Meara McNitt
is actually being recorded. All right, we are all good. Awesome, well, thank you. Ooh, let me start that over. Thank you so much for joining us. Allen and Desmon, could you tell us a little bit about Narrotint and the company story, how it got started, why it’s here?

Desmon Walker
Sure. So what Narratent is, is a digital marketing agency or firm. Narratent got its start a few years back around 2019, pretty much as a, as a, as a joint freelance effort, I would say between Allen and myself. So essentially what Allen did was he one day hit me up and said, you know, what’s up, man? I’m, I’m working my marketing job. You’re, you’re working your marketing job. But I also got

someone that I met who wants to pay me 100 bucks to design this website for his nonprofit organization. And so I’m sure as you both can imagine how a lot of stories go is, you have those itty bitty small chunks of opportunities that tend to either come your way or you go chasing down and it makes sense for you at the time. And that’s what having a conversation like that did for Allen and I.

Allen Shelton
you

Desmon Walker
What we did was we essentially just started taking that series over the course of about a year or two. And through a pandemic and through more frequent freelancing, getting furloughed from companies like myself, pretty much a runway opened up and that runway allowed us to kind of snowball those micro opportunities into like real deal, real life opportunities. And so…

Long story short, we pretty much over that course of time managed to start talking to some bigger companies, bigger projects started to form and we decided to actually form it into a real life agency. So what we are now is a team of myself, Allen, along with two other employees. We work on a myriad of projects, but all seem to kind of interweave between.

what our mantra is, which is making life interesting and starting movements. So what does that actually mean? That means we, in a way, kind of weave one strong thread through companies that are doing just that, they’re making life interesting. And in particular, they’re adding some form of equity, I would say, into what their primary audiences usually are, which is black or African-American.

audiences or communities. And so that’s what, you know, we’re scratching our itch with. And, you know, we’re still relatively, I would say small and young, but still kind of like a sleeping giant that we’re trying to, trying to awake here. So that’s a little bit about our story.

Meara McNitt
Do y’all specifically field the companies that you do marketing for? Are you looking for a specific voice or niche? Are you looking specifically for companies reaching black audiences, anything like that?

Allen Shelton
Yeah, so we don’t necessarily build the companies like from scratch or anything like that. Typically companies come to us or we reach out to companies that are looking to either want to target a black or brown audience or a company that is brown or black owned. So what we do is we like to look at ourselves as the type of agency that gets down in the mud with you. Like we wanna understand your pain points, we wanna understand where you wanna go, where you are currently.

and help, right, and consult. Not to say, hey, you want to pay us? We’ll do exactly what you want. No, let’s push against this a little bit, right? This is great. This isn’t so great. This is in the middle. Let’s make it better. So we help develop a brand or a tone of voice that is going to genuinely reach the audience that they’re looking to reach. And we’ll get into this more with other questions, I’ll assume, but.

That’s what it’s all about. We understand that you can say things or create things that look good or sound good, but I think it’s more so about the authenticity that you have and what you say and the type of marketing that you put out.

Meara McNitt
Yeah, honestly, I think that perfectly leads into the next question that we have. So if companies want to target a black audience, what do you believe are the essential or like crucial steps for that?

Allen Shelton
Yeah, no, that’s a great question. And it’s probably a question that we went to inbound and we went to all these conferences and they literally have entire sessions about how to do it. Like, how can you do this? And me and Dez always look to ourselves like, sometimes I feel like it’s over complicated, but I think the answer that we would say that I would say is be unafraid to not know. You know what I’m saying? Like nobody knows everything, right? You ask anybody like how to…

I don’t know about this subject matter, or I don’t know about how to reach this. It’s OK not to know. But when you not know, you have to take that next step and do the research and understand, how can I? Again, what we push on our agency is, how do we get into your shoes? How do we get into your pain point or your good point, whatever the case may be, and understand? So what comes out of our mouths in terms of advertising or marketing from a digital perspective is.

