front&center Samantha Hartley

From Coca-Cola to churches, Conway woman gives marketing advice

By Lisa H. Armstrong

LITTLE ROCK — A flair for the dramatic, a yen for travel, and a quest for

service are some of the features of brand "Samantha." Samantha Hartley of Conway helps people highlight

aspects of their accomplishments through her business,

Enlightened Marketing.

In addition to hundreds of paid projects in the Unit

ed States and in multiple countries during her 20 years

in marketing, she has also helped numerous local busi

nesses and nonprofit groups as a volunteer, including

Arkansas Earth Day.

She had a hand in helping the city of Conway gain a

new identity, too. In 2006, she worked with the Chamber

of Commerce to research the city's characteristics. Hartley

said she learned a lot. "We brought in tons of diverse

people from the community who volunteered to develop

the brand. People generously volunteered their time and

were very passionate," she said. "They repeatedly referred

to the fact that there are three colleges in Conway. But

we said, 'So what? What does that mean?'" Eventually, the importance of the three colleges trans

lated into intelligent people with an active lifestyle in

volved in community life, she said. "It means that the

city of Conway is clean, safe, relaxed and vibrant. Educa

tion also creates the themes of personality, enterprising

and initiative." The Chamber of Commerce passed the

research results on to another agency that came up

with the slogan "Get Smart." The logo was deliberately

designed to reflect the "green" or environmental move

ment, she said.

Other recent Arkansas-based clients are projects with

churches. "I help them define how a church differenti

ates itself from others," Hartley said. She has also worked

with local banks. "Banks and churches have similar dif

ficulties - they are institutions that are slow to change

with the times." Besides local projects, Hartley stays on the phone and

on the Internet with clients who are scattered as far away

as Germany and Canada, as well as located on the East

and West coasts of the United States.

Born in Texas, by the time she was 2 Hartley and

her family had left the United States and moved to thePhilippines. When she was 4, they moved to Kansas, and a year later, the family relocated once again to Jacksonville. Her father, Gordon, continued his service with the military at Little Rock Air Force Base.

However, living in the heart of a small Southern state didn't keep her still for long. During her teen years in the early 1980s, she was deeply involved in the Arkansas Arts Center Children's Theatre. In 1986, a drama scholarship sent her off to Sarah Lawrence College, a liberal arts institution in upstate New York.

After college, Hartley headed to Moscow, where she studied theatrical directing. She encountered some American businessmen who brought out her interests in business and marketing for the first time, she said. While involved in a business center project, she met executives with Coca-Cola Russia. This connection brought about work for Coca Cola Moscow and eventually she found herself in charge of a $12 million marketing budget.

Yet even with these business enterprises under her belt, she was ready for a change. In 1997, her chance came via the visit of Coca-Cola's chief marketing officer, Sergio Zyman. Zyman traveled regularly to observe the marketing actions of Coke's many operations around the world. "He could be intimidating," she said. "Everyone was nervous and wanted to make a good impression." As luck would have it, Hartley sat at Zyman's dinner table one of the first nights he was there. She also spoke up often in staff meetings, contributing her ideas. And toward the end of Zyman's trip, she was the only person able to keep up his pace and accompany him into astore, where among other topics, they discussed the challenges of being an American living in another country. Later, one of the traveling staff informed Hartley that she had impressed the boss enough to be taken back to Coke's world headquarters in Atlanta.

"Every job I've ever had was all about networking, about meeting the right person," she said.

This connection landed her in the global strategic marketing department, where among other responsibilities, she traveled every other month to Japan, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia and Korea. Although she liked the travel and stayed in the job until 1999, Hartley did not enjoy profiling and analyzing markets and customers. "I found myself far away from what I feel I am good at - being an internal consultant and talking to people. Plus, I did not feel that I was making an impact," she said. Eventually,she became so unhappy in her new role that she decided to take a year off work.

At about the same time, Coca-Cola was downsizing, with layoffs of thousands of people, including many of her friends and colleagues, she said. Some of these same friends asked her to do marketing work for them. After a series of projects, Hartley decided to jump into consulting full time. "What's interesting is that when I look back at what I wanted to do when I was 22 - it was to own my own company. So I felt like I was lead on a path that took me to that goal," she said.

"But, I will always be grateful for the skills I gained from my time with Coke. Because of that experience, I have had a lot of exposure and experiences with formal approaches to marketing," she said. "My one-word door opener has been Coca-Cola."

Her first project as a self-employed consultant was connected with New York City's World Trade Center. "It was my subway stop throughout the summer of 2001," she said. Another projectwas branding an Aegean Sea sailboat cruise. The job allowed her to travel to places like London, Belgium and Athens, Greece. Plus she had the added bonus of going on the Greek island cruise herself, she said.

Her journey also led her back to an old friend, Christopher Carrick, who is now her fiance. "We went to college together at Sarah Lawrence. We met again in 1999, and got together in 2000, but he was in Los Angeles and I was in Atlanta, " she said. A visit to her family in Arkansas in 2002 decided the couple's relocation to Mayflower (they have since moved to Conway).

Hartley has an office in Conway for one of her companies, One World Paper. "Around the time I left Coke, I wanted to get some experience working for an Internet company, but I couldn't seem to convince anyone to hire me. So, I started my own business on the Internet, which helped me learn about not only doing business this way, but also about creating passive revenue streams," she said.

Hartley's bigger vision is to collaborate with institutes such as the Omega Institute of New York, and with groups like Shambhala, a Buddhist meditation organization that "works with people who want to transform the world." She also gives back through Kiva.org, a nonprofit that lends money to the working poor, she said. Its slogan is "Trade, not aid,' which means helping people get micro loans of $500 to $1,000.

"You tell the organization how much money you want to give, and who you want it to go to. I've been doing this for a long time, because I want to help people who feel that they need it the most," she said.

It's the personal connection that Hartley is most interested in. "I believe in using the medium of business to improve the lives of my clients, my community and, hopefully, the planet. I want to help people work in a values-based way, not just in a wealth-based way - to help them profit without compromising their values."matter of fact My age: 39 Family: Christopher Carrick, fiance; canine "daughter," Eowyn, a 2-year-old Weimaraner; canine "son," Schmooley, an all-American mix; father, Gordon Hartley, retired from the Air Force; mother, Becky, works as an interpreter for the deaf; brother Gordon II, and his wife, Marina, along with nephew Gordon III reside in Maumelle.

Occupation: Marketing consultant.

Hometown: Jacksonville.

Hobbies/Talents: Dog agility, travel, cooking (trained in Paris) and languages (fluent in Russian and French).

Most people don't know: I'm not very talkative when I'm in public.

I can't live without: Animals (house pets).

The world would be a better place: If we took better care of it.

Favorite quote: "Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today." Mark Twain Favorite book: Just about all of them.

Biggest fear: The influence of fear-based thinkers.

Someday I'll: Have shown that marketing is not about "spin" and coercion, but about telling your truth authentically so that it resonates with the right people.

My worst habit: Working too many early mornings and late nights.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 132, 133 on 06/29/2008