How to Woo Black Consumers while Screwing Black Talent: A Social Influencer Tale of Inequity.

The Advertising Industry wants Black consumers. We want their numbers. We want their money. What we often don’t want to do is treat the Black talent it takes to connect with these consumers fairly. A great example of this comes courtesy of a young man named Beleaf Melanin.

Beleaf Melanin is one of social media’s biggest Black influencers. He has millions of followers across the major platforms. Dope content about Black fatherhood, faith, mental health, hiphop and more. He first got on my radar as a member of theBreax on Rawkus Records (true heads know Rawkus!), then he went solo and dropped some cool projects of his own. I always liked his music and his vibe and knew I’d put him a commercial one day.

?Now I won’t mention the agency or client here. But the lesson to be glean here is bigger than their names, so here we go…

Back in February 2019 I was contracted by the multicultural shop of a big telecom/ content provider. They needed a 360o campaign. Direct response work is about driving engagement—signups, subscriptions, foot traffic, sales. (Call Now! Click Here! Fill out/return… etc.)

?So, I flood ‘em with concepts including one called, “Beleaf in CLIENT.” It featured Beleaf showing how he uses CLIENT to enrich his family’s homelife. Weave in product demos, warm family moments, call-to-action throughout. Fin. Beleaf was already a buzzing influencer with numbers and plugged into our audience—Black parents and families loved him.

As my script moves towards approval, I hit up Beleaf for his availability. He was down, but with one caveat: “She’s due June 26” his wife is expecting their third child. So, to see how this lines up with production, I go to our producer for a shoot date—she has a tentative timeline. “June 8,” she says. Knowing babies move on their own timeline, I get busy on an alternate script.

“Kev’s House Party” features the hugely popular Kevin ‘KevOnStage’ Fredericks. (He’d been cracking me up for years already.) In it, he touts THE CLIENT and jabs his friends to get with it. Kev was already a pioneering influencer with millions of followers in our community, so this makes sense. Plus, we could still do the Beleaf spot later.

?In late April I tell the CCO (Chief Creative Officer) that Beleaf’s wife was due June 26th, so we should replace the Beleaf spot with this Kevin one. He says, “Okay, we’ll handle it.”

A couple weeks later the CCO tells me CLIENT has approved “Kev’s House Party and I need to polish it so we can bid it out to directors. He sends notes.

“‘Housewarming’?!” I mumble as I read. Something’s gone wrong.

“(Kev’s) House Party” has been changed to something called “Housewarming”: Beleaf hosts a party at his home and Kevin visits… It’s clunky. A good 20 seconds too long… And Beleaf and his wife are in it! Also, by the way, a separate agency email tells me the shoot is on the 15th.

?I call the chief creative officer…

?ME: What’s this?! She’s due in June. She can’t be in this. He’s not missing his kid’s birth. He won’t show up!

CCO: “We know what we’re doing.”

?Famous last words.

I push back but AGENCY and CLIENT want both Beleaf and Kev and now their families—in it. “More bang for the buck,” I’m told. (This is another burden Black Influencers bear: Brands and ad agencies want everything from Black influencers: All their followers and influence, all their talent, multiple executions, etc. all for as little compensation as possible… Most clients and agencies would pay Black talent in Panera sandwiches and prepaid gift cards if they could get away with it.)

Now, just as I’m trying to whittle this crappy script down to 60 seconds while injecting some semblance of flavor into it the shoot date changes on me yet again; now it’s June 22nd. Again, I pause to remind folks of Beleaf’s due date. And again, I am ignored.

We bid out the job, scout locations… And for no apparent reason whatsoever the Client and Agency move the shoot for what's now the FOURTH TIME to—you guessed it: June 26.

Me in the next meeting:

“Guys, did you forget that the 26th is Beleaf’s due date. What are we doing?!”

No response. Everyone sits in stone silence. It’s like talking to a brick wall—made of bricks that don’t give a spit. At this point all I can do is sit back and pray her water breaks late.

