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Twenty years ago, Noelle Cooke looked around and realized that entertainment marketing was moving away from the practice of mass-producing creative and into the realm of storytelling and strategy. She founded The Arterie – representing both her lifeblood and her passion for art and creativity – in 2006 and never looked back.

Since then, The Arterie has produced a wide gamut of work across multiple verticals, including film, television, video games and sports, and worked with such clients as Disney, ESPN, Hulu, Microsoft, Netflix, Paramount, Pixar, Pluto TV and many more. Besides operating in Culver City, Calif., the agency also has offices in Austin, Texas – home of Cooke’s alma mater, the University of Texas – and last year opened an outpost in London. 

Cooke joined Spotlight to discuss how entertainment marketing has changed since she opened her agency, how The Arterie ended up producing events and experiential activations, and why she loves and seeks out change. 

‍Spotlight: What led you to start The Arterie ?

‍Noelle Cooke, CEO and founder, The Arterie: I wanted to build a multicultural creative team that celebrated diversity. As a woman in the industry, I realized I had to build that myself in order to get what I was looking for. It was 2006 and we were changing from an emphasis on print and imagery to strategy and storytelling. I wanted to be at the forefront of that. Storytelling is the organic entrance to pop culture. I felt like people were hyper-focused on print at the time, and my thought process was moving more towards strategic thinking and marketing. That's when we started coming up with all the marketing decks and strategic thinking behind the imagery. My thoughts were, ‘how can we combine with brands to interact with the imagery and the storytelling? How can we collaboratively pull that together in a 360 way?’ 

I wanted to get ahead of that trend by launching something that leaned into that idea of putting culture behind brand. I hired like-minded creatives that had the same vision and intention that I did. I wanted to take audiences from that traditional advertising moment into a movement. I felt like people were becoming very emotionally connected to brands. I wanted to drive awareness to the brand of the movie using emotional storytelling. I launched The Arterie and I named it that because it was like my lifeblood as well as a place of art. That was my dream and desire at the time, and now it's here.

‍Spotlight: Where do you think we are today in terms of emotion connecting people to brands? How has the concept evolved in the two decades that you have been doing this? 

‍Cooke: We spark conversation continuously to create moments within pop culture that people remember. We know emotion drives creative and connection right to the brand. We're not a vendor in each vertical that launches just shows and events. We're a connective tissue between all of them. We help brands grow through design and through storytelling. 

‍Spotlight: The Arterie works across many verticals – film, TV, sports and video games. What would you say is The Arterie ’s unique selling point in this marketplace? 

 Cooke: We started as a boutique agency, but we have created a spark and a movement in the moments that can captivate an audience, and we put a lot of strategic thinking behind that. We captivate audiences, we spark conversations and we create moments. 

‍Spotlight: When you started the agency, were you only in film? 

‍Cooke: We were film when we started, and then we went into television, gaming, events and sports, including live and experiential activations, in that order. We started by creating assets for those, and then we moved into production because we realized that if we were already supplying so much creative then we should just produce the premieres, activations and events ourselves to help control the quality. That started in 2017. Obviously, there was a pause due to the pandemic in 2020. That catapulted us into digital platforms, where we built events and created experiences to dive into virtually. We did a lot of outdoor, no-touch experiences, drive-through experiences, etc. We evolved our strategy to prioritize digital entertainment to reach our consumers more effectively during the pandemic.

‍Spotlight: The Arterie has always been female-owned and -operated. What challenges and opportunities has that presented to you? 

Cooke: I understand there are challenges associated with being a woman in the industry, but I have never focused on it. I don't know if I was just naive to it or why I didn't, but it has never been something that I have focused on as a female leader or a female business owner. That comes from being raised by my mother, who was an entrepreneur and a very powerful female leader. I never thought of it as female versus male. I kept my head rooted in the work. I have always focused on creating great work and hiring great talent. I find being recognized in the industry as a female creative and a business owner to be an honor but I focus on the opportunity I have to inspire younger generations. I stay focused on driving innovative ideas with talented, diverse, creative teams whether they are male or female. It's so important to have all of those views on every brand that we touch. 

I do pride myself on being woman-led. As I've grown, I have more understanding of the importance of that, especially looking back as one of the very few female-owned vendors that have lasted in the industry this long. My primary goal is, and always has been, to open the door for young talent, male or female. So I have been more primarily focused on mentoring, being mentored and creating opportunities for people.

‍Spotlight: Let's talk about you being mentored, and then we'll talk about you mentoring. So in your career, how have you been mentored and how has mentorship benefited you?

‍Cooke: I'll go back to John Calley [former president and chief operating officer, Sony Pictures Entertainment]. Early in my career, I worked at Sony Pictures. I had these incredible experiences where I would accidentally run into him. I was an assistant and one day, he requested that I meet the talent in a limo on the lot and take her over to do an interview on CNN. I didn't know why he would pick little old me from Texas, and he sat me down on this little outdoor seating bench. It was on the Sony lot, and I’ll never forget what he said. He told me he could see how passionate I was about my work, that there was a light in my eyes whether I was tackling an assigned project or even just delivering a package. He said my love for what I did was so evident that he wanted to take a moment to encourage me: ‘Stay focused. Stay good at what you do. You’re clearly passionate. Have fun, but don’t let this industry change you.’

