Creative/Interactive Manager Kathy Craig came to her role in the corporate newsroom two years ago to develop video and graphics to support newsroom stories “My team and I are basically content generators developing ‘liquid content,’” she said. “By that I mean content that is highly desirable and shareable which represents the company’s values and strategy, and helps to drive conversation.”
“Kathy joined the newsroom from KitchenAid® small appliances, where she managed the creative marketing team for that brand. “We needed additional creative talent to get the most out of channels like Whirlpool 360 and the corporate website that needed to be constantly fed with fresh visual content,” said Director of Corporate Reputation and Community Relations Deb O’Connor. “We wanted to turn our owned channels into a news engine. To do that, we needed the capability of creating videos, graphics, animation and to flip stories more quickly.”
Craig oversees a staff that includes Media Production Manager Dan Velez, who spearheads all of the video content being produced by the interactive media team. “He lives, breathes and sleeps technology,” Craig said. “He’s phenomenal to work with because he’s virtually unflappable under large workloads with tight deadlines. He’s eager and asks really good questions that push the creative process forward and strengthen the newsroom’s stories.”
Gretchen Arnt is also on the interactive team. “Gretchen supports WhirlpoolCorp.com,” said Craig. “She developed our career page and supports additional sites as well. She’s the go-to person for websites and has a good technical background. Having her on staff allows us to make changes on the fly when we need to. She also supports our team with the creation of graphics and infographics.”
The third team member, Ashlee Stroud, focuses primarily on the employee news channel, Whirlpool Corporation 360. “Ashlee is our detail-person,” said Craig. “She’s stellar at walking through processes and project management. She’s been handling a lot of our technical work and training publishers and editors for Whirlpool Corporation 360. She’s also got a great eye for design.”
Craig has a personal goal of always inspiring her team from a creative perspective, allowing them the room to take risks and experiment. 
“With those things we’re really moving forward,” she said. “I think we have a nice blend of creative and technical skills. As a result, we have a group that’s really focused on helping to support the storytelling that the newsroom is doing and we’ve become an integral part of that team.”
Got a story for the newsroom? Contact Cean Burgeson