“The brands that my partnerships are with allow me the latitude and freedom to be partners in the creation of our ads and our digital footprint,” Anderson explained. “We know who the audience is and what they respond to.”
Balancing act
Anderson’s new foray into the ad world builds on the relationships and successes he’s created for himself as one of Hollywood’s most prominent Black actors, with a list of credits that spans everything from the Barbershop film franchise to Buy It Now, Amazon’s recent dive into Shark Tank’s competitive reality waters.
Similarly, ADvolution is looking to build a multicultural client list that reflects modern American society—an initiative that comes at a time when companies like Meta and Walmart have controversially cut back on their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
“Our company was inspired by our years of experience in multicultural marketing and a desire to make advertising technology more accessible to diverse talent,” Chatfield said, pointing out that much of the content on the internet is “created largely by a diverse audience.”
Solving the imbalance between those creators and larger media companies is something that ADvolution’s creators hope to be part of. Chatfield indicated that a portion of the profits generated by their DEI products are directed towards non-profits that address those challenges.
At the same time, Chatfield emphasized that the company ultimately wants to make its tools available to a broad base of celebrities.
“DEI is just one example that could be interesting to folks that have been trying to solve that problem for a while now,” he said.
For Anderson, ADvolution’s business is also personal as he seeks to lift the digital profile of his Hollywood peers. “It’s about a community,” he told the CES crowd. “Knock on wood—if I had some here—that it continues to grow in the way we see it growing.”
