Advertisers are making headlines left and right with commitments to support diverse-owned media. But getting those commitments to actually scale is another story.
On Wednesday, Group Black, a collective that represents 200 Black-owned media publishers, announced a partnership with Magnite to help scale Black-owned inventory by making more of it available programmatically.
“Agencies and brands are pledging to spend millions with Black-owned media companies – and that’s great, nobody’s complaining about that,” Kerel Cooper, president of advertising at Group Black, told AdExchanger. “The problem is that not all Black-owned media organizations have the right technology, expertise or relationships to support a high influx of programmatic ad dollars.”
Group Black launched in 2021 with a mission to make Black-owned media easier to buy. Now, it’s choosing the supply-side platform Magnite as its inventory consolidator to make progress on that mission.
Magnite is packaging inventory from Group Black publishers into media bundles available for buyers through Magnite’s programmatic marketplace. The inventory is consolidated into deal IDs based on channel, such as digital display and connected TV, said Grant Sterling, Magnite’s global VP of business development.
The price of promise
There’s plenty of demand for diverse-owned media. Advertisers made all those promises, after all.
Buyers already go to Group Black to fill commitments they’ve made to spend with Black-owned publishers. Making more media available programmatically also gives publishers higher return on their inventory, Cooper said.
Some Group Black publishers already sell some media programmatically. But for most of its publishing clients, programmatic is a brand-new opportunity, Cooper said.
Black-owned vs. Black-targeted media
Diversity in media is about more than where an ad runs. Besides advertisers scrambling to meet Black-owned media pledges, Group Black often works with advertisers looking to target an African American audience, Cooper said.
Both Group Black and Magnite are expecting new buyers as a result of inventory consolidation that’s far-reaching across Black media. Group Black also bundles audience segments into deal IDs on Magnite for clients specifically trying to target Black audiences, and expects more of those buyers, too.
But the point of this partnership is to boost Black-owned media – which can reach anyone – by making it easier for all advertisers to buy.
The problem is that misconceptions around Black-owned media and who it’s “really for” are proving to be an even bigger obstacle than introducing new brands and publishers to the technology behind programmatic buying, Cooper said.
“We’ve had to educate the marketplace that ‘Black-owned’ doesn’t always mean ‘Black-targeted,’” Cooper said. “Just because the ownership of a media company is Black doesn’t mean its content is only being consumed by Black audiences.”
Some marketers, for example, mistakenly think a media buy with a Black-owned publisher will predominantly or exclusively reach Black audiences.
But that’s just not the case. Black-owned websites, TV networks and products have wide-ranging customer bases.
“Buyers can come to us if they’re looking to reach an African American audience,” Cooper said – “but they can come to us for a lot more than that as well.”
