- 9 hours ago
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Great afternoon one more time.
00:02Happy Sunday.
00:04It's always a great day to be amongst the land of the living on a good Sunday.
00:09We are asking you guys, come on back over to this stage.
00:12You guys know this stage has been blazing all Essence Weekend,
00:16and this session will be no different than the others.
00:19At this time, we are excited to welcome two major bosses to the stage.
00:24We're talking hashtag by Black Essence Ventures.
00:28Let's give them a big round of applause as they make their way to the stage.
00:36And again, you have plenty of time to come on over.
00:40You don't want to miss this.
00:43Come on over.
00:44Come on over to our SoCo Market stage.
00:48This is a conversation.
00:49Hashtag by Black Essence Ventures.
00:51You don't want to miss it.
00:55Good afternoon, everyone.
00:58Happy festival, y'all.
01:00Happy festival.
01:01Happy Essence Festival Sunday.
01:03Yes, it is our last day of festival.
01:06Last day.
01:07I'm Pauline Malcolm Thornton.
01:09I'm the Chief Revenue Officer for Essence Ventures.
01:12I'm Michael Barclay.
01:14I'm the Executive Vice President of Experiential here at Essence Ventures.
01:17And we are going to be talking about buying black media.
01:23And we're going to be talking about this incredible festival that we're at.
01:27How many people are having an incredible time?
01:30I show the hands.
01:32All right.
01:33Everyone, right?
01:33This is my third Essence Fest.
01:37This is your third?
01:37Third.
01:38This is my second Essence Fest.
01:40You know, I started right before last year's festival.
01:42It feels like the first, though.
01:43And it feels a lot different this year.
01:45And I love to see the growth that we've created here.
01:47And the inclusion of all of the Essence Ventures brands.
01:51I know we're going to talk about that a little bit in the sizzle, right?
01:53Yep.
01:54We're going to talk about our portfolio because both Barclay and I started last year.
02:00I've been in this role for 18 months.
02:02My first time at Essence Festival was when I was an executive at Disney in 2019.
02:09And then both of us are in newly created roles.
02:12Absolutely.
02:13There's never been a Chief Revenue Officer for Essence Ventures and never an EVP for Experiential.
02:18Never an EVP of Experiential.
02:20And we've never had so many Experiential Properties under one entity until this year.
02:28Yeah.
02:28So Essence Ventures consists of the incredible Essence Festival of Culture that you all are witnessing this weekend.
02:37It's obviously home to Essence as well.
02:40BeautyCon, which you may have seen.
02:42The BeautyCon Festival.
02:44The Essence Festival edition.
02:46And then it's also a standalone brand and company.
02:49It's also inclusive of Afropunk and Essence Studios.
02:54But if a picture says a thousand words, a video says a million.
02:59That's right.
03:00So we're going to show you all a little bit about Essence Ventures, but specifically Essence Festival of Culture
03:07and the incredible opportunities that it provides for partners.
03:13Can we show the video, please?
03:15We can't see it.
03:19We can't see it.
05:49And we're really intentional with our partners.
05:51As you're walking these floors, you're seeing incredible brands like the Coca-Cola Company, Target, Disney, McDonald's, Pfizer, and so much more, L'Oreal and Beautycon.
06:05And we work really closely with our partners to ensure that they are supporting Black-owned vendors.
06:13Last year alone in 2022, we created over 4,000 jobs in the local economy as part of this festival.
06:24And those jobs also drove, in terms of spend that you see here and in pouring into the local economy, drove over $320 million in 2022 alone to the local economy here in New Orleans.
06:44And that's real impact. It's real impact into our GDP.
06:50We drove about $189 million in our gross domestic product.
06:53So, what we do with the festival, what we do with our partners is kind of unparallel when you look at festivals.
07:01You saw in that video as well that we're the largest festival in the country, and not just black festival.
07:09Largest festival, largest festival, period, by per-day attendance.
07:16Bigger than Coachella, bigger than Jazz Festival, bigger than in the local.
07:22South by.
07:22South by, any other festival in the world.
07:26And it's really important that we get the, because we're so relevant, that we also get dollars that are commensurate with the type of impact that we're driving.
07:39Absolutely. No, that's great.
07:41And I know from my standpoint and our business, so as the head of Experiential here, all of the things that you see here at Essence Festival and the other entities, which you mentioned, Afropunk, which is a standalone brand.
07:53You see it's represented here, but we have an Afropunk festival that takes place in Brooklyn.
07:59It's going to be in Brooklyn in August.
08:01We've got Beautycon as a standalone entity that is going to launch, relaunch, after three years of being dormant in L.A. in September.
08:11And with all of these experiences that we build, there are tons of vendor partners, like building out these frameworks, staging, lighting, audiovisual, security.
08:22And as a part of the activism that we take on the experiential side is we prioritize working with black businesses on all of those things.
08:31And so that's, you know, for festival alone, that's millions of dollars of vendor partners that we work with.
08:38You know, our security, as an example, our ESG is one of our longstanding security partners, black woman-owned security business.
08:45So as you walk around these spaces and see the experiences that are being created, know that even just your presence here and supporting our experiences, it creates black economy.
09:00You know, creating that black economy, that revenue that's going into those black dollars.
09:04And that economic impact is 365, 24-7, because our partners just don't activate with us during this three-day weekend.
09:13And they're creating content, they're doing storytelling throughout the year.
09:20And what we've done from a revenue perspective is we've gone from working with partners on a transactional basis,
09:28where they're just coming in for festival or just coming in for one year.
09:32We're now encouraging partners to do multi-year partnerships with us that span across three to five years.
09:42And what that allows for them to do is to make sure that they're investing in black, 24-7, 365,
09:51and connecting with this, the millions and millions of people that we speak to and reach on a daily basis.
