Dive Brief:

• GroupM Motion Entertainment launched a strategic partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery to support its parent company's Diverse Voices Accelerator (DVA), per a press release shared with Marketing Dive. GroupM Motion Entertainment is a subsidiary of GroupM, WPP's media investment group.
• The partnership seeks to develop inclusive content that represents diverse audiences and provides opportunities for brand support through unique activations and sponsorships. Its first output is a documentary series titled "Rebuilding Black Wall Street: Greenwood" that will premiere this fall on Warner Bros. Discovery's Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
• Bringing together GroupM's media and entertainment expertise and Warner Bros. Discovery's storytelling capabilities, the partnership is the latest ad industry initiative that seeks to create opportunities for diverse media companies and content creators.

Dive Insight:

The partnership between GroupM Motion Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest move to increase diversity and inclusion on the advertising and media landscape. Such initiatives have proliferated in the last few years, especially after protests against racial violence erupted in 2020 and put the actions of brands and their partners in the spotlight.

"We have a responsibility to create a more inclusive and equitable industry," said GroupM North America CEO Kirk McDonald in the press release. "This benefits everyone. It empowers content creators who face barriers, provides brands with access to diverse and engaged audiences, and offers viewers authentic programming that captures the richness of the human experience."

GroupM Motion Entertainment funds, develops, produces and distributes television and digital content and has co-produced over 26,000 hours of television. The partnership seeks to create content for diverse audiences and from diverse creators that will then be available through Warner Bros. Discovery networks and platforms. The first fruit of the partnership is “Rebuilding Black Wall Street: Greenwood," a renovation series created by executive producer Ri-Karlo Handy and his company Sunwise Media that focuses on the reconstruction of the Greenwood District of Tulsa, which was destroyed in the 1921 massacre, per the release.

The content will include opportunities for organic sponsorships and unique activations for GroupM's brand clients. Domino's, a client of GroupM's Mindshare agency, is a partner in GroupM's DVA program, which the new partnership supports.

"At Domino’s, it’s important that both our media and advertising reflect the diversity of our customers, our team members and the communities we serve," said Kate Trumbull, Domino’s senior vice president of brand and product innovation, in the press release.

The DVA is part of GroupM's larger Media Inclusion Initiative (MII), which the agency launched in 2021. The MII also includes a the pledge that invites its clients to spend at least 2% of their total yearly media budgets on Black-owned media outlets. General Mills, Mars, Danone, Nestlé, Pernod Ricard and L’Oréal USA were among the clients that signed onto the pledge in June 2021.