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BET Reimagined 

Quick Pitch

When given a brand that's always been on top, where do you take it? BET has done it all. All except pay attention to the very culture they helped cultivate and create. After extensively researching the brand's core audience, black people, we uncovered a major shift: the once tight-knit network for black culture is quickly crumbling due to its constant fixation on presenting blackness as a monolithic experience. This unvarying narrative fails to represent the diverse perspectives within the Black community.

For Us By Us

Since its founding in 1980 by Bob Johnson in Washington D.C., BET has stood as a beacon for the Black community, celebrating excellence and showcasing our richness. It's where we saw reflections of ourselves, engaging in various activities, inspiring us and proving we belong on the platform. BET's mission was straightforward: to broadcast the culture, brilliance, beauty, and talent of the Black race.

BET was founded on these three things

Discovery

Celebration

Tradition

Switch Up

BET's constant focus on struggle, mockery, and trauma has dimmed its light as the once vibrant epicenter of black culture and entertainment.

Struggle

Mockery

Trauma 

Not even those who love and grew up on BET can make sense of them: primary research with 25+ young-adult watchers revealed agreement about how BET has fallen off and doesn't serve them at all.​

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"I miss the old BET. There weren't many things that could bring my family together but BET shows, music, and movies were always guaranteed to make us stop, it was soooo progressive now it's like a glorified oreo cookie... black outside white inside."

Alexa Young, 27

the once Epicenter of Black Culture is now seen as business that's no longer "for us by us"

This shift has led many to seek alternative platforms like TUBI, recognized as the top place to see Black-created content by Black people, and MSNBC, the No. 1 cable network for Black people, offering engaging public affairs content. Meanwhile, TIK-TOK has emerged as a prominent platform for music enthusiasts.

More Than Meets the Eye

Insight

Our first introduction to other cultures is often through entertainment.

Through social listening and interviews, it's clear: BET doesn't properly honor the Black experience or represent our community positively. This misrepresentation fosters bias and falsehoods, undermining its credibility as a source to learn about Black people.

Strategy

BET, where all aspects of Black life and culture are depicted.

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"Black culture is the most coveted and fluid audience segment; it's time to show up as the brand that represents the fullness of the Black experience." - Andre Talley

Welcome to Pulse

Pulse is an initiative to breathe life into the network. This idea is centered on reclaiming our talent and promoting blackness in its proper form. We want to over-hall the stagnated content and display the true black experience of today, while also paying respect to the past who payed the way.

Teaser

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We aiming to generate interest and tease the new initiative across BET's social media platforms, app, and cable network.

OOH

 

We're illuminating our culture's richness (literally) by spotlighting Black talent from the past, present, and future across all disciplines. Through this, we aim to highlight what BET is championing, embodying the essence Black culture and life.

Content Overhaul

Through our research, we discovered that Black audiences tune into cable TV for news, entertainment, sports, and lifestyle content. To ensure we offer what they desire, we interviewed individuals to see who are influential in each of these areas, selecting prominent figures to represent each category.

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Angela Rye

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Brandon "Jinx" Jenkins

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Melo Anthony

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Tabitha Brown

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Community Activation

BET has always been rooted in serving the Black community. As part of the Pulse concept, we wanted to go beyond media. So we developed Pulse Park  a community space where we curated music session, classes/forums, work/creative spaces to bring their individual forms of expression to the streets. Pulse Park as a tangible extension of the brand.

"Black voices, black creativity and black expression now more than ever is being stifled and we need a safe space to talk, create, learn, and play." Amina Cole - 26

The Team
Keith Johnson (ST)
Kiera Adens (AD)

My contribution 

  • Brief Writing

  • Relived my childhood through social listening to understand the BET love and hate.

  • Identified, reframed, and solved a problem that BET ignored.

  • Video concepting and mood boarding.

  • Programming scheduling and content creation

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