Major Brands Have Increased Their Spend on Black-Owned Media.

Source: www.insideradio.com, May 2023

Ad Age surveyed Black-owned media companies about the ad spending patterns of major brands and turned up mixed results from company to company. The good news? Ad allocations from most big brands and agencies for Black-owned media grew in 2022 over 2021, the advertising publication reports. The findings are based on a survey of seven Black-owned media companies that provided data.

The data shows many of the brands that made public commitments to increase their investments in Black-owned media following the 2020 killing of George Floyd “have made marked progress, though the degree to which that’s happening is subject to some debate among media owners,” the Ad Age story says. These include Target, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, General Motors, and McDonald’s. “In general, all respondents showed more brands or agencies increasing rather than decreasing spending, with some reporting dramatic increases in 2022, albeit off low bases,” Ad Age says.

Although the growth is continuing, measuring the upswing is complicated by the move of some brands, including Procter & Gamble and Verizon, to programmatic buying of Black-owned media. But some Black-owned media companies have shown reticence to programmatic ad buys, choosing instead to preserve their direct relationships with brands and agencies.

Meanwhile, a study from the Association of National Advertisers’ Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing, based on data from Standard Media Index, shows spending on Black-owned media is steadily rising. SMI’s numbers are based on national advertising buys with data it captures from actual agencies invoicing data from all the major holding companies and most major independents, representing about 95% of national brand and spend.

According to SMI, ad spending with Black-owned media companies nearly tripled since 2020 to $880 million, Ad Age reports. In addition, SMI says spending on Black-owned media comprised 62% of the spending on diverse-owned media last year, even though Black-owned companies accounted for just 47% of diverse-owned outlets.

While overall media spending grew at an annual rate of 9% from 2020 to 2022, per the AIMM/SMI data, it grew far faster for diverse-owned media, up a staggering 80% per year from $400 million in 2020 to $1.4 billion in 2022. And while overall SMI-tracked media was essentially flat last year, investment in diverse-owned media increased by more than 50%, Ad Age reports.

Offering evidence that spending on diverse-owned media has a long way to go to achieve parity with overall media spend, Ad Age reports that spending on all diverse-owned media made up only 1.85% of total spending measured by SMI in 2022, and spending on Black-owned media comprised only 1.16%. But those shares were each more than double what they were in 2020.

Read the complete Ad Age analysis, including individual brand breakouts, HERE.