
What do you expect to be doing 20 years from now?
Leading Bridgestone's global influencer marketing team.
