So I think that's what you gotta do.
It's not just about oh, my cousin knows TikTok and so he can do it. It's no, you should be going on TikTok. Let's use the hoodie example. You know, if you have a hoodie company, you should be on
TikTok finding out who makes dope content about hoodies. You should be looking at every hoodie hashtag, you know, every hoodie rated brand, every creator that's making jokes about you know, the girls stealing your hoodies or its hoodie season, and you will find somebody in there that probably resonates with you. And then that's how you find somebody that can make you hoodie content.
I'm well, lookas this is black tach green money.
Hey look.
Brandon Butler is Partner in Chief, Culture and Innovation Officer at Majority in CEO at Butter atl in Atlanta based media company covering all things Atlanta from sports, news, music. His storytelling about communities is a high ROI play which feeds ecosystem. And when the ecosystem is strong for black entrepreneurship and culture, are people thrive.
I just believe that.
All companies in organizations should see themselves as media companies and put the work in to tell authentic stories. Butter Atl believes this also and puts this philosophy to work for the city. So I asked Brandon how this came about.
Yeah, you know, it started with this idea that some of the most successful companies and brands tend to operate as media companies. The example that always kind of references Red Bull. You see Red Bull doing all kind of crazy stuff. You see guys, you know, jumping from outer space. You know, you see them doing race cars. And you've never really seen like a Red Bull commercial though, You've never really seen a commercial with somebody holding the Red
Bull saying like go buy this or drink it. Right, So they've associated their brand with this idea that just you know, content and media and being associated with it, you know, will give people what they need to know that this thing exists.
And so for us, we kind.
Of had the same that same belief right that the most successful brands operated that way, and and so we kind of started looking around and at first, you know, there was this idea that you know, maybe we do it for like the culture at large, you know, So it's just what's trending what's in pop culture right now, and and I mean we we did that for a little while, but honestly, it just didn't feel it didn't feel right, didn't feel super authentic, you know, as my
uh as my gud Bame Joiner, one of the founders of Atlanta influences Everything, says Atlanta influences everything. And so you know, based on that idea and really based on this idea that Atlanta is a really special place. You know, I always say, I think our number one export in Atlanta's culture. Uh you know, why not kind of turn that that lens inward and and and really find ways to kind of highlight and and tell stories and just showcase the city that honestly has been overlooked in so
many different ways. You know, It's always funny to me, right like when you go back and you look, you've noticed that these brands would come in from you know, the New York, LA and Chicago and they would want to kind of give us permission to talk about Atlanta. They'd come down here and say, hey, you know, we
heard y'all like Lemon Pepper wings down there. Can you tell us about Lemon Pepper wings Man y'all don't eat limp pepper wings in New York, you know what I mean, y'all eat, y'all eat buffalo wings, whatever those are, and so and so again, it was like, why do we need to wait for somebody from another city or state to come down here and ask us about that and then take that story back home and say, so I went down to Atlanta, and this is what I learned.
You know, if we're really leading in all elements of you know, culture and media and all these different things, why not be able to tell those stories ourselves? And then even thinking about it even more, you know, when is the last time you've seen a brand or a media company really focus in specifically on a city like this?
And so, you know, for me, it was kind of just an opportunity that was kind of hidden in plain sight, and we very quickly, you know, I think we maybe did the national thing for like a week or two, but we very quickly said, you know what, let's just focus this thing on what we think is the coolest, most interesting, most you know, cultural relevant city in the world really, which we think is Atlanta. And you know, it just again, it really resonated with people connected with
people really quickly. You know, people down here we have a tendency to kind of protect the culture in a lot of the senses because we know how special it is, and I think that, well, we both put that lens on it. But then also people realize that the person that was doing it was from here that understood those kind of nuances about the city. There was just a whole different level of appreciation for it. You know, I always loved Atlanta on FX by Donald Glover because it
was kind of the same way. You know, if you're from Atlanta. Even if you're not from Atlanta, you can appreciate that as a good show. But if you're from Atlanta, there's this additional level of appreciation you have for it because they shoot that show in places that you've been to. They shoot that show, and you know, you'll see things
allude to things that just you recognize instantly. And so that was kind of how we approach Butter was you know, if we tell this story, but we also just really authentic and truth to the culture, people will hear it. You know, people will hear the drawl in my voice when I speak. You know, people will see the references that we make the things that are authentic, and I think a combination of all those things just really kind of helped put Butter in a really special place for us.