authentic, it really actually hits the spot that you understand, it speaks that language that you actually speak, not a language that I think you might speak. And then I come out and be wrong. And it’s just like, ah, you know, it’s one of those situations. So I think is as simply as it’s put, just understanding and being unafraid to know. And I think that’s once you do that and understand like, Hey, willing to say like, Hey, I don’t know, but I want to learn and this is how I’m going to learn. I’m going to bring these people I want to bring in somebody black or brown in.

is they have that experience that I don’t have, right? Not because of my fault, because this is not the life that I’ve lived, right? But I’m gonna bring somebody that has that understanding or somebody that can relate or somebody that can bring somebody else in that can relate and then I can have more of that authentic marketing, if that makes sense.

Meara McNitt
Yeah.

Irene Wambui Muchai
I completely

Irene Wambui Muchai
think it was like Pepsi or something like that where Kendall Jenner came up to the front of like the line of police officers holding a Pepsi like that was gonna solve problems but like obviously there wasn’t very many people of color at the table to be like maybe we should rethink that so I think definitely having people at the table to voice their opinions and say hey I’ve been through this experience as a black person as a brown person this does it this is gonna sound very tone-deaf to all people you know.

Allen Shelton
Exactly.

Meara McNitt
Yeah, I just, on a smaller scale, I saw a tweet the other day from Netflix where they, it was about the new Wednesday show and they said that Wednesday was queen of the snapback and instead of a clapback, which I saw that and I was like, the hat? And then a woman, a black woman retweeted it and she’s like, this is what happens when Netflix fires all of their black and brown copywriters and now you have people who aren’t even using the terms correctly.

Allen Shelton
Oh yeah, instead of the clap, instead of the clap back, yeah.

Right.

Allen Shelton
Exactly. It’s a great show by the way. I don’t know if you all have seen it. I’ve been to it and it’s a great, it’s an amazing show.

Meara McNitt
It’s on my to-dos, but now I’m gonna push it higher up on the list.

Allen Shelton
Oh yeah, please do.

Meara McNitt
Okay, so we talked about people needing to like dig in and get in there and really come to understand what are fast and hot tips for companies to avoid coming off as performative or disingenuous, especially when they’re marketing to a black audience.

Irene Wambui Muchai
I would definitely say like one of the main things is don’t just put out content and campaigns out there for the sake of it without any kind of like back work or like reasons behind it. Don’t just put like a black person on the face of your campaign, but internally you’re not treating your black staff with the same, you know, regard, you know? So making sure that your outward message is as focused as your inward message is really important. I know in like 2020, so many companies came out with loads of DEI statements and things like that, which was obviously great to see.

But whether or not the follow through is actually real is, we, I guess, will never know. So it’s just making sure that what you’re saying in your campaigns, what you’re saying outwardly, you’re practicing it inwardly as well.

Desmon Walker
Yeah, Irene is talking that talk. I mean, I don’t know, took the words right out of my mouth, like from your point, Irene, about number one, making sure that your talent and your staffing boxes are checked, right? Because as much as what the end product is, is a tweet or an Instagram post or a billboard, whatever it may be, we all know that there’s a person that’s behind that. And if that person…

can’t necessarily understand the cultural nuances that should go into a message. The consideration around someone’s real life experiences versus just what that front cover on the medium, as far as advertising and marketing goes, then it’s kind of a recipe for disaster, as we always see often. And beyond that, just like you said, pretty much doing the homework.

it’s a social media campaign, are you as a brand properly conducting social listening as a prelude step to a content strategy or a campaign rollout so that you can know what conversations you should be a part of, what conversations you should not be a part of and wherever else, you know, in between.

