Daily Inspiration: Meet Stephen Michael Brown

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephen Michael Brown.

Hi Stephen Michael, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I specialize in media and speaker training, national media relations campaigns and customized brainstorms to help companies break through the ordinary, change behaviors or attract attention in new and different ways. With more than 30 years of practice, I’ve represented some of the world’s biggest and most-recognizable brands on award-winning and notable campaigns. As president of Cookerly PR, I work for retail chain PGA TOUR Superstore and have been showcasing customer golf simulators for consumer homes through a creative “Golf Simulator Showroom” campaign for which we garnered a PRSA Phoenix award. For Simon Properties, we helped communicate a series of security enhancements, resulting in record, renewed attendance for shopping centers. Our agency also hosted international journalists to put “Phipps Plaza Reimagined” and its signature NOBU Hotel on the map as an East Coast destination. And for Silicon Valley technology companies, we leveraged pop cultural moments, such as Taylor Swift’s battle with Ticketmaster, to draw media attention to innovative technologies protecting consumers and their most cherished sites from hackers. I’ve also cherished helping lead a team to multiple awards for work on Mercedes-Benz USA.

I previously worked on accounts ranging from The Coca-Cola Company to McDonald’s, from InterfaceFLOR to The Home Depot.

I’m passionate about affordable housing, having led both Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta and Atlanta Housing to PRSA award wins, the latter for an “Opening Doors” initiative providing record numbers of homes and innovative support services to residents.

I’m also an advocate for education, the arts and the PR profession, serving on the Ron Clark Academy Board of Trustees and having been a past president of Actor’s Express Theatre. I’m past chapter president of PRSA Georgia and of Status:Home, an organization helping house and provide supportive services for formerly homeless individuals and families.

Through my side gig as a movie reviewer for the site I founded. SilverScreenCapture.com, I’m also a member of the Southeast Film Critics Association. I can also be found on TikTok at the @FilmThirst handle and am headed this fall to the Toronto International Film Fedtival.

I love staying involved in the life of my college. The student support center at my alma mater University of South Carolina’s College of Information and Communications bears my name, and I’m headed to speak at a big AI in communications conference there. The University of Georgia’s Grady College honored me as a Georgia PR Hall of Fame inductee for my work in communications, so I love being on the college circuit in general recruiting great talent for our firm.

I live in the Town at Trilith in Fayetteville, Georgia and work in Buckhead. You can find me enjoying the array of amenities in both places including Trilith LIVE with game shows, movies, performing arts and live events. I’m passionate about world travel and Broadway theatre and have a NYC weekend this month with four shows!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’m a constant connector, which means a lot of people depend on me. Living and working in two different places I love – Trilith and Buckhead – means I feel like I need a helicopter! But investment in other people actually motivates me and consistently enriches my life and PR campaigns.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m thrilled to start a second decade of running the SilverScreenCapture.com website. This year I’m traveling to awards ceremonies and fedtivals and adding new features to my site. I love being part of four critics’ groups and getting to be part of early screenings. It’s been fantastic to watch films like scrappy horror movie “Obsession,” musical biopic sensation “Michael,” epic adventure “The Odyssey,” and sci-fi cure for universal loneliness “Project: Hail Mary” and see how major event movies move people in major ways IRL in theatres. I review movies from the auteur theory which prioritizes movies by great directors, so I’ve been excited to see new fare by the likes of Christopher Nolan, Olivia Wilde, Lord and Miller, Jesse Eisenberg and more! I also love my annual tradition of hosting an Oscars viewing party with my friends from ENZO restaurant at GTC Trilith Cinemas. I’m a movie awards aficionado and love podcasts and YouTube sites year-round about the rankings and rise of unexpected movies.

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Our company founder Carol Cookerly and CEO Cory Stewart are sought-out worldwide for crisis and issues initiatives; they are mentors in helping protect brand reputation and teach me every day what it means to truly care about colleagues and clients. I’ve found a true home in this beloved agency and can confidently attract companies to enlist us for integrated communications, media relations, social media, issues management, AI optimization and so much more. My parents are constant encouragers, and my brother and sister-in-law are marvelous creative catalysts. I’m blessed to have spectacular friends and a great community.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.cookerly.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephenatlanta/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silverscreencapture
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenbrownatlanta/
• Twitter: https://x.com/stephenatl
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@StephenMBrown
• Other: https://www.silverscreencapture.com