Brands Pledge To Amplify Black-Owned Businesses And Black Makers & Creators

Over the last several weeks, brands and businesses have been working on different strategies to make their own companies become more diverse and inclusive. For many companies, diversity initiatives include elevating black-owned brands and black creators, using the larger platforms and audience reach of the well-known brands to scale brand awareness and customer acquisition for the black-owned brands.

Postmates Using Content Marketing To Promote Black-Owned Restaurants

Postmates, an on-demand food delivery and pickup platform, recently turned over their Stories tab to blog posts promoting black-owned restaurants. The articles feature interviews with restaurant founders, delving into their roots, garnering advice for other restaurant owners and exploring their feelings about this historical time for black Americans. Postmates makes more than 35 million deliveries a year and is in a unique position to leverage their massive reach and amplify black-owned restaurants. In addition to the blog posts, Postmates launched the “Black-Owned Restaurants collection” which can be searched with the term “black-owned” in the Postmates app, making it easy for users to find black-owned restaurants in more than 130 cities. Postmates has waived the delivery fee for users ordering from the black-owned businesses listed on their app. 

Brands Pledge To Increase Products By Black Makers And Brands By 15%

The Fifteen Percent Pledge, recently launched by creative director Aurora James, is asking retailers around the country to collectively work to amplify black-owned businesses through their most powerful tools — cash registers. “Black people in the U.S. make up nearly 15% of the population. So, we are calling on major retailers to commit a minimum of 15% of their shelf to black-owned businesses,” explains 15percentpledge.org. Recently, major makeup retailer Sephora signed onto the pledge telling The New York Times, “Ultimately, this commitment is about more than the prestige products on our shelves,” said Artemis Patrick, Chief Merchandising Officer of Sephora. “It starts with a long-term plan diversifying our supply chain and building a system that creates a better platform for black-owned brands to grow, while ensuring black voices help shape our industry. We recognize we can do better.” 

On June 1, Rent the Runway announced on Instagram that they would also be committing to the Fifteen Percent Pledge, explaining that, “15% of the fashion talent that we [Rent the Runway] feature and support moving forward are from the black community, inclusive of the models in our marketing, the ambassadors we use and the styling talent, photographers, videographers and crews behind the camera.”

YouTube Commits To Amplifying Black Creators 

YouTube has committed to amplifying black creators and highlighting injustice via several initiatives. The platform, which has more than 2 billion users, has created a multiyear $100 million dollar fund dedicated to “amplifying and developing the voices of black creators and artists and their stories,” said Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube. To kick off the initiative, YouTube Originals created “Bear Witness, Take Action,” which is a series of roundtables, conversations and performances that highlight black creators and raise money for racial justice. In the month of June, YouTube’s Spotlight channel is airing content related to the fight for civil rights and the current calls for racial justice, hosted by black creators, thinkers, writers and luminaries. “YouTube has a unique ability to unite creators, artists and powerful voices within the black community to encourage the world to stand up and speak out for racial justice,” said Susanne Daniels, YouTube’s Global Head of Original Content.

By being forward-thinking, brands are in better positions to make real changes to their industries and communities, and to gain the trust of consumers and shoppers who may be wary of brands that are just making public statements and aren’t committed to real change. By leveraging the strengths of their industries, whether it’s hospitality, retail or content, brands can use their own successes to lift up others.

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