I want to go back to something you talked about in the beginning, that you talked about the Red Bull story and how they don't really do commercials about Red Bull saying hey buy this, and there's such a key there that a lot of small brands that you know, are trying to get traction, trying to find their fit in the marketplace. That's an investment to do what Red Bull is doing because it's not necessarily a direct pitch
to by the thing, it's explicitly an indirect one. And so how do you admonish or encourage people who have a hoodie line or you know, a hair you know, a shade butter and they're trying to make sales because they need that to keep going at all and don't have the marketing budget like a Red Bull would have to actually find different ways to tell their story or to show what people who buy that thing do.
Yeah, I mean, the beautiful thing about where we're at right now just in content and media is I think the bar has been significantly lowered, which is making it a lot.
Of easier folks to get involved.
Right, Like, everybody's got a cell phone, and all cell phones pretty much shoot in HD quality.
So there's your camera.
You know, you can get a why I saw a wireless microphone on sale on TikTok for ten bucks, right like, you can get a wireless mic for your cell phones. And now you got audio, You've got good video. What's the only thing you need beyond that is just a good idea? And you know, and even when you kind of think about it, you know, there are trends that go on. So I think it's I think it's kind of easy to jump in.
You know what.
I what I noticed and I've really noticed is over the last you know, Butter's been around now for you know, five plus years, and we make content every single day. So the thing I've noticed making content every day for the last five years is that at the end of the day, it's all about just continuing to kind of
throw you know. The thing I would tell my team is if you if you ever watch a person that knows how to juggle, everybody always watches, you know, the hand that they kind of like they always kind of just watch the person they watch the hand that they catch with. The trick with juggling, though, is to wash the hand that they throw with because if you keep throwing, the ball is gonna land in the right place every
single time. And so what I what I use that to say is with most people, most entrepreneurs, no matter how big or small your budget is. My my thing to you is just start throwing. You never know what the thing is gonna be. I can tell you right now, there are you know, one of our most successful pieces of content on Butter was a photograph of some chicken
wings that I took inside a cafeteria. That photograph ended up on us what was it, Good Morning America, and ended up on Complex, ended up on you know, all these different channels. And it was a literally a picture of some chicken wings that we took with no photo editing. You know, I think maybe we cropped the photo and that's it, so you never know the thing is gonna be. And like that created so much, you know, a claim and visibility for us.
You know.
Another thing we did was a post about you know, different types of sneakers, which again it was a super simple post, but that led to a conversation with Killer Mike, which you know, a year later, year and a half later he became a partner with butter and so again. But all that comes from, just like I said, throwing, Like you know, we put stuff out, everything doesn't go viral,
and that's totally fine with me. A lot of times I put stuff out just to see what will happen because I'm kind of past this place, and oh well it didn't work, take it down. So the biggest, yeah, the biggest advice I would give the people that they feel like they don't have a budget is you don't really need that much of a budget. You just need,
you know, some ideas. And at the same time, again, you just need to just kind of start getting your stuff out there and throwing and and again I'm a big believer in frameworks, you know, whether you're kind of doing the the Gary v jab jab jab hook or what I like to say is, you know, candy, vitamin and painkillers, right, Like, I think there's certain kinds of
content that's candy. In other words, you know, everybody loves candy, but too much candy or rocket teeth, you know, I think that there is a content that is vitamins, and that's the that's where I kind of put a lot of the Gary V content at like, no shade to him, but he can yell at you about hustling all day long until you actually go out and do something. It's just the pep talk, right, but you're getting that motivation,
but you still have to actually do the work. It's no different than taking vitamins every day and not going to the gym, right like you said, to do the work. And then there's then there's painkiller content. There's content that like solves the problem. It has very high utility, right like, and I tell that by the number of saves that
we get on the post particularly, right. So I think you know, again, when you start thinking about content from the standpoint of again whether jab jab jab hook or candy vitamins painkillers, you'll see that, you know, the really the only thing that's kind of stopping you from you is is is really you know what you think people want to see. And I can guarantee you that the only way to find that is by putting out enough stuff to really start to get good insights.
That's so key there. And I want to dig into that a little bit because you know, and I have a couple of small businesses also, And to your point of like when things work and when they don't, I tell you this quick story. So last last Thanksgiving, this would have been twenty twenty two, the coffee house was like a year old, and there were still so many people in the community who didn't know that we existed.