Allen Shelton
Yeah. I mean, the last thing I will add too, just to kind of wrap it all up is, it’s actually caring about what you’re pushing out, right? Not pushing out because it’s going to be good for sales or because it looks good, whatever the case may be, it’s actually having that genuine care to actually be behind a movement or a campaign that you’re doing to actually help people, you know, whatever that looks like. You know, because we understand that black audiences, really any audience, can sniff out BS from a mile away, right? And they will be quick to tell you about it.

as well, you know, and obviously that’s always a thing that we have in the back of our minds as marketers like, hey, I don’t want to, I’m legit care. I don’t want to come off as disingenuous, but when you actually care, that’s the best way not to come off as disingenuous. Because I mean, as we know, when you actually care about something, it seeps through your pores, right? It has that, that feeling, the words jump off the page, our speech, our passion, and the way we talk during an interview or whatever the case may be is in our voice, you know? So I think it’s

you know, looking for things that, you know, not being everything for everyone. Just because this company, this company is doing it, doesn’t mean that we have to do it because, you know, because we believe that. Our agency and any agency, I guess, we can’t put ourselves in a box of being everything for everyone. We have to be the right thing for the right person or the right audience, right? And it doesn’t happen all the time, right? He’s like, hey, this is not really our lane right now, but this is, so I’m gonna really lean into this lane and really make it good, because I care about this lane and the audience is gonna respond to that, so.

That’s one thing I would add.

Irene Wambui Muchai
Yeah, just to jump on something you said, Allen, when you say that black people can sniff out the nonsense from a mile away, that’s why I love Twitter because black Twitter, they do not play games. Any kind of nonsense campaigns that have come up, black Twitter is on it in a second. And that kind of stuff gets blown up really, really quickly. So it’s really important for brands to be able to have that understanding before they’re pushing things out because we will let you know.

if it does sound like nonsense from our end and we’ll let you know quickly and that campaign will go down very fast.

Desmon Walker
I think also to both of your points, another point worth making too is the history behind how media and advertising and marketing, there was a time when it was disingenuous, very intentionally. There was a time when, whether we’re talking African-Americans or any other multicultural audience or group, where we were completely ghost, non-existent. You couldn’t…

flip through a magazine, you couldn’t flip through a newspaper, you couldn’t turn on a TV commercial and find black faces or black stories or black experiences. And when you did, it was purposely disingenuous. It was a mockery of the culture. It wasn’t reflective of the culture. And so now while, you know, obviously there have been inroads made to all of that, it still leaves a very small room of margin.

left for error, you know what I mean? So when you get it right or when you get it wrong, it’s all gonna be right there for everyone to judge.

Meara McNitt
When I think of marketing specifically, I don’t want to say two, but involving the black community. So there’s obviously products where it’s like, this is made for black hair, or this is made with an intention, so obviously the marketing is going to involve people who are black. But then there’s also products where it’s a product that has no specific audience in its production, but it does have a campaign that I…

from the outside look like it speaks to the black community. And I was specifically thinking about Sprite. Like I feel like their commercials are always like very leaning towards the black community. Are there any campaigns that y’all have worked on where someone came to you and their product wasn’t specifically for any one group, but they were like, we want to make this campaign work towards the black community, but speak to everyone? Have you have, I know it’s a very specific question.

Allen Shelton
Yeah, one that comes to mind is, as we know, COVID, which I still can’t believe it’s about to be three years in March since the world shut down. That’s just kind of hard to believe, but we actually had a regional client. It was a hospital in Chicago, and they came to us and wanted to, the emphasis was getting people in the black and brown community to get tested for COVID, because we understand that black and brown communities weren’t getting tested at a certain point, like at an alarming rate versus our white counterparts and other ethnicities.

So while that was targeted, the message and the stories that we were able to uncover and shoot and push out was kind of like a sounding song to everybody that can relate, right? We talked about, people were talking about being a mother, having to transition, how do I be a really good mother while this is going on and being a doctor and this is going on, right? We felt like even though it was intended to be targeted towards the black community,

everyone could relate to that in so and shape or form. Like, hey, my identity kind of shifted a little bit during the pandemic, a lot of it in the pandemic. And I had to reevaluate who I was as a man, as a woman, as anyone, and allow that to come out on the other side and still be okay three years later, two years later, whatever the case may be. So I think that’s the true test of a really good campaign is that it’s targeted, of course, right? But it also kind of crosses over in a lot of ways, like a good song, right?