On June 26 we hit the set around 7am. I immediately go looking for Beleaf. I find him—pacing back and forth outside his trailer visibly LIVID. “Oh no,” I know that look. A grip tells me his wife’s water broke just as he got here, and he now wants to leave.

CLIENT and AGENCY stand just out of earshot of the talent trailers, roughly 100 feet from a still visibly stressed out Beleaf. They mumble amongst themselves but loud enough for me to hear: Beleaf needs to be professional about this. He needs to do his job. An agency producer walks over to Beleaf’s agent and tells them if Beleaf walks off set he’ll be in breach of contract, and the client and agency will sue him.

At this point, I’m froze stiff, y’all.

You literally set this guy up to miss his wife’s birth and you wanna sue HIM? What. The. Entire. F…

So instead of kicking out the floorboards on my own 3 hour drive, I calm down and go find Beleaf’s agent for some clarity.

“Maggie,” his agent tells me the hospital is maybe 4 hours from the set and Beleaf is now on the phone with his wife. She says she’s basically okay, but even if Beleaf leaves right now, she’s likely gonna give birth while he’s stuck in traffic so just stay on set and do the spot.

Beleaf is a devout Christian (as am I). He puts family over everything. If it wasn’t for his wife and Jason Fredericks, Kev’s brother/business partner (R.I.P.) talking to him, he’d’ve been on the 101 yelling “push!” between contractions on speakerphone an hour ago.

?So now it’s about 10:30 am. We got a couple scenes in the can and now the crew is setting up for a backyard scene. Our talent are all waiting inside the house. Suddenly over the speakers we hear crying. It’s Beleaf. And his wife. They’re discuss baby names between tears…?

It was a hot mic.

Beleaf had unknowingly left his microphone and monitor on between takes. Now the whole set—crew, agency, and client hear everything. His wife’s delivered; the baby’s fine it seems… A production assistant calls him back out to the set, and he comes back out shocked as clapping and awws break out. He smiles but you can tell he’s not good with this.

Over lunch Beleaf and I finally sit and talk. He looks down and sounds like he’s in the bottom of a well. ?He not only missed his child’s birth—something he vowed he’d never ever do, but here he is forced to share that private moment with the very people who not only made him miss the birth but just lobbed a lawsuit threat at him over breakfast.

We finish the spot. It airs, and in a few days, the numbers comes in: It’s a colossal success. Ends up being—in the client's own words: one of their most successful spots ever. But it came at a huge cost. Afterwards, I promised myself I’d stick around just get Beleaf another spot—a better one. Done right.

Now to present day…

Over the years, I’ve worked General Market shops. Black and Multicultural shops. Big shops. Small shops. Client side… Only time I've seen ridiculousness like this is when clients and agencies deal with Black talent and Black audiences. It's like a magic switch gets flipped and otherwise sane savvy professionals go into complete clownface-dumbass-screw-Black-people mode.

For all the progress some have made, much of the advertising world is still far behind where it needs to be. And no amount of DEI PR spin will change callous a--hole behavior. Especially when clients continue to be complicit, in many cases, leaders of it—both in attitude and in budget.

Influencers and content creation will be an key anchor in the marketing mix from now on. And Black content creators are among the leaders of this. They influence everything including other influencers. We'd better figure out how to start respecting these people. We need them way more than they need us.

Anyways…

Beleaf is doing great. Again, he’s one of the of the biggest influencers around. He's built an amazing brand from the heart. He’s making great music still. He’s working with clients who actually respect him and Black audiences. ?So please go ahead check him out at: www.Beleafinfatherhood.com or @BeleafInFatherhood on your favorite platform! He’s doing amazing work and deserves all the attention and support he can get. I’m so proud of the guy and everything he’s done since. (Same goes for Kevin Fredericks! He runs KevOnStage Studios and you can also find him at @KevOnStage on your fave social platform!)

As for me? I’m not at that agency anymore. You can only do but so much for folks who only respect but so little.

#Equity #DEI #BlackTalent #BlackVendors #Blackadvertising #BHM #Clients #Blackcreatives #Multicultural #Advertising #agencylife #BlackHistoryMonth #diversityequityinclusion #ContentCreators