And so Thanksgiving the Black Friday, Black Friday morning, we were open and I found I'm like, oh, I got to tell the community we're open. So I just went through my photo album real quick on my phone, found the first photo I could find, put it up, say hey, we're open today. Just so you know, I didn't know this Sunday morning. It had twelve hundred shares on it
on Facebook. And if I would have spent any time thinking about that post, I would not have used the picture that I used because there was nobody in it. It looked empty, you know, it was an angle that was just it was just a random fhotto because I just needed to get something up. But to your point of you don't know what to work and what doesn't. If it wouldn't have worked, I would have taken it down on Monday. So how do you get old?
I guess the question.
A better question is what are you looking at in a post metrics wise or otherwise. If you're saying just put up shots, what are you looking for it to do?
Yeah, I mean I think that's something that people have to think about. Right again, I'm a big believer in kind of starting with the end in mind for things. There are certain types of posts that we make that are specifically created to drive comments. I literally do not care if they don't get a ton of likes. I am more interested in the comments, and we engineer our
content like that. You know, we did a post the other week about you know, I'm so old Atlanta, I remember X, Y and Z and ask people to kind of fill that out. Well, the thing is that thing got like a thousand comments on it. And the beautiful thing about those comments is if you start to think about, just like marketing is now, you go on those comments, you start to kind of go through and read, you
get ideas for new content. You see, you know, when people somebody mentions something and gets a bunch of likes now, or there's a whole bunch of replies to it, that should be a signal that goes off to you and says oh wow, there's an engagement around this. Maybe I could build more content around that, right. You know, again, when you think about stuff, you know, I would always say like if you you know, it depends on what
you want to do. If you want to create content that drives shares, you want to share like a really interesting fact or something like that, you know what I mean? Like something again, like people share content because it represents them or helps them kind of tell a story. There's this whole idea of like, you know, I always get the example of, you know, there's certain pieces of content that people send because it helps them prove a point.
You know, Like somebody sends a post is like see, this is exactly what I was talking about, right, So that's kind of that is this is so me kind of content. Right, So I think you know, or again, if you want to, if you want to, if you want to drive you know, follows or likes. Again, you want to create a content that has a like I said, either tip in it or it's just something like really
fun and engaging. Right, So again, I think what you have to do is just start to kind of think about what you want and also again understand that it's not any one post.
It's kind of again the.
Totality of all the things you do that really kind of help you figure out what the real insight is. Again, I would tell people, if you really want to figure it out, you know, get get you know, get thirty shots up, get thirty posts up, and then just start to go back and look and figure out again what are the things that absolutely worked what doesn't work? Again, I can tell you a little trick, especially on social media,
is when something's gonna work, it works immediately. There are very few things that I've seen go out to where it sits dormant for like a day or two, and then all of a sudden it takes off. In my in my experience, the things that work work almost it's crazy how it happens. I have some theories about why that might be like that, but that's all different conversation. But you know, it's like so so it's like, when you see the things that are working, you do those things.
I think too much with people, like we have this weird thing about oh, you got to work on this stuff you're not good at. Nah, forget that. There's a lot of stuff I'm not good at. I don't want to spend all day trying to get better that I want to get better than things I'm already good at. And so again, I think it's figuring out, Like I said, what works by putting up shots and just being really honest about what are you seeing? What's the feedback? Like,
what are people saying reading the comments? You know, I tell people when we first launched Butter, I actually put a post up one day and said, hey, you know, I think we had maybe ten thousand followers at that point, and I said, hey, you know, thank y'all for following Butter. Look we have some questions for y'all. So if y'all are interested in, like, you know, being a part of our user group, fill out this form and I'll call you.
And I literally called like fifty people.
Yeah, and it was like, hey, hey, this is Brandon from Butter atl They were like, you're really calling me? Yep, Yeah, you filled the format, you put your phone number on there. But I literally asked them, hey, what made you follow Butter? Just out of curiosity? What made you click the follow button? What made you how did you find out about the page? And I'm just what I'm saying, like even that level of insight is informed things that I do to this day.
Like I'm not really in a position to do that right now, but like I said, it's that whole idea of like do things that don't scale.
Yep.
And that was one of those things to where you know, actually talking to people having those conversations, even with those folks, you know, those are some of our early followers. So I feel like those are the folks who were really rocking with us right out the gate. But to kind of go back and ask them, like, what do you want to see? It just gave me more perspective in what kind of things people were looking for, and then we just gave them more of that stuff over time.
There was an interview I saw where you did and there was a quote from you where you said, we're most proud of our ability to tell the story of Atlanta's culture with high quality, intentional content. This was some time ago when you said that, so, and I wonder
if it's still true in this way. Is because it seems like today there's this battle between high quality production and raw and where produced content may not get be as valuable, not that it's not good, but it may not be as valuable to the mainstream audience that consumed social media content. What do you say to that?
