Live with Rhiannon Franz
In this live interview, host Adrienne Barker, MAS, chats with Rhiannon Franz, founder of Revive Marketing. Rhiannon recounts her two‑decade career at top advertising holding companies, working on major brands such as Lexus, Warner Brothers, Microsoft Xbox, and Johnson & Johnson across New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit. She describes her experience ordering promotional merchandise for personal events (a wedding and a virtual baby shower) and reflects on how the COVID‑19 pandemic, a scheduled C‑section, and the challenges of giving birth during lockdown prompted a deep personal reevaluation. This led her to launch Revive Marketing a year ago, aiming for work‑from‑home flexibility to be present for her son. Rhiannon explains the agency’s philosophy: “brands to ads,” a full‑funnel approach that moves beyond traditional agency sales tactics to help small‑business owners become visible and grow. She shares the story behind her name (named after the Fleetwood Mac song) and how she crafted the brand name Revive by blending the first syllable of her name with a playful, memorable twist. The conversation also touches on her forays into social audio—Clubhouse and the new Chatter Social platform—as a way to podcast, network, and expand her reach. Throughout, Rhiannon emphasizes the importance of authenticity, using her experience to help others, and the joy of aligning work with family priorities.
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Rhiannon.
Rhiannon like Shannon.
Rhiannon like Shannon.
Yes.
Okay, everyone, just take a second, just breathe for a minute and look at the beautiful face next to— yes, this is Rhiannon. I could tell you 3 things. All I know about her is she's brave, bold, and beautiful. And I, I had a guest before you that didn't come on. She wanted questions and I said, questions? I don't ask questions. First of all, It's no prep needed. So like, I'm not prepping, so I don't know it because life is not always about having it be like that, like steel kind of like question.
So questions, right? Exactly. Yes.
So I don't know anything about you. So what I love is two things. Introduce yourself. So this way we get to hear your elevator speech. And where are you from? Where are you right now? Take the mic.
I am from Revive Marketing is my marketing company that I started about a year ago. And I am calling from Los Angeles, California.
Oh, what a yucky place to be. I'm kidding you. There's so much going on there. I love it. So, so, okay, so a year ago. So what were you doing before you started and why?
Yeah, so I have been working in advertising at the top 4 of the top 4 holding companies for the last 20 years, working for big brands.
Yeah, like an ad agency. What do you mean, like a holding company?
Yeah, sorry. So, uh, yes, holding company of the ad agencies. So if you think of big brands I've worked on are like Lexus, Warner Brothers, Microsoft Xbox, um, yeah, big, big names. Johnson Johnson in New York City. Like, I worked in New York, LA, and Detroit, so I've worked across 3 major markets at the top ad agencies. In the country.
Amazing. So were you a member of AMA?
Like, is that the Advertising Marketing Association? Yeah, we had different, um, local groups in different, um, cities. So like in New York City it was called 212, and in LA it's called Think LA. And, um, I'm actually a part of Think LA and the Advertising— American Advertising Federation of Los Angeles. We just started a chapter here in LA as well.
All right. So before I go to the next question, I'm kind of curious about this because this is, this is really interesting. Have you ever ordered promotional products while you were working for these big brands?
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Yeah, it's cool. Logo merchandise. And did you work directly with a distributor?
Yeah, I mean, I think more so I was working with like sponsorship things because I worked in media, so I had access to you know, people who had, um, printing and, and products and promotional products and things like that. Um, the only time I did it for myself was actually for my wedding. Like, so, you know, it was like I had to do these promotional things, um, and for my baby shower because I had a pandemic baby. So we had a virtual baby shower, which was like a blessing and a curse. But I ordered promotional products and like I had little boxes kind custom printed with custom cups and like mailed to everybody so they felt like they were a part of the baby shower even though it was all virtual and on Zoom. Yeah.
I was at— that's my industry, 35 years. So promo peeps, is that fun to hear? What did you have for your, um, for what was the other thing? You had the wedding, the wedding shower, and then you said something else.
Uh, yeah, so my baby shower and then my wedding. And so for my wedding, I did a custom, you know, you have like a leave behind thing that you leave at weddings. And so I did glasses. I had one sitting here a second ago. I've been married 13 years and I still have some of the glasses because they were little rocks glass, like a cocktail, like a short one. And I had our logo printed on it and the year of our wedding. And our husband and I joke that we forget the year we got married and we would go look at our glasses in our cabinet and be like, oh yeah, it was 2012. Oh yeah, it was 2012. So I love that.
I love that. Favors. The wedding favors are so great. Mine was a— since I took a leap of faith, mine was a frog. So it was a stuffed frog with our, you know, like whatever the copy said, we took a leap. And same thing, my girlfriend will send it to me and say, hey, it's your wedding anniversary. I'm like, oh my God, thank you. So wait, so you make this big change now. So you're— because you must have really enjoyed it. So what was the catalyst that really made you pivot to wanting to open up your own business?
