Davida Roach: Local Influencer Represents Birmingham at Cannes Lions in France

By Javacia Harris Bowser | The Birmingham Times

Though lifestyle influencer Davida Roach is a native of Charleston, South Carolina, she proudly represents Birmingham wherever she goes, even when work takes her to France.

Roach recently attended the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France.

“It’s the largest creative marketing festival in the world,” explained Roach, who creates digital content under the handle @davidasdiary.

Cannes Lions is a five-day international festival that brings together creative media and marketing professionals, content creators, and top brands for a week of panel discussions, networking events, awards shows, concerts, parties, dinners and more. Brands such as Canva, Disney, Meta and Tubi — just to name a few — hosted experiences for attendees.

While at the festival, Roach told anyone who would listen about the Magic City.

“I’m telling them about the city, the things we have, the culture, the history,” she said. “I’m inviting them, letting them know Birmingham is worth coming to visit.”

Taking Up Space

Roach attended Cannes Lions as part of the creator crew for Sprout Social, a social media management software company.

“I was on LinkedIn and a post that stuck out to me read, ‘If you are a creator going to Cannes, we want to have you join our Sprout Social Network to be our eyes and ears on the grounds for the festival,’” Roach recalled.

“I applied for it, not thinking I would get accepted, but sure enough, two weeks before the festival, I got an email saying, ‘You’re in. You’re part of our creator crew.’”

Though Roach has worked with several brands over the past few years, at Cannes Lions, she had the chance to network with top executives like never before.

“Being able to take up space in some rooms where you normally wouldn’t be able to,” she said, was a highlight of the festival. “I’m talking to CEOs, executives, the changemakers for a lot of brands.”

Roach also made time to have fun.

“I saw celebrities. I was on a yacht with Floetry, Wyclef Jean and Anderson .Paak,” she said of one of her favorite concerts of the festival.

Turning Pain into Purpose

Roach’s road to becoming a successful content creator was rocky. After working in retail, Roach was led to a career in law enforcement by a personal tragedy. Her sister Deandra was murdered in 2016 — a victim of teen dating violence. Roach wanted to do something to keep this from happening to other young women.

“I went from retail at Victoria’s Secret to law enforcement,” she said. “That’s a huge difference, and I only lasted there about a year.”

She decided to get a master’s degree in criminal justice and, turning her pain into purpose, launched Dear Deanndra in 2018. The nonprofit educates teens on healthy relationships and raises awareness of teen dating violence through social media campaigns and mentorship.

Taking Risks

After graduate school, Roach found herself with no job and no place to live. She crashed with a cousin in Atlanta and found a gig at a Marriott hotel. She also started blogging, and Davida’s Diary was born.

Then the pandemic hit, and she was laid off from the hotel. Disappointed but not defeated, Roach decided it was time to figure out how to monetize her blog.

“The first time I got my stimulus check, I invested it in an influencer ebook,” she said. From that book, she learned about affiliate marketing and how to pitch to brands.

Along with blogging, she began building a community on social media by hosting weekly live discussions with wellness experts. A brand offered her $500 to promote its offerings on her platforms.

“That was what I made in two weeks at my job at the hotel,” Roach said. “From that moment, I said, okay, let’s keep it going.”

Still, at this point, Roach rarely posted photos and videos of herself alone. But one day, after businesses and venues began to reopen post-pandemic, Roach was planning to go out with a friend and dressed for the occasion. When her friend canceled, she didn’t want her cute outfit to go to waste. So she posted a picture to social media.

“It got a lot of engagement, and people like, ‘Where’s the link?’” she said. “I’m like, ‘This old outfit I got from Goodwill.’”

The response encouraged Roach to show off her budget-friendly fashions more often. She began showcasing fashion hauls from stores like TJ Maxx, showing women how they could be stylish without breaking the bank. The content took off, and Roach eventually joined Amazon’s influencer program. Today, she earns six figures as a content creator and boasts 100,000 followers on Instagram and 150,000 on TikTok.

Her advice for aspiring content creators: “Be delusional and take risks,” she said. “It took a little delusion to say, hey, people want to watch what I have going on. And applying for the Sprout Social opportunity and going to Cannes was a risk. But I took that risk and got accepted. I was able to meet some amazing brands, and I never would have thought I’d be able to connect to these people.”

She’s gone from posting fashion hauls from TJ Maxx to having an executive’s phone number at the company.

“I wouldn’t be able to do that if I didn’t take that risk,” she said. “So, believe in yourself, and if it is something that you want to have, if you can see it, then you can have it. You can achieve it.”

Sharing Her Story

Though her fashion content is the most popular, Roach enjoys sharing all facets of her life.

“I don’t want to limit myself,” she said.

But that alone is not what Roach thinks helped her to stand out online.

“You’ve got to tell your story,” she said. “You can show products all day, but who are you? How do I relate to you? Do we have the same struggles? Do we have the same wins?”

Sharing her story has allowed Roach to cultivate an online community.

“With me sharing my journey from homelessness to being a creator, that allowed me to be on stages with Amazon at their summit in L.A. and Berlin, Germany,” she said, “that’s how I was able to really stand out. We all have a story. That’s what makes us unique, and that’s what makes us successful.”

Her story is also why she’s confident that artificial intelligence won’t destroy the creator economy. AI was a hot topic at Cannes Lions, but Roach left France encouraged.

“AI can’t take our jobs,” she said. “We’re human, and that’s what makes us relatable to everyone. AI can’t taste this food, AI can’t go to this restaurant, or experience customer service. So, we’re irreplaceable, and we have value, and we all have community, no matter if we have 2,000 followers or 200,000 followers.”

For brands and businesses looking to enhance their marketing efforts by working with content creators, Roach said companies should let creators create.

“If there’s an idea that you have, a campaign, share it with a creator, but allow them to be creative,” she said. “Don’t send them a script. Let us do the work. You tell us what your goal is and allow us to put it together. That’s why we are creatives. That’s what we get paid to do.”

Rooted in Birmingham

Roach moved to Birmingham in 2021 with her husband, Williams Fields. Though she and her husband considered relocating to Charlotte, North Carolina, Roach decided to plant roots in Birmingham.

Over the past five years, her platform has grown, and she’s also worked with local brands such as the Birmingham Stallions.

And she’s excited to see what else the Magic City has in store.

She said, “I think Birmingham is where we need to be.”

Follow Davida Roach on Instagram and TikTok @davidasdiary.