JK McKnight's new business venture is an evolution of sorts, but at the same time, it's taking him back to his roots.
For nearly two decades, the founder of Forecastle Festival worked with hundreds of brands — Patagonia, Red Bull, PlayStation, Whole Foods, just to name a few — helping them reach new audiences at the Louisville music event. Then, when he stepped away from the festival in 2018, he launched a consulting agency, Man of the Land, to connect businesses with activism.
Now, McKnight is joining those two careers with the launch of a new experiential agency, Art of Impact. In an interview Monday, McKnight told me he wanted to expand Man of the Land to offer a focus area of services that he's an authority on.
Festival consulting was the first thing that came to mind. After all, McKnight grew Forecastle from a small gathering in Tyler Park to an annual, three-day festival with 75,000 fans at Waterfront Park.
"After being out of festival operations for two years, I felt the need to give back and help other young JKs out there find their footing and help them across all facets of festival development from branding to budgeting, the staffing, the PR and marketing, strategic partnerships, booking and production and all the things that goes with that," he said, adding that there's a pent-up demand for festival experiences after the pandemic. "That part was a no brainer."
McKnight recognized a second market opportunity in using the festival platform to reach young audiences — this is where experiential marketing comes in. He said Generation Z (born between 1996 and 2012) and millennials (born between 1981 and 1995) care more about experiences than material things, making them harder to reach by traditional or digital marketing efforts.
That's tough news for brands to swallow, considering Gen Z’s combined global income is expected to increase five-fold before the end of the decade, from its current $7 trillion to $33 trillion, according to a report from BofA Global Research.
"I believe experiential is the future of how companies are going to engage with this young audience," McKnight said. "You can find that audience most condensed in these festival environments and you reach them through experiential marketing activations."
Gen Z and millennials also care more about a brand's values and societal impact than its prices. That's where the third leg of Art of Impact and McKnight's previous consultancy Man of the Land comes in.
Art of Impact will advise companies on how to bridge divides, better lives and enhance communities, reaching beyond cause marketing and corporate social responsibility to year-round corporate nonprofit strategic partnerships. Younger consumers are looking for meaningful relationships between brands and the causes they support, McKnight said, and authenticity is key.
"That's something I've been saying for a long time: Younger audiences want brands that represent their values, they want CEOs to speak up on issues they care about and they want brands to be more active in their communities," he said.
And unlike his last one-man-band, at Man of the Land, McKnight has a three-person team and looks to double that headcount by next year as he looks to add additional expertise in experiential marketing.
Art of Impact is currently working with clients across Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and more, with plans to continue growing and expanding nationwide. The agency recently engaged London-based Sound Diplomacy to spearhead the first culture economic analysis of Eastern Kentucky, with plans to develop impact-minded festivals and build permanent infrastructure with corporate partners.
