How an Agency Career Prepared This Creative for Reality TV

Johnnie Ingram never imagined a career in the agency world would put him on the path to an Emmy nomination. The creative director and executive producer, who grew up in a small town in eastern Tennessee where being queer wasn’t talked about, is the co-creator of HBO’s We’re Here, an unscripted reality series that follows renowned drag queens recruiting local residents from small-town America to participate in one-night-only drag shows. The first season of the series was nominated for outstanding unstructured reality program in 2020, and after a Covid-19-related hiatus returned for a second season beginning on Oct 11. Ingram moved to Chicago for college, where he got involved in the grassroots drag scene by working at some local bars, he told Adweek. “My mom would come to visit and a lot of times with her some family members,” said Ingram. “We never really talked a lot about my queerness, but when they came to visit, I took them to a drag show, and the conversations just ignited and we were having conversations we would normally never have, but at that time clearly I wasn't in any position to create a show.” During a trip to Mexico with his partner entertainment lawyer Stephen Warren, Ingram had the idea for We’re Here after watching some episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race.“We thought to ourselves, what if we took this epic culture that has now been elevated by RuPaul and took it into small conservative towns?” Ingram recalled thinking. Celebrating Leaders of Color in the LGBTQ+ Movement by Looking Past Stereotypes Ingram had no familiarity working in television, but he did have years of advertising experience under his belt, having held roles at companies such as Leo Burnett, Taxi and Saatchi & Saatchi. His time in the industry gave him the training "to just be really quick to think on our feet," he said—a skill easily translatable to television. During his time in the industry, he found ways to push for diverse representation onscreen. In fact, he was one of the creatives behind the famous—and, at the time, controversial—2013 Cheerios commercial, Gracie, and its Super Bowl sequel, both of which featured an interracial couple. General Mills stood by its decision to represent the realities of many Americans, with then-vp of marketing Camille Gibson declaring that "we know there are many kinds of families, and we celebrate them all." “We weren't really intentionally trying to make a statement,” Ingram recalled. “We just thought this is a reflection of what America really is. But as we're seeing now, especially with a lot of online hate, that was just the beginning of what we're still battling today. It was an interesting experience to see General Mills stand up for that work, because they’re typically like, ‘don't rock the boat.’” Those commercials “opened the door” for further creativity, and marked a turning point for Ingram, who said it inspired him to find other ways to give back the queer community. “With Gracie, we were able to make a bunch of other really cinematic beautiful Cheerios commercials after that, because General Mills really saw that these guys are onto something—they’re telling stories from the heart and really just expressions of love," Ingram said. Later, Ingram created a campaign for GLAAD that aimed to raise awareness of gay men's inability to donate blood due to outdated and homophobic rules left over from the AIDS crisis. “We're past the point of gay marriage, and everybody was sort of like, yeah, we're done, right, we're done?” said Ingram. “No, we're not done. There’s so much homophobia still existing. Those micro-homophobic, institutional things that are happening, I really wanted to focus on those and how can we move the needle on those. Alongside of that, and making that Cheerios commercial, and then just really feeling the social pressures, even within the agency life, to stand up for and to create a space for queer storytellers.” Season 2 of We’re Here is currently airing on HBO and streaming on HBO Max, part of a growing line-up of LGBTQ+ series on the streaming service. New episodes of We're Here are released Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET. “HBO has the best content on television,” said Ingram. “Being on HBO in particular, you are able to have that authenticity, that authentic voice, without having the pressures of certain network ideologies or sometimes oppression of the queer culture.”