Despite Increased Ad Spend, Some Black Publishers Question Brands’ Strategy

Brands and marketing agencies have, largely, made good on their 2020 commitments to devote more ad spend to Black media. But the increase in investment has gone primarily to a handful of scaled publishers, according to interviews with eight Black media executives. As a result, while advertisers can credibly point to their increased investment in Black media generally, the vast majority of Black publishers—the long tail—can credibly counter that these commitments never materialized for them. “Media buyers will tell you that they have the spend but places can’t take it, and part of that is true,” said Damian Benders, the general manager of B Code Media. “It requires the people focusing on this issue to answer the question: Am I trying to get money into the hands of minority folks, or am I trying to just spend this budget?” Group Black CEO Travis Montaque Helps Brands Invest in a More Inclusive Future In particular, the gulf in spend highlights a tension fundamental to the digital advertising industry: media buyers’ preference to transact with large, mature media companies leaves niche publishers reliant on the less lucrative, highly competitive landscape of open-market programmatic exchange. Black publishers with too little scale, for instance, rarely qualify to work with major brands, as do those with outdated ad technology. They also struggle against keyword blocklists throttling their programmatic demand, unrealistic performance goals and a lack of operational resources, such as the time, headcount or budget to transact according to brands’ preferred deal flow, according to interviews. Under-investment, spread too thinly In 2020, marketing agencies and brands like GroupM, Target and General Motors made commitments to increase the amount of ad spend they devoted to Black media, earmarking between 2% and 5% of their total budgets to the sector. Since then, advertiser spending on Black-owned media has nearly tripled, reaching $880 million in 2022, according to data from Standard Media Index. But $880 million represents only 1.16% of overall ad spend, while Black consumers make up 14% of the U.S. population. And much of that limited digital budget—including its recent uptick—goes to the largest Black publishers, such as Revolt, Blavity, BET, Group Black, Essence, B Code and Black Enterprise, whose mature infrastructure lets them more seamlessly work with brands and agencies, according to experts. You get meeting’ed to death, and then you watch the deal go to a bigger brand.Greg Watkins, founder of AllHipHop In some instances, brands and agencies partner with established publishers in an effort to produce immediate, impactful results, while simultaneously laying the groundwork to invest in less visible titles, said Joshua Bareño, the senior director of multicultural at GroupM. But even marketers intent on investing in new publishers have advertiser objectives to meet, and the depressed advertising climate has only heightened clients' scrutiny on spending efficiency, said Bareño, speaking broadly about the industry. "The value of multicultural investment is clear," Bareño said. "But ultimately, we are working for our clients, and we need to meet our clients’ goals. When we stop doing that, we lose the ability to channel any money in any direction." Further, the bureaucracy of blue-chip brands means more stakeholders involved in the decision-making process, which can tax the resources of niche media titles, said Greg Watkins, the founder of the 25-year-old publisher AllHipHop. “You get meeting’ed to death, and then you watch the deal go to a bigger brand,” Watkins said. “You can only afford to do that so many times.” Happy 50th Birthday, Hip-Hop. You Transformed Culture In other instances, advertisers’ expectations for campaign performance can outstrip what independent publishers can reasonably deliver, said Tom Brown, the owner and chief executive of BIPOC Filter. Likewise, minority publishers can lack the technical infrastructure to conduct, optimize and measure campaigns in the way that advertisers expect. Partly to counter this, DéVon Christopher Johnson and Rhonesha Byng created the Black-Owned Media Equity and Sustainability Institute (BOMESI) in 2020 to serve as a media collective and incubator, and the organization operates as a nonprofit ad network. In doing so, BOMESI can land and distribute ad buys from major brands without having to pay a commission fee. More lump-sum direct deals provide rising publishers with the capital they need to expand their capabilities, and they let brands build relationships with Black and multicultural publishers whose audiences will only grow more valuable in the coming years. As the demographic makeup of the U.S. shifts, racial minorities will continue to grow as a share of market. And more immediately, the deprecation of third-party cookies will make it critical for brands to cultivate direct relationships with publishers whose audiences represent incremental reach. “You can’t cure someone’s thirst by shoving a firehose down their throat,” said Melvin Wilson, the founder of the growth consultancy Solve Innovation Group. “Brands are starting to ask what they can do to build out a diverse media ecosystem. If we can move that mindset from risk management to growth, then these commitments start to make sense.”

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Despite Increased Ad Spend, Some Black Publishers Question Brands’ Strategy

Pledges are not reaching the long tail of publishers

Mark Stenberg

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Mark Stenberg