Group Black CEO Travis Montaque Makes Brands More Inclusive

Walking down La Croissette during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year, Group Black CEO Travis Montaque was stopped by a lanyard-wearing bypasser. “Thank you,” she said. “I finally feel heard. I have been coming to Cannes for years, and for the first time I truly feel included.” For Montaque, the words of gratitude touched his heart. Cannes, replete with rosé-swilling yacht soirées, may not be representative of mass media. But as a snapshot of an industry reckoning with its own exclusivity, this is a sign of progress. In its first year, Group Black—launched in June 2021 with a mission to transform the face of Black-media ownership and investment across three core pillars—has been responsible for facilitating $500 million in ad spend commitments toward Black-owned media, from advertisers like P&G to agencies like GroupM and Dentsu. Reaching that dollar amount is Montaque’s proudest moment this year. And given that there’s only around $2 billion of Black-owned media inventory today, it’s easy to understand why that speed is impressive. “It’s a very serious and meaningful amount of progress to be made in a short space of time,” Montaque, Adweek’s Media Executive of the Year, said, in order to “drive the industry toward making the kind of change we want to see.” Born in Florida in 1992, Montaque worked as a cashier at fast-food chain Chick-fil-A at 15, managing two franchises before leaving the company at 19. Next was a stint as an investment analyst until he turned down a job at Goldman Sachs to focus on the messaging platform he set up as an undergraduate. He still serves as CEO of Splyst, later renamed Holler. In terms of entrepreneurial inspiration, he names his mom, who opened multiple salon businesses after moving to the U.S. from Jamaica. Currently, brands invest approximately 0.5% of their budgets in Black-owned media, said Montaque, with some like GM committing to grow that to 8% by 2025. In the U.S., that could be roughly $3 billion a year in investment. But due to a historical lack of funding, most Black-owned media is not set up to serve that amount of ad spend. Just 1% of Black-owned companies have more than 10 employees, according to Montaque, hindering their ability to seek out big-budget partnerships, invest and grow. Enter Group Black. Group Black has more than 200 members, including publisher Essence, festival Afropunk and plant-based food blog Black Girls Eat. It offers members infrastructure like technology tools, sales support and creative strategy as well as all-important access to ad spend from the world’s largest media buyers. For members like AllHipHop.com, DiscoverTV and titles on SHE Media network, it has driven incremental revenue through programmatic advertising. As a more consultative service for Holler Studios, Group Black provides monthly reports across the platform’s social channels to help it better utilize data to make more informed decisions around content production. What makes Group Black unique in the market is how it brings together many different Black-owned entities, said Gonzalo Del Fa, president of GroupM, multicultural. Group Black’s ability to develop more strategic advertising partnerships, rather than “media spots and dots,” has been less common in Black-owned media. “I keep saying to Travis, 'Keep expanding, keep adding partners,'” Del Fa said. “'You are making my life easier.'” From intrigue to action In 2021, the market responded—at first—with intrigue and little action. Now brands like Hennessy, McDonald's and Always Ultra have run campaigns with the group. “We are talking to every client about Group Black,” Del Fa said. Montaque pointed to consumer-packaged goods giant Procter & Gamble as the platinum standard in using the power of its media dollars to drive change. In Cannes, Group Black co-hosted a lunch with P&G for its Widen the Screen initiative. Widen the Screen, which predates P&G’s work with Group Black, has created career opportunities for several hundred creators, said Damon Jones, P&G’s chief communication officer. With Always Ultra, Group Black promoted honest conversations around puberty to show the brand understood Black women and girls culturally. The campaign included host-read ads on podcast Black Girls Texting, plus content with Group Black Creators and the Ultra Honest Booth at Afropunk in Minneapolis. It exceeded the brand’s historic benchmarks for view-through rates and clickthrough rates, according to Charlotte LaNiear, P&G’s senior director N.A. multicultural media. But with rapid growth comes some hiccups, and managing complicated clients from smaller teams can be a challenge, one marketer admitted. Group Black, which now has 60 employees, had to rapidly tool up to get members up to speed to accept the market investment. That meant giving members the capabilities to serve ads programmatically or helping to finesse a pitch on how to differentiate. “Travis listens,” Del Fa said. “Our conversations are not always fun. Sometimes we’re saying, ‘Hey, this campaign is running behind.’ We’re very transparent. I’ve never heard anything bad said about Travis in the industry.” Appropriate measurement parameters Marketers have been trained to value reach at economies of scale, a mentality shift that is supposedly coming to an end. Black-owned media will never have the scale of Facebook, YouTube or Disney, with marketers needing coaching in the right nuances and parameters. Instead of measuring CPMs, engagement is a better proxy, partners suggested. Rather than the number of gross rating points, they recommended looking at awareness or level of conversion. Group Black has a measurement team of two that it’s looking to expand. With Dentsu, it taps into the agency’s attention economy research to understand a more appropriate measure of success for this category. “At the end of the day, we still need to sell soap,” Montaque said. Without proof, advertisers could waive investment. Annual spend commitments to ease recession fears Given the economic climate, clients are nervous about a potential recession, and budgets for Black-owned media are in danger of being cut first. To mitigate, some marketers aim to have annual spend commitment deals in place from clients by the end of October, increasing revenue certainty going into 2023. “I don’t mind if my budget is being cut overall,” Del Fa said, “but I don’t want to cut the small amount of minority-owned spending in order to make the media plan look good.” For any brand contemplating cuts, they should recognize how pulling back disproportionately impacts certain stakeholders. For some Black-owned media, a 0.5% cut is “the difference between being alive or dead,” Montaque said. And in an economic downturn, people are more focused on spending with brands they love. “Being part of culture helps brands be stronger, more durable,” said Montaque, and “many Black-owned brands drive culture.” Group Black—part media collective, part tech platform, part advocacy group—aims to work in a nonjudgmental way with marketers, guiding them in what they don’t know. It's a trusted comrade trying to drive change, consulting with brands on how they can tap into culture to drive business outcomes and developing strategies beyond just serving media. “It’s almost like brands have never had a partner like this before,” Montaque said. This is the work that’s getting us closer to the inclusion age, the idea that there is “strong economic power in businesses that include me, that include my voice,” said Montaque, pointing to recent successes of Encanto, Squid Game and Black Panther. “Inclusion as a business model drives performance,” Montaque said, “but it’s also the right thing to do for the world.” Check out the rest of the 2022 Hot List here.

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Group Black CEO Travis Montaque Helps Brands Invest in a More Inclusive Future

Adweek's Media Executive of the Year helped facilitate $500 million in Black-owned media ad spend, and he's just getting started

Lucinda Southern

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