‘A big battery in my back’: Why Junae Brown calls herself the Beyoncé of marketing

By Kimeko McCoy

Historically, Black shoppers have created trends in beauty, fashion and more, driving a portion of the retail marketplace And that influence is only expected to grow, as that buying power is projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2024, according to Nielsen.

Over the last two years, brands and advertisers have been hyper focused on catering to Black shoppers, looking to be more inclusive and make good on the promises made after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. That’s where Junae Brown, founder of Browned 2 Perfection marketing agency comes in.

Brown is a 30-year-old, New York City native who now resides in Atlanta. She has more than a decade of marketing experience, having worked at Sony Music Entertainment and has been dubbed the industry’s Beyoncé of marketing. She founded her agency six years ago to provide resources to creatives, especially minorities, women and those in underserved communities. She said she realized these communities had the plan, they just needed the platform. In an industry dominated by straight, white men, Brown made it her mission to provide said platform. Currently, Browned 2 Perfection is working with Procter and Gamble, South Africa on a campaign in partnership with a South African owned startup app called Drop.

“It’s a big opportunity, obviously, for us as an agency to really break all the way into the Fortune 500 space and internationally,” Brown said. “That’s a big battery in my back. I’m ready to take off like a rocket ship.”

Digiday caught up with Brown about her experience as a Black agency founder and what it means to create a seat at the proverbial table for marginalized people post-2020’s social justice movement.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

You go by the Beyoncé of marketing? Why? What does that mean?

I truly believe that Beyoncé is not just an incredible human being, philanthropist and artist, but she’s now an adjective. She’s synonymous with excellence. She’s synonymous with authenticity, hard work. She plays by her own rules and she earned that. I don’t know if a lot of people can say the same or work themselves into that position, but that’s what I started to do. Our company is not just Black-owned, but Black operated. All of our staff is Black and have been for six years–Black and brown people, primarily women. Black people are some of the highest grossing consumers. So why are we not contributing to the marketing? We’re some of the brightest and most creative [people]. But oftentimes, it takes so much to break in and then break the ceiling.

You seem to live by the lift as you climb ideology. Is that fair to say?

A lot of my upbringing, career-wise, has been lift as you climb. I never really had a traditional mentor. But I’ve definitely had people that were peers, people that I just happened to meet, saw my work, or saw me working hard, who helped me along the way. It’s been very relationship based. That was …read more

Source:: Digiday