NewFront Diversity Takeaway for Brands: Build a Creator-Made Multicultural Ad Marketplace

The Big Message: The environment is out there for such relationships to happen, given the dramatic rise of multicultural content creators and a more open mindset by advertisers for reaching multicultural consumers in a broader fashion. What will it take to create relationships that last for the long term? Further encouraging diversity, sizing up and getting ahead of consumer trends and coming up with new practices to measure sales effectiveness and return on investment.

Host: Sheryl Goldstein,IAB's Chief Growth Officer, was joined by Google Multicultural Creative Business Partner Paula Castro, YouTube Trends Insights Lead official Earnest Pettie, and Johanna Lara, Head Of Sales Strategy and Programs for YouTube's BrandConnect unit.

What Worked: Getting the most mileage out of a 20-minute segment through lively discussion in a number of areas from the role of content creators in multicultural campaigns to brands buying into experiments with different campaign approaches. "The goal is to make sure brands approach each creator and align with specific goals and return on investment," Lara declared.

What Also Worked: The inclusion of commentary by YouTube personality/content maker Karen Elyse. Her takeaway for the virtual audience watching this panel: "Let the creator be the creator and create."

What Didn't Work: The absence of examples of commercials or branded content involving a creator tie-in that would illustrate the panelist's views. If you're going to have a creator like Elyse do the time and tape a quick sequence about the role creators want to have with brands, throw in 30 or 60 seconds from one of her recent brand spots. Another missing angle from this event: thoughts from either an advertiser or ad agency that's all in, or getting involved in, creator-made messages for multicultural audiences.

News: Three African American-owned media organizations preceded the panel with 15-minute presentations. Two of the three shared new developments.

Blavity, in business since 2014, announced the launch of Blavity TV, an ad-supported TV service for African American Millennials. Original unscripted series in various genres make up the lion's share of the channel's schedule, from matters of entrepreneurship to those of lifestyle and pop culture. Morgan DeBaum, the venture's founder and Chief Executive Officer offered no information on specific series, smart TV or bundle distribution and program development.

A number of smart TV-distributed services are in play at Revolt Media, supplementing the company's cable network. In its first-ever NewFront showcase, Revolt disclosed that 14 original series are close to launching or in development, mostly in the news/information and hip-hop culture categories. Some series will originate from Revolt's new Atlanta studio facility. A new partnership with Overtime will develop sports series with hip-hop elements. Black Enterprise, the popular Web site and former producer of the weekly syndicated TV series This Week in Black Enterprise, was the third presenter.

Parting Words: "Shoppable ads are a very exciting opportunity for brands." -- IAB Chief Growth Officer Sheryl Goldstein

"We try to help with insights to determine what the user wants, what the consumers want. It's important with multicultural audiences to work with creators and experiment." -- Paula Castro, Google Multucultural Creative Business Partner

"Brands have the opportunity to have a long-term relationship with a broad range of diverse creators." -- Earnest Pettie, YouTube Trends Insight Lead

"My final tip: Tap into the right voices to create the right stories." -- Johanna Lara, YouTube BrandConnect's Head of Sales Strategy and Programs

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