Group Black and She Media Announce Partnership to Channel Ad Budgets to Black-Owned Media

Two mission-oriented publishing groups have joined forces to help channel more advertising revenue into Black-owned media companies. Group Black, a collective and accelerator for Black-owned media, announced Tuesday that it is partnering with She Media, a multifaceted Penske Media property that helps support and monetize more than 5,000 primarily women-owned independent publishers. The Group Black Network will connect more than 250 Black, woman-owned publishers in the hopes of commanding higher CPMs by operating as a unified bloc. Advertisers prefer to transact at scale, said Group Black co-founder Travis Montaque, so collating these independent publishers into a network allows both parties to achieve their desired outcome: brands support Black-owned media and reach their readership, while publishers increase their monetization and grow their businesses. “When we connected with She Media, especially when we saw their work with Meaningful Marketplace, we knew that culturally we were aligned,” Montaque told Adweek. “And given our focus at Group Black, we saw an amazing opportunity to support the Black publishers in their network and put more focus on investing in them and helping those brands grow.” Okayplayer’s Collaborative New Platform Aims to Fix Journalism’s Diversity Crisis The announcement comes 18 months after the police murder of George Floyd, which led brands, agencies and publishers to pledge to increase their investment in Black-owned media. Due to the historic under-investment in Black media, advertisers have struggled to find channels large enough to allocate their budgets. By combining the scale of She Media with the industry connections of Group Black, the Group Black Network hopes to offer a solution. She Media CEO Samantha Skey said all of the participating publishers opted in to the program. “A lot of the conversation around supporting Black-owned anything can be a bit nebulous, at least when it comes to pledging support,” said Monica Melton, managing editor of The Plug Insights, a publisher that covers Black-owned startups and innovators in tech. “But this is a concrete way for Black media to increase its revenue and opportunity.” Details of the Group Black Network partnership The 250 publishers in the Group Black Network will receive heightened access to advertiser demand, both on an individual basis and as part of the collective, Montaque said. In June, when Group Black launched, it announced an ad-spending target of $75 million from WPP. To court advertising interest, Group Black will equip participating publishers, such as The Baby Sleep Site, IceCreamConvos, Black Girls Eat, FashionBombDaily and The Jasmine Brand, with both the infrastructure and data they need to compete with legacy publishers. The 30-person operation will provide the sites with increased media revenue, branded content opportunities, editorial connections and education on best practices to help expose their content to larger audiences and boost their monetization rates. The network will also arm publishers with the data they need to lure investment and provide advertisers with the first-party metrics they need to better understand the audiences they are reaching. “We’re giving advertisers a way to buy based on ownership, so those impressions are going for much more,” Skey said. “There is no scarcity on the internet when it comes to impressions, but there is a scarcity of impressions you can buy where you know that the owner of that business is a Black woman.” She Media’s diverse business model She Media, which was acquired by PMC in 2018, operates two core businesses: four flagship publications––SheKnows, BlogHer, Stylecaster and Soaps––and its She Media Partner Network, a collection of over 5,000 independent publishers. Collectively, She Media brings in 80 million monthly unique visitors, and the company is on track to generate $75 million in revenue this year, according to Skey. With its Partner Network, She Media supports independent publishers by providing them superior ad technology, greater back-end and technical expertise and a host of other benefits. In return, it takes a percentage of their generated advertising revenue. It has also taken steps specifically to advance media from marginalized groups, and in June it launched its Meaningful Marketplaces initiative. The program gives advertisers access to over 2,300 publishers in the She Media Partner Network who self-identify as members of an affinity group, such as woman-owned, Black-owned, Latinx-owned, AAPI-owned and LGBTQ+-owned companies. Group Black expands its mission For Group Black, its partnership with She Media represents its second major initiative since launching earlier this summer. The company is split into two sections––Group Black Media and Group Black Ventures. The company has four main goals, Montaque said: build the next generation of innovative media brands that are Black owned; drive scalable investment into Black-owned media; equip member companies with best-in-class technology; and invest, both capital and expertise. Group Black has different tiers of involvement, and it is most hands-on with its member companies: Essence, Holler, PlayVS, the Shade Room and Baller Alert. But with its new addition of 250 Group Black Network publishers, the company hopes to seed a new generation of Black-owned media with the investment and tech it needs to build sustainable momentum. “By tapping into the commitments we have from agencies and brands to drive significant investment into these publishers, we want to deliver on our mission of dramatically transforming what investment looks like in Black-owned companies,” Montaque said.