Editor’s Note: Five years ago we had an idea. Being a woman-owned publication, it made sense to us to celebrate women who were making a difference in the industries we cover. So, we started a “little” feature for Women’s History Month called “Reel Women.” To say it blossomed into something special would be a vast understatement. It exploded. Over the last four years, we have gotten to know leaders, mentors and visionaries from a variety of creative industries. We have learned about their ups. And how they get back up after being down. This is our 5th Annual REEL WOMEN. For the month of March, let us introduce you to some very special women like Bader Rutter Executive Creative Director Sarah Kmet-Hunt.
Sarah Kmet-Hunt is an Executive Creative Director at Bader Rutter, an award-winning, full-service advertising and marketing agency.
Sarah leads teams to explore how creativity and storytelling can shape and transform brands, pushing boundaries to work outside expected channels and form deep connections with an audience. She led a rebrand for TEMPO, a Women’s Leadership Organization, along with the creation of an award-winning documentary, Direct Positive, which has been shown in national and international film festivals.
Other recent work includes groundbreaking campaigns for Zoetis, a global animal health client, including the development of a children’s book, C is for Care, about the care farmers give their livestock, and FutureBound, a mini-documentary series that delves into what the human-animal bond looks like around the world.
Outside of work, Sarah is a cellist, ceramic artist, avid hiker, classic film buff and design enthusiast. She currently lives in Milwaukee, WI with her husband and two teenage sons.
Let’s meet Sarah!
What’s your origin story?
I spent a lot of time in old bookshops and record stores as a kid, and that sparked my love of visual storytelling. I loved album cover art and its power to pull you into the story of the music inside, and I also started collecting books from the ’30s because I was obsessed with the design aesthetic.
I had no idea that was a pretty weird thing for a kid to be into until I got teased about it. I laugh about it now, but at the time it kind of drove me into myself, until music and art actually became a way to connect with people.
How did you get into your industry?
I started out as a fine arts major and then moved into photography and design. I freelanced in college, doing photography and CD design for local bands. That led to my first job as an art director and product designer with a consumer electronics company that also owned a classical music record label.
At a certain point, I realized I wanted to focus on art direction and storytelling for a broader range of clients, so that led me to the agency world.
Who were your mentors?
My most important mentor was my Dad. He had this way of accepting people for exactly who they were, even if it was very different than his own experience. And also, he challenged me to follow my own heart, he always said “be true to yourself and the rest will follow.”
Early on, I came to take that way of thinking for granted, so it was like a bucket of cold water in the face to realize that’s not always the way the world operates. But I always had that foundation to remind me to find places where I can be curious and open to others, while being true to myself.
REELated:
While there will be others, what do you consider your biggest achievement to date?
The creation of the film Direct Positive, and the accompanying art installation, for a few reasons. The documentary, Direct Positive, is a piece that captures an honest and raw look at how female leadership has changed the workplace and the world for the better — and how much progress still needs to be made. It pushed me way out of my comfort zone—I’ve worked on TV spots and corporate videos before but never created a documentary.
And it’s been so amazing to see it getting exposure in film festivals across the country and being adopted by companies in their own DEI efforts. It’s especially gratifying to hear people’s stories of how the film touched or inspired them.
What drives you to create?
The need to find meaning in life. To connect with other people. To make sense of the world. Also, probably the fact that I get bored really easily. And that my own inner voices can be really loud and incessant, so creating gives them something constructive and positive to focus on.
Award you crave, but haven’t won.
Well, I wouldn’t turn down an Academy Award or a Gold Pencil.
What shows/movies/songs are doing the best job of portraying strong women on TV?
Everything Everywhere All At Once—Michelle Yeoh’s character struck such an intensely personal chord with me. She and I may be different on the surface, but it felt like someone was holding a mirror up to my life! The film is pitch-perfect—absurdist and at the same time so deeply human.
I actually got really choked up when the Oscars were announced, it felt fantastic to see it recognized at that level. Others that spring to mind are Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday Addams, and also Courtney Cox’s take on the Jack Nicholson-esque character in Shining Vale.
I love the fact that she’s not a role model of a typical “strong woman”, but that she’s allowed to be this really awful, yet vulnerable, complex, and funny character while being a woman, a wife, and a mom.
Is there still a boys club?
I believe there is at large, but I’m very fortunate to have landed in a space where I feel like I’m valued for who I am, and the unique perspective and experiences that I bring. Because I have that safety, I try to remind myself to keep putting myself out there in a very transparent way, instead of hiding all the messy yet great things that come along with being a woman, a parent, a neurodivergent creative, etc.
That’s terrifying to me, because—hello, you’re talking to a hard-core introvert here! It’s uncomfortable to show the messy stuff. But it’s amazing how much people respond when you take down the ego walls. Not just other women, but men too. If we play into society’s divisions out of our own fear, it’s impossible to break them down.
Coffee, Lunch or Happy Hour. Name a famous woman (living or dead) you would like to attend each function with.
Coffee: Jane Austen. Her writing was so wickedly funny, so subversive at a time when society was immensely restrictive to women. I’d be interested to hear her take on things in 2023—how they’ve changed, how they haven’t.
Lunch: Margaret Atwood. Her work is so prescient, I’d love to pick her brain about the world right now and in the future.
Happy Hour: Odetta. Her music is so powerful, along with her story and the personal vision she stayed true to. I’d love to hear all about her experiences, in her own astoundingly beautiful voice. If I had a theme song, it would definitely be Hit or Miss.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled against Roe v Wade. What can women in your industry do to defend a woman’s rights?
The most important thing women in our industry can do is to make the real, human stories around the decision so visible that they are absolutely impossible to ignore. Reframe the issue, take it out of the framework of shame and morality that it’s so hard to get beyond, and into the framework of human healthcare and human rights.
Sometimes the best way to open someone’s eyes is to immerse them in a story, and let them live someone else’s experience viscerally for even a brief moment in time. We also need to keep reminding ourselves that we are very powerful, and it’s important to not stand silent and let others take that away from us.
I mean, come on, the future of the human race literally depends on access to our bodies, let’s respect that.
What keeps you up at night?
Well, I’m not sleeping well these days, so that’s a loaded question. I worry about how polarized we’ve become, and how hard it is to have a human debate and understand the viewpoints of other people instead of trying to shout them down. I worry about what the world will look like for my two boys.
And then I try to remind myself that most of these problems have always existed, just in different forms, once you take away the rose-colored filter of nostalgia.
Maybe it’s not really worse than it ever was, it’s just new complications of the same old human problems that we’ll always be grappling with. But that doesn’t always help soothe the anxiety at 3 am.
What’s up with Beyoncé being nominated for 4 Best Albums of the year but never winning?
In the past, I might have said awards don’t really matter, because historically most artists who challenged the status quo weren’t appreciated in their own time. But, given some life experience, the weight that awards have to open doors, convey power, and confer wider cultural acceptance and legitimacy is more clear.
When an artist is recognized and awarded on so many levels but is continually snubbed for the most prestigious award, I would say it warrants deeper examination.
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