(What more can I say) Top Billin'?

Top Billin’?

As I said earlier, agencies are ranked according to their billings or account revenues. Agencies tend to be broken-down by large, small, mid-sized and boutiques. “Large” agencies tend to have billings over $500 million—there are more than a few of them, the most notably: JWT, Grey, FCB, Leo Burnett, W&K, O&M, BBDO, and Needham. And some have annual billings approaching one billion dollars. Typically, the “mid-sized” shops do between $200-500 mill a year and vary by market and there are dozens of them. (Think: Kirshenbaum & Bond, Deutsch, Fallon McElligott, Cramer Krasselt, etc.)  “Small” is usually anything under $100 million and those with “boutique” status tend to specialize more in projects for multiple small clients rather than having a stable roster of larger clients to depend on.

Now to give you an idea of some of the entrenched inequities in the game, at their absolute zenith the three biggest “targeted” shops in the country—Burrell Communications, Carol H. Williams and Uniworld, NYC—have never billed more than a healthy mid-sized shop in any year. Why? Clients have never given them enough opportunities to do so. Furthermore, because of the often-incestuous relationships within the industry there still aren’t that many black-owned ad agencies and marketing firms to speak of. While the talent is there, most clients, especially general market ones still aren’t willing to work with enough black ad professionals to support the existence of more than a handful of black agencies.

This revenue inequity also extends to the larger marketplace…

More than ratings or subscribers, the media business revolves around ad revenue. Marketers are the engine and steering wheel for most all media vehicles. High ad sales and sponsorship dollars allow one to reinvest in infrastructure, pay for top media talent, and hot entertainment properties, etc. But when clients allocate crap media budgets to reaching black consumers the black radio stations, black magazines, and black TV programs, everyone suffers. Professionals at black media outlets can’t make the kind of money their white counterparts make. Black media talent can’t make what their white counterparts make. Black entertainment properties (TV and radio shows, etc.) can’t charge what their white entertainment properties charge. And of course Black media companies can’t grow like their mainstream counterparts can.

And again, general market brands reserve their account billings for general market agencies while targeted agencies, be they Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. are rarely if ever even allowed to compete for general market money; and when they do it’s usually under highly suspect circumstances.

So besides trying to pull urban consumers on their own, general market agencies will form alliances with targeted shops “when needed”; then they (with the client’s support/help) proceed to give them crumbs for accomplishing what would never get done any other way. But this would actually be okay except for a couple key factors:

First off, annually, Blacks spend an estimated $680 billion on products and services supporting mainly non-black-owned businesses; and by 2008, that number is expected to hit $921 billion. Two: Because of mainstream America’s appetite for ethnic culture, most black media outlets and programming reaches far more white and mainstream consumers than general market analysts ever admit to. (Let’s be real: If you just took the number of mainstreamers who watch BET, read urban mags and consume Black music, fashion, and entertainment properties you could start your own small country; round up non-black folks who do the same on a global scale and you could colonize the moon.) So while profiting off the Black community from all sides, mainstream businesses continue to screw their Black counterparts out of billions of dollars in deserved revenues and opportunities, not to mention respect. (And of course it’s all perfectly legal, even ethical.)

Anyway, I felt like I had no choice but to play the game. I walked the color line and gave clients what they wanted. And they bought it, either because they didn’t care or because they only cared about profits. The media outlets always ran with it because they got paid. And consumers—black, white, brown, and every hue in between bought it because blackness is product, not humanity. Yet as professionals who made the pie bigger, we never got more than crumbs and slivers our troubles. And save for a couple fresh wrinkles the saga continues, same as it ever was.

I’m not a prostitute but I can give you want you want.
—Missy Elliott