A couple things. One was that I had a baby, and so I had to figure out a pivot in my life of what sort of things— what was my priority? Right. I think we all go through that, especially if you're— I call the pandemic the great reevaluation. We all had to take a moment in all of our lives. It doesn't matter what life stage, what, where you're— what the entire world took a look at their life and decided what pivots or change or reevaluation that they wanted to make. And so for me, that was right in line with me finding out I was pregnant. And for the first time, my one and only, we're only having one, but to find out you're pregnant during lockdown was pretty transformative of like, okay, not only am I reevaluating my life as an individual, but now I'm reevaluating my life as a mom. And so how going into the pandemic affected the jobs that I took. And then once the baby came and then what does that mean? And then now my son's almost 4, right? Because it's been, it's been about 5 years since, since the start of the pandemic. And through that journey, I figured out what my priority for myself was having work flexibility. I'm very privileged to live near the beach in Los Angeles and have these opportunities ahead of me in, in this career that I've built for myself and figuring out my priority is I want to be able to pick my son up from school at 3:00 and I might still have some work to do and my husband and I juggle with what to do between 3:00 and 5:00 and it's a balance. But at the same time, it was making that priority and working in corporate for 20 years, as much as they want to say your flex schedule and work from home a couple days a week, That really changed for me to become like this stay-at-home/work-from-home mom. Like, how do you balance? There's no balance. Like that, that sort of mantra of like, you can have it all. It's like, no, it's still, it's still a priority of every hour of the day.
Yeah. Like, I can't even imagine how you must have felt. I want to go into your business, but I want to just like personally, like you're having a baby, you're, you must have been so scared. So what was going on in your head that you'd end up having to go to the hospital? And was COVID still at like at the height of COVID when you actually went into labor? And was your husband able to go with you?
Yeah, so my husband was able to go with me. At least no, no family, no visitation, no, nobody else was allowed with us. But it was so it was just he and I. And also he couldn't leave, you know, to go do anything and come back. There was no leaving or whatever. And my my son was born, um, early. So I had a scheduled C-section. He was frank breech, so it was like, he's breech, we're gonna have to have a, you know, C-section. So I had sort of most of my hospital bag packed because I knew that I was gonna have a scheduled C-section, but it wasn't all packed. Like, I tell women all the time, I'm like, just pack it a month early. I know it sounds like, what? Like, it's I have all this time. It's like, just pack it a month early just in case, because like it was go time. Your water breaks and you're off, right? And it's like whatever was in that bag is what goes with you. And we couldn't leave. No one could come meet us. Like the only thing we could do was we could at least get food delivery, um, you know, at the location. But it was like what we had is what we had, uh, for my husband and I. So we had to pack, you know, the hospital bag for him and I for however many days you know, we needed to be there. And when I got there, it was like I was in full labor and they're like doing COVID tests down my nose. You know, remember the ones that like went all the way?
No.
Yeah. And so I'm like, they put one in and I had a contraction as they're like pulling it out and they went to go do the next one. And I was like, you wait until I am done with this contraction. As I'm like, you know, then they did the second one and I was like, oh my God. So yeah, it was—
what month was this?
What was, what's the October 29th of 2020? So, oh, okay.
So it's weird because I'm in Florida, so that, you know, things were a lot, they were lightened up. But if I'm correct, in California, very, very strict, very strict.
Yes, very strict.
Oh my God. I hope you write your story. Um, not just the, like, I think people would be more interested in like how you got through that kind of fear that you must have had. Um, and that must have started right when you found out that you were pregnant with COVID And oh my God. So you're always balancing the good things, like being home and the bad things of getting sick and God forbid what would happen, right? I can't even, I, were you watching TV at the time too?
Oh yeah. Yeah. So it was, yeah, it was very scary. And where we lived in Los Angeles was adjacent to a lot of the riots. So we weren't as involved with. Some of our friends who lived in neighborhoods with riots and who were legitimately protesting the things that we should be protesting for and, and our rights and things like that. And, and as much as I wanted to go do these things, I was like, oh, but I'm pregnant now. Like, I'm pregnant now. Like, I can't, I can't go be an activist for these things. Like, I have to think about my belly. Like, there's so many different layers of like being pregnant during this, you know, very pivotal moment in our world. And, uh, yeah, so being even adjacent to it, feeling like I couldn't go outside to walk our dog in our specific neighborhood. And so that prompted us to want to move during the pandemic. And so it's just, yeah, there's a lot of things.
Um, are your parents alive?
Uh, yes.
Yes. Oh my God. They must, your mom, I just kind of feel for her. It must be so hard to, is she close to you? Um, and live by close or no?
