Binghamton marketing firm earns MWBE certification

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — MediaBrush Marketing recently received certifications as both a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and a Women Business Enterprise (WBE) (or MWBE together) from Empire State Development’s Division of Minority and Women’s Business Development.

“It was something I wanted to do from the beginning,” owner Stephanie Krummenacker says, however the company needed to be in business at least a year before she could apply. “I just really put it on the backburner.”

In the four years since starting her business, MediaBrush has grown from Krummenacker and her laptop to a team of 10 with offices at 31 Lewis St. in Binghamton.

Over time, the topic of becoming an MWBE kept popping up, especially with the nonprofit organizations MediaBrush numbers among its clients, she says. Typically, nonprofits must follow a bidding process for projects and initiatives funded through state grants. Becoming certified would make MediaBrush eligible to bid on those projects and provide a fuller suite of services to those organizations, Krummenacker says.

“We handle marketing for companies all across the United States,” she says. About half of the company’s clients are based in Broome and Tioga counties. “I have a passion for medical marketing and nonprofit marketing,” she notes. Many of the companies she works with have requests for MWBE inclusion.

Krummenacker began the certification process in March 2022. “We were super excited to be approved in less than a year,” she notes. “It’s quite a process.”

In order to be certified as an MWBE, companies must be fully minority-owned and woman-owned. Krummenacker’s grandmother is full-blooded Cherokee and Krummenacker herself is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Honoring that heritage with the minority business enterprise designation was something important to her.

“It was always a very important part of our growing-up process,” she says. It was a proud moment to share with her mother when she received the MBE certification.

The new certifications open up new opportunities for MediaBrush. “It’s going to allow us to invest in the agency at a higher level,” she says. Her hope is to invest in increasing education and pay for employees and to hire more team members to keep more services in-house.

“My goal in this business from day one was to invest in the business so I could invest in the people,” she says. “I want to keep good people in Broome County.”

The certifications also give the business the opportunity to compete for government contracts issued by the state and add the company to the state’s directory of certified MWBE firms.

MediaBrush is certified in several areas of expertise including advertising agency; advertising, public relations, and related services; digital-advertising agency; graphic-design services; media-buying agency; and public-relations consulting services.

Before founding MediaBrush, Krummenacker worked in media at several companies in the south before moving to the Binghamton area. She worked for Quincify in Binghamton before venturing out on her own.

Her firm provides an array of services including branding including logo and brand-identity development, marketing strategy, media buying, digital marketing, social marketing, and traditional marketing.