Blavity, After Doubling Ad Revenue, Restructures and Launches Recruiting Product

The Black media company Blavity Inc., home to six editorial titles including Blavity and Travel Noire, unveiled new products, a pair of rebrands and a new internal structure this week as part of a broader effort to diversify its business and add more vehicles for advertising. The new structure will split Blavity Inc. into two divisions, Blavity Media Group and a DEI Solutions Group, which reflect the two primary ways the company generates revenue—consumer advertising and enterprise support. The rollout comes on the heels of two consecutive years of profitability for the 110-person company, and Blavity Inc. doubled its advertising revenue in 2022, according to chief executive and founder Morgan DeBaun. The company wouldn't share financial specifics. “We have done a lot of hard work, and we have been relatively quiet, which has its advantages,” DeBaun said. “But now, we want to be very loud.” Brands Still Aren't Grasping How to Sustainably Support Black-Owned Media. BOMESI Can Help Blavity Inc. has sought to capitalize on its recent growth through a series of key appointments and launches. In January, it hired its first-ever chief revenue officer, Mike Hadgis, who previously served in executive roles at ATTN: and Vox Media. And in February, the company launched its sixth editorial title, Home & Texture, in an effort to introduce affiliate marketing into its revenue mix. With the creation of the DEI Solutions Group, the company hopes to further diversify its business by accelerating the growth of its most lucrative brand, a franchise called AfroTech. It also plans to launch a new product, a recruiting software service, in the first half of 2023. Blavity Inc. founder Morgan DeBaun has sought to diversify the revenue of her business by expanding further into enterprise marketing and software ventures. By splitting the businesses into separate divisions, Blavity Inc. is better able to grow two different ventures—a mature media play and a growth-phase software product, said FTI Consulting media analyst Justin Eisenband. Blavity Inc., like other Black-owned media companies, has benefitted from a series of pledges made by holding companies like GroupM to increase their advertising spend in the space. But those efforts still serve only a handful of the largest Black-owned media groups, said Cheryl Thompson-Morton, the director of the Black Media Initiative at the City University of New York. “There have been a lot of victories recently, from major grants to collective advertising campaigns," Thompson-Morton said, "but there is a general feeling that advertisers are still not engaging equitably with most of the sector." Growing the advertising business Following the reorganization, BMG will include five editorial brands (excluding AfroTech) along with its newly rebranded ad network, now called Blavity360, which collectively generate roughly 60% of Blavity Inc.’s total revenue. The editorial sites monetize almost exclusively through direct-sold display advertising, and BMG has increased its production of video inventory over the last two years. The publisher is less focused on branded content offerings, however, and is still building more complimentary channels, such as newsletters and podcasts. The ad network, formerly known as the Blavity Culture Network, helps its 23 Black-owned publisher partners generate incremental advertising revenue by sharing best practices, its ad-tech stack and providing heightened visibility. Its members see, on average, 75% higher CPMs after joining, according to the publisher. Blavity360 has also worked to combat imprecise blocklisting, which erases between 10% to 15% of its total impressions, according to DeBaun. “From a media perspective,” said Joshua Bareño, the senior director of multicultural at Essence, “Blavity, and the CEO Morgan DeBaun, have been advocates for ensuring that agencies and the clients they serve take into account the role ad-tech and brand-safety parameters can play in inadvertently censoring or shifting dollars away from content that could be erroneously flagged as not brand safe due to restrictive blocking.” Growing community and B2B advertising The new DEI Solutions Group will house two businesses: AfroTech, a lucrative experiential franchise that plans to expand this year, and a new, yet-unnamed recruiting software product. AfroTech alone, which generates revenue through enterprise sponsorship and ticketing, is responsible for 40% of Blavity Inc.’s total revenue. It includes three subdivisions: a multi-city event series called AfroTech Executive; a professional mentoring program called AfroTech Labs; and a franchise called AfroTech Conference, which will return this November in Austin. The concept for the recruiting software emerged from the success of AfroTech, which connects Black professionals with companies looking to hire them. In exchange for an annual subscription, the new product will allow any company to tap into the database of Black professionals Blavity Inc. has built through AfroTech. “Launching a SaaS product is an excellent extension for Blavity’s business, considering the success of AfroTech and the audiences the conference attracts,” said Greg Watkins, the founder of the publication AllHipHop. “It should boost the company's value with a treasure trove of first-party data and be valuable for organizations looking to increase their DEI initiatives.”