Common automated media buying tactics and brand safety practices tend to block websites that cater to Black audiences.
BOMESI, a nonprofit whose mission is to make it easier for brands to monetize Black-owned media, is trying to change that dynamic.
On Tuesday, BOMESI announced a new partnership with Vox Media to help advertisers make good on their diversity pledges.
The BOMESI Collective, which includes 50 Black-owned publishers, is now integrated with Concert, Vox Media’s supply-side platform, through which advertisers can buy video and rich media display through programmatic guaranteed and direct deals.
The Trade Desk is Concert’s exclusive demand partner, although Vox Media plans to onboard additional DSPs in the coming months.
Breaking down barriers
Giving advertisers an inclusion list of vetted publishers that reach diverse audiences is a way for Black-owned media to overcome the barriers that prevent them from effectively monetizing programmatically, said DéVon Christopher Johnson, a co-founder of BOMESI and a publisher himself.
Blunt instruments, such as automated keyword blocklists, disproportionately flag Black media sites as not safe for brands.
For example, brand safety solutions are notorious for missing nuances in how writers use idiomatic language. A perfectly brand safe story about how a celebrity “slayed” their look on the red carpet could get flagged as violent news content.
For that reason, although Black media owners often get a lot of interest from buyers, it doesn’t always translate into ad revenue, said BOMESI co-founder Rhonesha Byng, who also has a background in publishing.
To counteract this dynamic, Vox is offering assurance that the publishers in the BOMESI network are brand safe and have relevant audience reach and scale. BOMESI’s publishers also qualify as at least 51% Black-owned in terms of the makeup of their leadership teams.
The partnership is especially relevant now, Johnson said, given the growing pushback against DEI initiatives and inclusive marketing, which has given some brands cover to not honor the pledges they made to spend more on Black media during 2020’s civil rights protests.
BOMESI’s network
Although buyers can access BOMESI inventory through Concert, that inventory won’t be pooled with any other Vox Media supply so as to maximize the revenue that goes to the Black-owned media outlets, Vox told AdExchanger.
Advertisers don’t have an option to pick individual publishers. When they make their buy, it’s across all of the members in the BOMESI Collective. But BOMESI does work with advertisers to tailor campaign creative to Black audiences.
The idea here is that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” Johnson said. But BOMESI also wants to help publishers build better boats to take full advantage of the rising tide, he added.
BOMESI spends a lot of time and resources educating its publishers on how digital ad tech works. It also makes introductions to partners that can help them monetize and get their internal teams and tech stacks “revenue-ready,” Johnson said.
Not all publishers are immediately ready to integrate with programmatic tech partners when they sign up for the network. “Some are in need of technology, some are in need of introductions, some are just in need of a community,” Johnson said.
BOMESI’s overall network includes 218 US-based publishers. It plans to grow that list to 250 by the end of the summer, Johnson said.
The 50 media owners in the BOMESI Collective are a more experienced and technologically equipped subset of BOMESI’s broader publisher base, Johnson said. In other words, these are publishers whose boats are more seaworthy.
To help graduate publishers from the larger group into the BOMESI Collective, the nonprofit launched the BOMESI Accelerator program, which offers networking opportunities and education from industry experts. The first cohort of seven publishers finished the program last year, and BOMESI is currently accepting applications for its second cohort.
Monetary support
In addition to the Concert integration, BOMESI is also now receiving monetary support from Vox Media, which the nonprofit plans to help its publishers reinvest into their tech stacks. Vox declined to share specifics about its financial commitment to BOMESI.
And BOMESI is working with Vox to educate its publishers on how to start running Athena ad units on their sites and understand the impact on monetization. Athena is Vox Media’s proprietary ad format, which supports custom video and rich media creative.
Athena units attract consistently higher CPMs compared to typical display units, Byng said.
And these ad units represent net new revenue that publishers would not have access to without the Concert integration, Johnson added.
But it’s important to note that individual publishers have the option not to participate.
“We treat our community as independent entrepreneurs,” Byng said. “We give them the information to decide whether it’s right for them, and for those that choose to go forward, the Vox team will help them make sure they have what they need.”