No, no, no. So I'm in California, my family's in Texas, so it was even worse.
So they had to— they had to—
my, my husband and I did it, you know, ourselves, and it brought us closer together. I mean, the amount of things that we did, I mean, from the baby coming in and, you know, we're still like wiping down our groceries when they come in, you know, you don't— getting grocery delivery and just that, um, that whole thing that happened. And it, you know, we didn't have anyone. No one could come in your house, like no one could be helpful. So, you know, it's kind of in a weird way like, well, my husband and I did it all, you know. We did.
It's like you and I against the world.
Yeah, yeah, basically. So, um, it bonded us a lot, and my husband got to do a lot more, you know, things than, than a typical, you know, the world before the pandemic, where he would have had to be in the office a lot and he would have to, you know, go and do these things. I mean, Now we both have jobs. We work from home. And that was the impetus of me starting my own company was like, I want to be able to work from home. I want to have that flexibility. I want to be able to have that time with my son. I mean, my husband was home to be able to watch, both of us were, to watch our son's first steps. We were there the moment that he did it. And it was the middle of the day and he'd woken up from a nap and the nanny was there and we're checking on him, but it was like we got to see that. And so I think that comes back to having this business and him and I making decisions to be able to make that a priority. We're a one and only family. To have one child probably because of the traumatic experience of having a baby during the pandemic for me personally was like, yeah, I don't want to have that again.
But Oh, I feel— my heart goes out to you.
Yeah. But at the same time, like, the glorious— like, you can't explain being a mom until you're a mom, like, or, you know, a dad or whatever. Like, the hardness but the joy at the same time, like, you can't explain that unless, you know, until you feel that. But having this business has enabled me also to be able to say, look, I have all this years of experience working in corporate. I've worked for 20 years in New York, LA, Detroit, like all these places. And one of the main things that I have learned out of this great reevaluation is wanting to use— I kind of joke like using my powers for good and like being able to help people. And one of the things I've discovered was like the the advertising world kind of has that bad salesy sort of idea of selling things to people that they don't need. And sometimes I felt like that, like, what am I selling? Why am I working all these hours to make rich people richer? And doing this now is giving people value and actually helping people. So helping professional services, helping service business, helping small business is helping somebody be able to get forward, be able to move forward in their business, be visible. It's really marketing, just getting themselves to be visible and doing things like this, doing a live, being out there gets us visible. And that connects us then with the people, our ideal clients who need us. And that right there is like, that gives me joy. That gives me like reasons to get out of bed every day. There was a joke from a comedian, I can't remember which one, but he said it's not Mondays that are the problem, right? Like, it's your life. Like, Mondays are not the problem. It's what you're doing on Monday that makes Mondays the problem. So how we, those of us who are privileged to be able to get ourselves in that position and have that drive and motivation to say, I want my Monday to be enjoyable. How can I make that happen for myself? Is like, it changes. Just that one mindset shift, right? Can help you, guide you in decisions that you'll make one step, one foot in front of the other.
I love it. So I want to know about your name. So Revive, like, so share the story of your name because I have a feeling there's a good story behind it.
Yeah, so my name is Rhiannon, which is a song by Fleetwood Mac, and I was named after the Fleetwood Mac song. It was very popular in 1981 when I was born, and it's one of those songs that you hear it and you go, that's what she's saying, or like, I know that song, I didn't know that's what she was saying. I tell people, you've heard it, they play it in the grocery store, they play it on the elevator music. Like, it is just one of those songs you're like, okay, I've heard that before. But maybe didn't recognize that that's what it was. In fact, one of my new mom friends, her son and I are like the same exact age. Her mom named her after the song, but named her Brianne because she thought that the song was saying Brianne, which it does kind of sound like that, right? And so Brianne and Rhiannon were both named after the song. Anyway, super, super famous song.
One mother knew to look it up first to make sure.
Yeah, my mom's super into music. I mean, yeah, a music aficionado. So that was a big deal for her to name her daughter after a song. And so for me, the idea for my business was how can I take that first part of my name, Rhi, and kind of make it fun and catchy so people kind of get a little bit of my personality when they see Revive and it's like, oh, that's Rhiannon. With Revive, and it's like, oh, she must be fun or approachable. Like, it kind of gives you a little bit of humor, you know? Yeah.
I can't believe I didn't realize it, though. Like, I literally— it went over my head because I'm like, well, what's the meaning of Revive? I didn't even think— re, re. I love that. What I want to learn now— so first of all, it looks like you got a podcast set up. So you've been doing a variety of interviews?
Yes. Yes, I have. I've been starting to push myself to be more of an authority. And talking about marketing in that, in the internet world and getting my message out and being a speaker. I mean, I eventually want to push myself even more to do that as I get more and more clients and more and more case studies and examples of things I can do to help people. I want to be able to spread this message. I love it.
