Global Hue: Change We Can Believe In?
Change has been a consistent theme for the past few years, and this theme has held true across the content and advertising industries. As African-American buying power continues to increase, so has the economic will of companies trying to attract these consumers. This shift has left the handful of multicultural ad agencies in a potential sweet spot to attract the large brands. One of the agencies set to benefit the most from this shift is Global Hue.
Global Hue, one of the largest multicultural ad agencies, has inked campaigns deals with big brands such as Verizon, Walmart, and Jeep (just to name a few). In fact, their newly designed website (at least new to me) lists some of their campaigns for these companies and displays the medium that was used during these campaigns. If you skim through some of these campaigns you will find a pretty consistent theme — very little if any online campaigns.
As we African Americans continue to shift to online and mobile devices, companies like Global Hue and others have been very slow to evolve with us. Beyond the basic banner ads (which seem to only go out to the same few “black sites”), and the played out mini-sites, there has been little to no social media campaigns, mobile campaigns, or nearer to my heart, custom advertising campaigns on smaller, more engaged and influential websites. There’s no doubt that shifting more and more ad dollars online could mean more money in the pockets of sites like ours and others, so this does make me a bit biased.
It still seems as if “many advertisers think that there are only four ways to reach the African-American audience: The Tom Joyner Show, BET, Essence and Ebony/Jet,” says President Al Anderson in a Black Enterprise article written in 2002 (Sorry BE, I couldn’t find the original post on your website). A lot has changed since Anderson spoke those words, but it seems to me that this statement holds true nearly eight years later.
So as you watch this video, hinged on the theme of change, ask yourself if Global Hue and other multicultural advertising agencies are really ushering in change, are is it still business as usual.
Category: Advertising | Tags: Al Anderson, BET, Black Enterprise, branding, ebony, Essence, Global Hue, Jeep, Jet, marleting, Tom Joyner Morning Show, verizon, walmart
Well lets start by saying that GH (like most of the black media/ad agency outlets) are very late to the digital game. Maybe if these guy invest in digital talent and not the top big wigs they pull from other general market agencies, they could possibly produce digital a platform. They talk change constantly in this video, but I feel that is just borrowed jargon from a certain political campaign. I have yet to see where their digital chops have really made any big noise in the digital clutter currently out there.
And when it comes to current clients like Walmart and Verizon, GH can not get any digital work because these companies does not expect them to be digitally capable enough to produce the work. They lost the Jeep account according to Agency Spy (which Organic currently do the digital work), and the Navy site was a complete joke. On top of it all, they can't retain digital talent. Word on the street is that people have been leaving left and right since late last year, including the VP of digital.
Are we serious here Global Hue? I would love to see your buy list on Black Sites/blogs? Cause I think it's about none (unless it's the 5 Mr. Anderson mentioned)- its sad black agencies like to say they are in the space and helping small and emerging black properties and reaching the consumers they boast to the brands they represent or try to pitch for new biz – but we all know it's a front. It's sad.