General Motors is revamping its model for working with diverse-owned and diverse-targeted media, including hosting its own advance “upfront” briefings dedicated to these outlets, creating a new $50 million incubation fund and rethinking measurement criteria.
The new plan follows GM’s conversations with Black-owned media outlets led by the likes of Byron Allen among others, who called for the automaker to sit down with group after claiming the company had ignored such meeting requests in the past.
“This action plan will transform our engagement model with diverse media in a sustainable way,” Deborah Wahl, GM global chief marketing officer, said in a statement. “Over the course of several weeks, we met with many diverse-owned media organizations. We are grateful for the transparency and spirit of collaboration, which helped us frame this inclusive approach.”
Upfront meetings are important events in the advertising business. They allow media companies to make their pitch to key advertisers — particularly leading national marketers such as GM.
GM will host a dedicated upfront with diverse media owners on May 14, ahead of the traditional media marketplace. The goal of the summit is to encourage existing and potential partners to submit an overview of their business for consideration by GM for deeper engagement, including request for proposal. The process that will be used for the selection of media will be accredited by a third party to ensure fairness and transparency, according to the company.
The automaker is also allocating $50 million over 10 years to help support and scale diverse marketing companies. This is incremental to GM’s media spend.
One challenge brands and media agencies have expressed in working with diverse-owned media companies is around measurement and scale. To help overcome some of these challenges, GM is establishing media criteria with input from diverse media to allow for more flexibility based on the size and scale of the media organization.
GM previously announced it would increase its overall diverse media spend, including doubling its commitment for spending with Black-owned media to 2 percent in 2021 and 4 percent in 2022, with the goal of reaching 8 percent by 2025.
“I applaud GM for taking the results of their thoughtful and robust discussions with a significant number of diverse media entities and then developing this thorough, bold and transformational plan to increase engagement with diverse media,” Alfred Liggins, CEO of Urban One, said in a statement.