Gorilla Nation Broadens Its African-American Reach

August 13, 2008

Online advertising rep firm Gorilla Nation recently signed four leading African-American Web properties to its GNMulticultural Vertical giving its advertisers access to 16 million unique visitors per month. The four sites added include, BlackPeopleMeet.com, BlackChristianPeopleMeet.com, BlackWebPortal.com, and Rap-Up.com.

“The addition of these new AA properties now brings our GNMulticultural vertical to an estimated 13 million AA uniques and 3 million Hispanic uniques,” says Angela S. Cooper, Sr. Director of Business Development for Gorilla Nation. “This growth will enable our clients to target specific demographics, psychographics and audiences, ranging from dating, to blogs, to video and urban content through customized integrations and scalable sponsorships.”

Owned by People Media, BlackPeopleMeet is touted as the largest dating site reaching African Americans online with nearly 1 million unique visitors per month and 287 million page views. Another People Media site, BlackChristianPeopleMeet is one of the largest dating sites for African-American Christians. BlackWebPortal, on the other hand, is a destination providing affluent African-Americans with abundant information and resources surrounding the black community, and Rap-Up is an urban blog featuring the hottest hip-hop and R&B news, new music and videos, seven days a week. Rap-Up also offers users the opportunity to watch behind-the-scenes footage from Rap-Up shoots, red carpet coverage, and exclusive one-on-one interviews on Rap-Up TV. As well, the site is home to Rap-Up, the national glossy print magazine with a targeted circulation of 90,000.

With GlamMedia’s Black Life, and online ad networks from both Essence and BET, as well as a swarm of urban and African-American site and portal launches, it seems that the idea that the digital divide is closed (as proved by Radio One’s “Black America Study,” which revealed that 68 percent of African-Americans are now online compared with 71 percent of all Americans ) has caught on as a business opportunity.

In this arena, Gorilla Nation is running up against not only Glam, but Interactive One as well. Just watch Smokey Fontaine, Chief Content Officer at Interactive One, describing the company as a “super start-up” in a quick interview with MarketWatch.

From TradingMarkets.com:

“Interactive One is the largest and most comprehensive digital network for African-Americans,” said Smokey D. Fontaine, Chief Content Officer, Interactive One. “Our family of targeted content sites and our social network enables users to find original and intelligent content tailored to African-American’s interests and needs and to engage in conversation with the Black community online.”

Category: Advertising, Diversity, News | Tags: Advertising, African-American adveritisng, African-Americans online, glam media, Gorilla Nation, interactive one, Multicultural, urban

Carter

Just clicked on the blackwebportal link in the post, it says that it is a reported attack site?

Lynne d Johnson

Carter - Not sure what you mean. Who or what says it is a reported attack site. You say "it" says, after reporting that you clicked on the link. So did you get a popup message of some sort in your Web browser? What Web browser are you using?

Just need to be clear what you mean because I just tested the link on both Mac and PC on Firefox and Safari on both platforms and then on IE on Windows. Still not seeing whatever you saw that told you it was an attack site. Are you using FireFox 3?

They must have been hacked at some point and there must be some malicious files out there that Google is blocking. So it's the combination of Firefox 3 and Google perhaps, and perhaps malware on that site. Though, I've visited as I've said and there have been no attacks on my computer.

Maybe I'll report to the site that they're being blacklisted. Thanks.

MrAfrica

You may also use TheBwp.com to access BlackWebPortal... As for these companies going after the black demo, this is a good thing for black webmasters... Of course many shall not last, but still competition can only help drive up the CPM rates for sites in general...

Have a friend who with BET and right now they have the highest CPM for black sites... Nearly $5 per 1,000 impressions... Don't know of any other black ad networks that can boast that... ( aka... webmaster share of the revenue )

Your Thoughts?

Lynne d Johnson

@MrAfrica Wow I didn't know that on the BET network. That's a pretty good rate.

All it can do overall, is prove there's a market there. Let's just hope that the little guys, the bloggers that get into some of these deals -- will get their just due that the ad networks and ad rep firms won't take too huge of a percentage.

MrAfrica

Yeah fill rate is just around 45% or so... Yet still I could work with that while defaulting back to my previous ad networks... ( ad rotation ) In summary the one's within BET network is lucky or vice versa... ( Smile )

Carter

I clicked ignore warning since you had no problems and was able to see the site. They have a hacker update on the homepage that basically says that since July 26 they have had continuous attacks against their database and that they are in the process of upgrading their systems. This explains the warning message I was receiving.

L. Tyler

It seems like within the last 12 months all of the big boys have made a mad dash into what they previously could have cared less about. Lynne I hope along with you that your local blogger will make sure they're not taken advantage of.

With the numbers that some of them are putting up they probably should look into hiring an ad sales rep and taking 100% of the money instead of taking scraps off of the table. It would be more profitable.

Dede @ Clutch

@ L. Tyler - I agree. I think soon everyone will realize this ad network game and take control of their inventory.

Ms Mecca

@DeDe .... There are way too many emerging sites for someone to take advantage of their inventory....many sites (like us) need a network to survive (my earnings from my network covers my mortgage and car note lol -- I couldnt scrape the surface of everything they bring me if I was alone)

@MrAfrica...BET's fill rate is less than 50%...thats not great

@L Tyler....These publisher initiated networks are shiesty as hell. We're very weary of rolling under the wings of a company that has ad supported assets of their own. Then the new wave is to disguise the no vaseline raping with the fact that they are helping you at the same time by showing your content when in actuality they drive people to this aggregated destination to recoup higher cpms. It's ingenious but doesn't help us webmasters. Go with a dedicated network whose core business is being a network and... go with a black owned network. There are a couple out there (one that has been around for more than a decade but is very selective about who they let in)

Don't let these white boys own our dollars - do your homework people (not being racist but I think we could support each other and make this work)

Carmen

MrAfrica

@MrAfrica…BET’s fill rate is less than 50%…thats not great
--
--
Yes it is if they paying close to $5 cpm, as one can always default back to AdGroups, Valueclickmedia, or whatever...

-Smile-

Been in this game for years...