No one’s talking to you know, the black community might listen to it at an alarming rate other than other communities. But if that song was good enough, it crosses right on over and everybody’s listening to it. Right. So I think it’s one of those situations where you just have to that’s when you know, you did your job really well. So I think that’s an example I have that really checks that box.

Desmon Walker
Another kind of case study example for me is a company that we worked with earlier this year by the name of stretch and What stretch does is interesting because it’s not so much that they are It was a case where they were targeting black audiences but it was a case where they took a look at their product and realized that Unfortunate as it may be and I’ll get into that in a second their audience

was majority African Americans or black people. And what Stretch does is they provide financial and job opportunities for people who are formerly incarcerated. So if you can see connected dots there now, it’s like, all right, we recognize that our core is empowering this particular set of people who have had this previous part of their life.

happen, right? Now we’re going to put them together with tools that can obviously change the narrative and whatnot of their story. And so knowing who statistically that person typically, what they typically look like, their typical experiences, and so on, let’s find the right marketing channels to tell that message through. Let’s find people or a team, even if we have to come to the outside.

with an agency and tap that knowledge and that expertise. Let’s do that so that we’ve done our due diligence to do the rest.

Irene Wambui Muchai
I guess my follow up question is, obviously when you’re running these types of campaigns, like Kiwi said, they’re aimed towards everybody, but of course, based on the types of campaigns they are, they end up swaying more towards African Americans, black people, brown people. How do you feel the consumers resonate with those types of ad campaigns when they’re not those, not a black person or a brown person, but they know they still fit that kind of category? Say someone who was previously incarcerated, but they are a white person.

and they see an advert and it’s about stretch, but it’s including black and brown people. Do you think that they feel that, you know, they’re not really being represented and they can’t really resonate with the advertisement or the campaign?

Allen Shelton
Um, I personally don’t think so. Um, I think it’s about the, the relatability, right? Either, either I feel like you can relate to it in some way, shape or form. Not maybe not directly, maybe indirectly. You might have somebody that you know of a friend that you passed one time that can relate to the story, whatever the case. Um, and then, and it hits back. But honestly, I think a really good campaign doesn’t necessarily need to target everyone, you know what I’m saying? Because that’s the point of what you’re doing. Right? If you.

Talk to anybody and say, hey, you’re selling a product. Who you want to sell it to? I want to sell it to everyone. This is like, okay, so let’s condense that down and make sure that you have your niche, um, your niche, and then you can, you know, expand out from there or where it makes sense. Um, so I think in order to have that really, really type of marketing, that sticky, as we call it, you have to draw on those personal strings, right? You have to kind of get really micro, um, and expand from there because that’s the only way you’re going to get people to

to come and then keep on coming back because they see themselves in your marketing. And it’s hard to do that at a macro level because as you start to condense it down, it starts to get more personal and have that relatability. So I hope that answers your question, but I feel like you have to be targeted like that, at least from a narrative perspective, so you can actually get the return that you want.

Irene Wambui Muchai
Yeah, the reason why I ask is because of something that Desmon had said earlier. It’s like, we all know that, you know, previously in marketing and ad campaigns, even opening a magazine, reading the news, whatever, you rarely would see black people on there. And obviously, it was a very big issue of representation for us as black people to be like, hey, I don’t see myself in anything in the media. And so I was just kind of wondering on the flip side what that looks like when it’s the other way around.

Allen Shelton
Yeah, that’s a great question.

Meara McNitt
So when you’re going down to the micro to figure out like exactly who the campaign is going to speak to at that smaller level, what is y’alls like your technique for figuring out who that’s going to be? Do the companies come to you and they’re like, we wanna speak to this group because they’re buying a lot or do you dive in? And if you dive in, how do you figure out who that’s gonna be?

