How Google Has Been Supporting British Black-Owned Businesses

Minority-owned businesses make up a sixth of the six million businesses registered across the U.K., generating revenue of at least $100 billion (74 billion pounds) a year, research by Open Think Tank revealed in February. And yet repeatedly these entrepreneurs share the same stories of a struggle to generate start-up funding in comparison to white male-founded businesses. On the first Saturday of each month, the Black Pound Day (BPD) movement aims to highlight the importance of buying from Black-owned businesses to address the economic inequalities that they face and to raise their visibility in the process. It has been working with Google since last year, using the might of the tech giant in the U.K. to highlight the problem to consumers around the lack of funding being made available to encourage them to direct their own spending in support. It formed out of frustration and as a way to continue our protests through economic change.DJ Swiss, founder of Black Pound Day “It formed out of frustration and as a way to continue our protests through economic change,” Swiss tells Adweek, citing the circumstances around the murder of George Floyd in 2020 as one result of the continued socio-economic imbalance that minorities face. “For me, BPD is about turning these political protesters after his death into economic activists and asking them to spend more with black businesses once a month. Not only to spend but to also highlight and engage with, patronize and make themselves aware of the Black businesses in society, so that we can get more funds circulated into our communities,” he adds. Catching Google's Attention Having devised the idea, Swiss used his contacts within the music business to reach out to celebrities and people with influence who could help realise his ambition to deliver a level of social change within Britain. “My voice through my music has always keyed in on cultural and social issues that I face as a Black man, and we face as a Black community. So, it was like another step for me, engaging my voice in a bigger way but with a strong foundation for the music that I've always put out over the past 20 years.” That early work undertaken by Swiss in contacting his network soon reached Google’s senior director of brand and reputation marketing, Nishma Robb, herself well connected in business and entertainment circles. Robb saw a link between BPD and the work the organizations had done in pledging to support one million businesses through the Open For Business campaign launched in June 2020, to support U.K. small businesses following the pandemic’s impact. “What I loved about what Swiss was doing was that it wasn’t performative, it was about creating real action,” explains Robb, who thought that while the company could leverage its technology and talent to support the campaign, there was even more to do. “Swiss gave the moment such a soul and there was so much belief there as we had a natural alignment of values,” Robb adds, citing Google’s global chief executive Sundar Pichai, who “from a global perspective” promised financial and technological support for global communities and described the partnership as “a no brainer”. In the U.S. this year, Google ran its second annual Black-owned Friday campaign with a similar initiative, to drive consumers to spend money with businesses during Black Friday. Swiss describes Robb’s enthusiasm for the project as “a shining light” and one that showed just how much Google wanted to get involved, saying that the corporation has been able to “magnify” the cause and is a partner he has been able to learn from. How Google has supported the movement Google has supplied a mentorship element with one-to-one help being offered to Black entrepreneurs around marketing and customer acquisition growth. It is also developing live webinars through the Google Digital Garage and verifying businesses through the Google My Business platform, which aids location discovery through Google Search and Maps. Another element has been two BPD takeovers, the first in 2020 with Time Out magazine and another more recently with The Observer magazine. In these all the advertising space, including the front and back covers, were taken over with ads for Black Pound Day prior to the largest spending day of the year—Black Friday. The front cover of the BPD's Observer Magazine takeover. These were made as something which could be saved and “kept as a reference,” Robb explains, while raising visibility with audiences that have “a gap” of awareness around the existence of businesses promoted through the campaign. The most recent campaign was handled by Google’s creative agency Quiet Storm. Co-founder and creative head, Trevor Robinson OBE, led the development of the strategy for #SpendBlack, which involved interviews with Black entrepreneurs, while Robinson himself admitted to having experienced problems in getting funding for his business. Swiss gave the moment such a soul and there was so much belief there as we had a natural alignment of valuesNishma Robb, Google’s senior director of brand and reputation marketing BPD also developed a business directory to guide interested people to discover minority-owned businesses that may offer services they are looking for. This is now being developed to become more of a marketplace where transactions can happen directly. “We're the biggest economic movement in the history of the U.K Black-led economic movements,” claims Swiss. “With the galvanization of the movement and the engagement that we have established pouring that into the marketplace, that is going to be really beautiful for these businesses.” Robinson reveals that upon the publication of The Observer take-over—almost instantly—some of the businesses featured reported growth in sales and a marked change in their business, which was the intention. “That's the real ripple effect,” he adds. “I really want it to be people who looked at the article and went, “Oh, wow, they mean business here and I want to look into these guys.’” Another full page ad within the Observer takeover. Meanwhile, Swiss reveals that the whole movement has reached “just shy” of one million people online. “People are definitely engaged, people are definitely talking and it is making a real change as well with the entrepreneurs and businesses that we've engaged with,” he adds, alluding to future collaboration next year between BPD and Google, which he hopes will see it bring “more structure around the economic landscape.” Google and Target Support Black-Owned Businesses in New Campaigns