09:58We just announced over $200 million in multi-year partnerships with corporate sponsors.
10:05That is unprecedented in the history of our company.
10:09And we want to do the same with black-owned businesses, encouraging them to also take advantage of working with us on multi-year commitments,
10:23working with us across, you know, Barclay spoke about our ecosystem.
10:28We have Essence and Afropunk and Beautycon.
10:33These are all big moments throughout the year to help you connect with different audiences and consumers.
10:42So working with us on a multi-year basis will allow for better planning, allow for better integration,
10:49and opportunity to connect with this audience in a very authentic way.
10:54I want to talk a little bit about, because again, you know, my mind is event-based experience in real life.
11:02Yes, as it should be.
11:03One of the things we also, as we sit in SoCo Marketplace, I'd be remiss if we not talk about SoCo Market, right?
11:10SoCo Market, it's all about our black entrepreneurs, small businesses, mid-sized businesses that are looking to reach these audiences.
11:18But we are looking to extend that relationship, so it's not just festival.
11:25At all of our experiences, we have some sort of marketplace, and now SoCo, rebranding.
11:32So SoCo Market that will show up in all of our experiences, both in real life and, of course, we're working on a virtual platform as well.
11:38And the goal, the overall goal in partnership with our sister organization and New Voices Fund and Foundation
11:46is to cultivate the relationships with these black-owned entrepreneurs and their businesses
11:54and help them grow their business so that one day you can go knock on their door
11:58to come support Essence Festival in one of the larger booths.
12:03So it's really creating that path to fulfillment in the business cycle and really being a partner along the way.
12:11So we'll be working very closely with the New Voices Fund and Foundation to optimize processes,
12:17to expand our offerings and really encourage the creation of this black wealth creation
12:24and, again, give you some new folks to call upon for big sponsorship dollars.
12:28Yeah, and what I love about what you said, Barclay, in terms of, like, how we're going to extend marketplace
12:35across all of our different festivals, we also have a big content play with Shop Essence Live.
12:41Absolutely, I love that.
12:42Where New Voices essentially sources so many different black-owned brands
12:48and giving them visibility not just from an event perspective, but, again, that 365, right?
12:55It's a weekly series that we distribute across social.
12:59Every Thursday.
13:00Every single Thursday you can tune in.
13:02The products that we feature sell out.
13:05And, like, I think one collaboration between Pinky Cole, Slutty Vegan, and Lip Bar sold out within a few minutes.
13:14Yep.
13:14So that's an incredible opportunity to not only connect with consumers on the ground,
13:20but, again, that 365 always on.
13:23So, absolutely, yeah, I tune in every Thursday.
13:26Steph is amazing.
13:27Shout out to Stephanie.
13:29Stephanie's our head of video.
13:31And also the host.
13:32And also the host of Shop Essence Live.
13:36Yeah.
13:36Yeah.
13:37So what are you most excited about, or what's your biggest highlight from festival this weekend?
13:42My biggest highlight is seeing all of the Essence Ventures ecosystem represented in an authentic way here at festival.
13:53I think it's the first time that the families come together.
13:57Yeah.
13:57So to have Blacktopia.
14:00I don't know if you all have been over to Afropunk Blacktopia.
14:03Incredible.
14:04It looks amazing.
14:06And it tells a story.
14:07It's doing an incredible job.
14:07Exactly.
14:08And it tells a story.
14:09You walk right in and you know exactly what Afropunk is all about.
14:13You know, they gave visual storytelling.
14:15It's incredible.
14:15To see the reimagining of our beauty experience now with BeautyCon.
14:22Again, to see the elevation of SoCo.
14:25I love the new branding, the new naming.
14:27Just the marketplace to look and to feel.
14:29It's just exciting to see it all come together.
14:31We've been talking and planning about this.
14:32I mean, again, since my arrival last May when I started.
14:37So to see some of these things come to life.
14:39A few weeks before festival.
14:39A few weeks before festival.
14:40Walking around wide-eyed and confused.
14:43I had no idea what I was doing a year ago.
14:44But it's very good to see some of the things that we talked about come to life.
14:50And I'm excited to see others materialize in the upcoming iterations of Essence Festival.
14:57Yeah.
14:57How about you?
14:58For me, it's, again, a lot of things that you said, Barclay, in terms of seeing the ecosystem come to life.
15:06Because truly, this is our first sort of coming out of Essence Ventures.
15:10Yes.
15:10Right?
15:11Yes.
15:11BeautyCon has made their debut.
15:13Yep.
15:13You know, after being dormant for a few years and we bought the brand in 2021.
15:20So it's incredible to see that brand being brought to life in a new, refreshed way.
15:25Touring SoCo Marketplace.
15:27Seeing the Global Black Economic Forum.
15:30Oh, yes.
15:30Yeah.
15:30That stage and the conversations are so incredibly inspirational because it's talking about black wealth and closing that wealth pay gap, which I am just personally very passionate about, which I know you are as well.
15:46So I would say that's been some of the highlights.
15:49More wealth for our community.
15:52Yes.
15:53Yes.
15:53Yes.
15:53And seeing that.
15:54Yeah, absolutely.
15:55No, it's been a great festival.
15:57Great festival.
15:58It's been amazing.
15:59It's amazing.
16:00I can't wait to sleep.
16:01Yeah.
16:03I think we're at time.
16:04I think we're at time, too.
16:06Thank you so much, everyone, for having us.
16:09Again, let's give it up for our top executives.
16:12Let me say that.
16:12And visionaries.
16:14Michael Barclay and Pauline Malcolm Thornton.
16:17Thank you guys so very much for your leadership, your vision.
16:21We appreciate it so very much.
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