Allen Shelton
Yeah, so for us, and I’ll let Des chime in as well, but for us, it starts with the research and Des mentioned it, social listening. So a company comes to us and they’re like, hey, this particular audience is buying this product, for example, right? Okay, that’s great. That’s easy. You know what I’m saying? They’re already attracted to that. Now where are the opportunities, right? Where are the rocks that you haven’t lifted yet that we can use to double down on that? Yeah, we have this audience in the bag, right?

Okay, so let’s add some variety or let’s make sure that, we understand completely what this particular audience or adjacent to it is connecting with. What are the sentiments as we call it, right? Is it positive, negative? And how can we use the positive ones of course, but even the negative ones, the pain points to really bring the need or the desire for this particular product to the forefront. And I feel like, that’s where it has to begin with the research and understanding.

every single segment of your audience, even the ones that you kind of shy away from like, yeah, we really don’t connect with this audience. And a lot of companies take that and be like, all right, well, we just don’t connect with them. It’s just like, oh, hold on. Like, let’s, let’s understand why. Even if it doesn’t lean, even though we might not lean into that way, let’s understand why. Because you never know. Like this person might have somebody else that will connect with your product. How can we use that to bring it back around? So that’s where it starts. And it sounds simple, but at the end of the day, you’ll be surprised where a lot of companies

They haven’t done that step, you know, and they wonder why they’re like, hey, how come I can’t really tap into this audience? You know, and I think that makes it make more sense.

Irene Wambui Muchai
How do you kind of like try to convince certain companies or brands who are like, oh, we don’t really, you know, deal with, or we don’t really have much of an audience of this kind of community, whatever it might be and be like to them, Hey, actually, after doing our research, we realized that this community does actually enjoy your products. And here is the reasons why. Do you think, do you feel that sometimes takes some convincing and how do you tend to do that?

Desmon Walker
Yeah, in many cases, yeah, our realm, half of the effort is making the pitch on an idea, right? So in those cases, I think it’s a mix of data and facts, obviously, as we talk about, especially in the digital realm, but also common sense in a lot of ways as well. Everybody, sometimes telling someone something is common sense may feel a little, like you’re shaking the table a little bit, right?

But that’s perfectly okay to do as well. And I love doing that. I love being able to challenge one of our clients or just a company in general to go ahead and make that small bet. And I mean, what’s the worst that can happen from being wrong about it. And if we’re right about it, then we got a pleasant surprise. You know what I mean? And to get a little bit more practical, I think…

there’s some correlation to what we’re talking about is oftentimes when we’re managing or heading up social strategy for a client, 90% of our conversation is around content and creative and so on and so on, which is rightfully so, right? But oftentimes our clients and just anyone in general, it can be easy to lose sight of what happens after.

content is pushed to our customer audiences. How that community, as we like to call it, gets retained in how we can set up different ways for our audiences to talk back at us, so that it’s less of a guessing game as to who they are or what they care most about. In many cases, we’ll recommend brands set up groups on channels like.

Facebook or LinkedIn so that community facet starts to get formed and before you know it you’re guessing a whole lot less about your customer who your customers are what they care about because They’re now there they have channels to interact back with you with or interact even with each other with and you know You never know what answers or new things you will learn along the way doing it

Meara McNitt
Okay, so we’re wrapping up.

Obviously, this is a big topic. It’s an important topic to make sure that you’re marketing towards not just like all people but specifically towards people. But if y’all could each give a couple sentences, why do you think that marketing towards black and brown audiences is an important topic that more people need to be talking about?

Irene Wambui Muchai
Oh my god, I have so many things I could say. Okay. I think my top thing is like, black and brown people have so much power in the market, like people sometimes it’s been overlooked for entirely too long, the amount of power that black and brown people have in the market. But you think of a lot of like trends that you see in marketing campaigns on social media, a lot of them do come from black and brown creators. So why would you not want to market to those people who can spread the word about your brand spread the word about your company, there’s so much value.

in the black and brown communities of the United States, of the world, and the percentage of black and brown people is always growing. And so it makes sense not only in a way to care, like Allen you was mentioning, but it makes sense also for the sake of your business. Why would you take away 30% or whatever it might be of your audience when you can speak out to them?