I was young at the time, and it really stuck with me, especially when I later ran into challenges. I always thought, ‘I'm not going to let it change me.’ If somebody did something negative or positive, I thought ‘I’m not going to let it change me.’ If somebody took credit for my creative, I thought ‘I'm not going to let it change me, I'm going to stay focused on the next one.’ It really did have a gigantic impact on me. 

I would say that another huge mentor to me at the time was Margaret Loesch [former president and CEO of Discovery Communications and Hasbro Inc.’s joint venture television network, The Hub]. These were all organic mentors. It's not like I searched these out. Margaret and I met and she took me under her wing. I think she just saw a powerful young female leader. We would have lunches and meetings, and she would guide me as to what she was working on with The Hub. She was such a leader in the animation world and such a powerhouse. What she really taught me was the importance of work-life balance and continuously creating and achieving my goals while respecting that work-life balance. 

‍Spotlight: Having been mentored in those ways, how did you learn to mentor others? especially since a priority of yours is to bring in young talent, how do you then mentor them going forward? 

‍Cooke: One of the ways I’m most direct in my mentorship is through teaching a global advertising class at my alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. As a proud Texan and Longhorn, I’m deeply involved. My approach is grounded in teaching students about the real world. I’m very direct and honest, and when I speak to students, I want them to truly understand what working in the industry is like. Learning in labs and classrooms is important, but what I bring is the reality of how the industry operates and the business behind it.

My greatest motivation is helping students discover their passion. I always encourage them to cast a wide net and not enter the industry thinking, “This is the one thing I was trained to do.” I don’t want them to feel pigeonholed so early in their careers. Creativity is a gift, and I believe it’s essential to explore your strengths and interests. Once students identify those and pursue them with intention, it’s that drive that ultimately leads to success.

We also have a robust internship program here at the company, so we bring in interns and work closely with them.

‍Spotlight: How many people work at The Arterie?

‍Cooke: We're about 15-20. We just expanded into London so we have five people in London and we have an office in Austin, Texas, that has three people, and we just added two additional positions here in Los Angeles. 

‍Spotlight: What are some of the projects The Arterie has recently completed? 

‍Cooke: We work with such clients as Paramount, Amazon MGM, NBC, Peacock, Neon Global, DreamWorks, Disney, Hulu, HBO Sports and the list goes on. We love working with the streamers on overarching brand campaigns, we recently did the Summer of Cinema Digital/OOH campaign for PlutoTV. It was great to collaborate on overarching  brand storytelling.

In addition to the single titles that we work on constantly, we just opened the first-ever live Minecraft Experience in Dallas and London, now moving to Buenos Aires, and it's been an incredible success. 

We also did the Avatar Live Experience in Singapore, and in Spain. Those are some of the current projects that I've been super involved in that I absolutely love.

We work across single titles for all of our clients, as I noted, but for Paramount, we have worked on all of the Taylor Sheridan universe, and that's huge for us. I’m really excited about Skydance and Paramount coming together because they've positioned themselves as a leader in the streaming space with very high quality content and a strong brand presence. That certainly makes it easier for us to contribute meaningful solutions for them as a client. I'm excited to create these meaningful solutions and continue them for all of our clients. 

‍Spotlight: How are you guys using AI? 

‍Cooke: We have an AI expert who has been working with our team to encourage our employees to experiment with AI assisted workflows and tools. We also hosted an AI conference for the company last year in Rancho Mirage. 

AI is a massive asset to our industry but the way we implement it has to be extremely thoughtful. It enhances creativity and speed, but we don't rely on it for a final product, because AI pulls from existing content, and our job is to create new content. It can improve our services and It can help us become more efficient. I see the relationship between humans and AI as collaborative to improve workflow but not to replace creative. 

‍Spotlight: I feel like there's more content than ever, so it seems that from an agency point of view there'd be more work than ever. But when I talk to agencies they say yes, there is work, but budgets are much less. 

‍Cooke: I think you have to evolve with how the studios evolve. I go back to this constantly as a vendor. Where they spend their dollars is more in media than it is in creative. Evolving is super important to success as an individual, as an entrepreneur and as a vendor. That's what we've been doing – staying in the front of the changes that the studios are experiencing and continuing to offer services that enhance their positions. That's our job: to help our clients fulfill their needs and to resolve their pain points.

‍Spotlight: Have you found that to be challenging? 

‍Cooke: I find it incredibly exciting. I love change, I move often and enjoy being in new places, and that same mindset applies to business. We’re constantly evolving as an industry, and it’s thrilling to let go of the old and embrace new ways of doing things. I’m genuinely excited to learn from younger generations. We have so much to offer them, and they have just as much to offer us. When you combine what they know and how they were raised with our experience and insight, it creates a true powerhouse. That commitment to staying at the forefront of change is something we pride ourselves on and it’s likely why we’re still in business. We’re energized by learning, growing, and evolving.