What services does Revive Marketing offer?
So my services, I say, are from brands to ads. And a lot of people will come to me saying, oh, I know I need to push some ads on social media, or I know I need to be like, am I supposed to be on TikTok? And so I get these questions first of like, I'm supposed to advertise stuff, right? And then I kind of look at their business and I go, okay, wait a minute. What is the consumer's actual journey? What does your website look like? What are people landing on digitally when they're looking for you? And then what is that path? In order to get them to convert. So what is the product that you're selling and how are you, what is that path? So that's why I named my business With Marketing, because yes, my background is more advertising, having worked at advertising agencies, but for small businesses, it's really about the entire marketing purchase funnel and making sure that from the brands to the ads, everything is cyclical and you have an entire marketing machine to be able to optimize that process.
Amazeballs, amazeballs. I like— I'm just so impressed with you right now. I do want to share with you— have you ever been on Club— I'm sorry if you've been listening to me, I've been doing a little pitch because I'm not paid at all. I'm a— I went from private beta to a public beta tester on something that I think is going to take the world by a storm. Have you, have you ever been on Clubhouse?
Clubhouse? I have heard of it, yes, but I have been on it.
Clubhouse is a social audio app. Okay, very, very neat. But there's a new one now that a man that was on Clubhouse, he started, I think he was like 25, really knows and understands social audio, realized all the— it was big draws, like he had the biggest rooms and the biggest houses on Spaces. He created what's called Chatter Social. I do have some invites if you want it. Chatter Social is social audio and video.
Amazing.
So you can stream on it and then you could have a podcast interview like this. And then I'm doing it after the fact because it's still in the beta testing, right? Yeah. But you can have a podcast like this. So it could be streaming live on your phone and then people can ask you questions that are in the audience.
Perfect. That's amazing.
Amazing. Okay, great. And it may be perfect for you because you're going to meet a lot of professionals. For collaboration, but also a lot of people in LA. There's a whole LA community out there and a lot of, a lot of film for entertainment, a lot of singers. They just had The Voice, a challenge. So fun. I was just lying in bed on my phone and then they would come on the screen. Oh, it's so lovely. So very, very unique. So I'll send you that. Um, I'll send you the invite. You're on what— where could people find you? Are you on Instagram?
Yes, I'm on Instagram as Rhiannon Revives Your Biz.
Ooh, okay. Oh wait, hold on. Let me just, let me, let me write that down so I have it here. Let me put it in the chat. So at, hold on, at, and then R-H-I-A-N-N-O-N. Uh-huh.
And then R-H-I-V-I-V-E-S, your biz. It's a little long, but it's also like difficult to get your— my big belief is like, if you are the face of your brand, you need to be the face of your brand. So as Rhiannon and my business Revive, it was like, how do I bring that together in a way that's memorable? So Rhiannon Revives Your Biz is kind of a way that it is my brand. I'm the face of the brand, and then my business is Revive. So bringing that together.
Beautiful face of the brand. Hopefully I did it correctly. Otherwise, I'll go in. Once I find you, I'll double-check myself to make sure, because we're live on my Facebook page, Adrienne Barker Speaks, on my YouTube channel, and my LinkedIn. Amazing. I, you know what, I'm so glad. I really, I'm really like proud of you and the work that you have done and just how lovely you are. And, and just, you, you made— I mean, my God, growing up, people didn't really understand that they could actually make a life for themselves, but you've made a life and a living for yourself, and you're just in your purpose, and you have a beautiful 4-year-old. Every age is fun, I will tell you. Okay, you know what the worst age is? When they leave the house. That's the saddest age.
Yeah, yeah, I have my—
I got pregnant at 44, so I had my last one, and so she's just turned 18. But she— it was weird during COVID I had, I had her birthday party kind of like on, on Zoom. So I— my heart goes out. I'm, I'm glad you have a good story. I'm glad everything worked out. Yeah, and I, I definitely want your information afterwards, the show notes. This is live, and then I'll turn it into a podcast afterwards. I'll send you a message. Thank you. No, you're amazing. Thank you so much. And if you need any help or anything I could do for you, LinkedIn is my thing. I'm on other channels, but I am a LinkedIn guru and was named top 13 LinkedIn experts in Orlando, and I didn't pay for it.
Amazing. Okay, great. Yes, I am also on LinkedIn, and I need to be doing more of it. But yes, I love that, and I'm so glad to have connected with you and done this with you today. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it because you are—
you're really, truly brave, bold, and beautiful. It's not easy to do this, but yet you're doing it, and it is what makes us strong. And kind of keeps our, our mind sharp. So thank you so much. You have made my day. Thank you.
Thank you.
Have a great day.
Nice to meet you.