Allen Shelton
For sure. And just to add to that, I would say, as Irene started to put it, black and brown people control the culture, right? They control digital media. Like it’s not a secret, you know? And I think when you look back and you just look at your feed or whatever the case may be, you see it, right? So I think, you know, us advertising to the black and brown community is essential, right? It’s always gonna be essential. But advertising in the right ways, like you said, that feels authentic, right?

kind of like, hey, I’m not using you for a money grab or just to make my brand elevate higher, but I’m actually trying to learn. I’m trying to educate myself in this space or why does this resonate with you or whatever the case may be, because I understand that it is important. And it’s just like, okay, let me do that. And I feel like that’s more received from the black population.

when it’s genuine, like, OK, this person is not trying to hijack what I have going on or what I created. This person is trying to learn and trying to allow it to be seen in a bigger way. Because I do want my voice to be heard. I do want my passions and what I wake up thinking about and going to sleep thinking about to be to the world. And you have that platform, so let’s collaborate. And I think once you do that, I feel like,

It works, right? It’s not easy. I said it easily, but it’s not easy. But at the same time, I feel like it’s very much needed and needs to be talked about. And again, last thing I would say is being unafraid to not know or being okay with being confused for now. And then understanding that I’m not going to be confused for long, where I want to take those steps to not be confused about advertising to black communities.

Desmon Walker
The way I would sum it up is, you know, as an African-American male, you know what, motivates me or entices me to take an action, make a purchase, do something that, you know, a brand wants me to do. My reasons may be completely different than a white woman or an Iranian woman or even going beyond race, you know, someone of a different gender, someone of a different religion. And so it’s such a, you know,

multifaceted dynamic that you have to consider it and pay attention to it. And so, with that said, there’s this guy by the name of Tom Burrell who founded one of the first multicultural marketing agencies in the country right here in Chicago, Burrell Communications. And he likes to summarize

his whole stance coming into the marketing and advertising game from a multicultural perspective as like, hey, hey world, black people, they are not just, we’re not just dark skinned white people. We have a different experience and yes, that experience goes beyond just the generation we’ve lived in, but understand that everything we see, everything we do, everything we hear, is all.

some way, shape or form been connected to our past, our ancestors and all of that different history. So a lot of different nuances to it, right? But that’s what we do is help to educate brands, businesses, corporate America on all of those things to consider. And from there, create dope stuff along the way.

Meara McNitt
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today. Honestly, all three of you, thank you for joining me in this conversation. It’s been so good. If anyone wanted to continue the conversation with each of you, where would you want them to reach out and find you?

Allen Shelton
Yeah, so our website is just our name. So, so narraton.com. So that’s our website. We have, we publish blogs and we have resources on our page as well. We’ll continue to have this conversation. You just want to learn for yourself. You can also reach out to our agency in that way. We’re also open to have conversation on LinkedIn or whatever the case may be. All right, so it’s just our names.

If you just search my name or Desmon’s name, you can find us on LinkedIn. Happy to connect, happy to have deeper conversations because I mean, we have to have these conversations, right? It’s just needed. But again, just like, we just want to give back to our community, right? That’s one of our goals, right? Over whatever the case may be, is to not just be an agency, but to be pillars in our community and bring more black people into the digital space. Because we know that it’s not as represented as it should be.

So we want to do that. We want to be a force in that. And it just starts one person at a time and one conversation at a time. So I’m definitely open to talking.

Meara McNitt
Thank you, and Irene.

Irene Wambui Muchai
Yeah, y’all can catch me on LinkedIn, obviously. I’m part of the online optimism team, so either LinkedIn or on our website.

Meara McNitt
Amazing. Thanks so much, y’all.

Desmon Walker
Appreciate y’all.

Allen Shelton
Thank you so much.