Yeah, I mean, I don't remember when I made that comment, but I think the thing that probably changed a lot of that stuff was, honestly, COVID. I think the pandemic. You know, I told people coming out of the pandemic because my backgrounds actually in tech. I spent the first half of my career as a engineer and a solution architect, so I just kind of have a different perspective when it comes to a lot of this stuff. But coming out of the pandemic, I told people like, look, this
thing moved us ahead four years. I don't know if y'all realize it or not, but again, when we went in, nobody was using video conference, and we came out, even my mom was using video conference, and you know, we went in, nobody wanted to use QR codes. Now everybody uses QR codes, right, So it really like moved us ahead in a very short period of time. And I think in that again, what started to happen was, yeah, they're like, produced content is good, but it's very easy
to over engineer something. And I think, you know, again, people get just sense authenticity they can sense, you know, when you've probably gone through uh you know, a table read and getting the script created and all that kind of stuff and getting the perfect shot. I think there are times for that. But you know, again, I think just in a day and age, and also just the volume of content that we kind of have out there, just honestly, the expectation of people is a little bit lower.
So even what that means for us is that means that it's not as important for us to go.
Out and shoot stuff on red cameras.
It's not as important for us to go out and you know again, uh, you know, create a create a deck in a script about a thing. Sometimes we just kind of turn the camera on and start going. Sometimes we just make a piece of content and we're not you know, overly worried about is it pixel perfect, because again I know at the end of the day, we're
gonna be right back at it. So uh, you know, I think it's I think it's not as important now, and I think it's actually a good thing because again now, which is it's lowered the barrier to entry for so many other people to kind of create opportunities and content and get their stuff out there. That it should really hopefully not intimidate people and really want to enable them to kind of stick their toe in the water and start doing what they need to do to get their
selves or their brand out there. So, because you also managed creative talent today, what are you looking for in that talent? Because I imagine.
The portfolio matters. But and I want you to answer this from the perspective of small businesses, medium sized businesses who are looking to bring people on their team and see themselves as a media company, because what they might say is, hey, my nephew knows how to do TikTok, let's give him the keys to the thing. So how do you do this?
Yeah? You know what really, So it's a couple of things. What really worked for me was.
Find some you know, if you want if you want to find people that, if you want to find good people, find the good work and then find the people that made it.
So.
I remember when we first kind of launched Butter we were doing this post on the Clairemont Lounge here in Atlanta. It's a iconic establishment. I'll let your audience look it.
Up one day. But you know, I was I was coming up.
I was looking for ideas, and I said, you know, let me jump on ig for some inspiration. And so I kind of started clicking on the Clairemont Lounge hashtag and I'm just scrolling and then I see this post that somebody made about the Claremont Lounge and I just said, you know what, that is what I was looking like, I want that. So what I did was I literally DM the person that made it and was like, yo, my name is Brandon. I got this company called Butter.
I'm not crazy, but I saw you make this post about the Clairemont Lounge and I'm actually working on some content very similar. Would you be interested in work with me on this content? And they were like, yeah, well that ended up. Person ended up working on that thing. It went well. Then I ended up hiring them full time. They worked with me for three years, right, And so I think again, if you want to find so I
think that that's what you got to do. It's not just about oh, my cousin knows TikTok and so he can do it.
It's no, you should be going on TikTok. Let's use the hoodie example.
You know, if you have a hoodie company, you should be on TikTok finding out who makes dope content about hoodies. You should be looking at every hoodie hashtag, you know, every hoodie rated brand, every creator that's making jokes about you know, the girls stealing your hoodies or its hoodie season, and you will find somebody in there that probably resonates with you. And then that's how you find somebody that can make you hoodie content.
You know.
Again, like so, and even with the portfolios and stuff like your portfolio, you know, I don't need to see your overly crafted, curated online portfolio. I can look at your Instagram and your TikTok because if you're really making stuff,
it should be on there. So I wouldn't trust anybody that's a maker that isn't making stuff and putting it on there in their free time, right because again, if you're doing this, a lot of these folks are like really in this for a living, and even when they're not making stuff for their job, they're making stuff for fun.
They're making things that inspire them. Right.
You want people like that because if they can get inspired on their own, they can definitely get inspired and it comes to kind of working for you. The other thing, I kind of tell people too, is like, you can't work for me until you work for me. So you know, when you find that person that's doing good work, give them a project. You know, I tell you the only way to find out how somebody works is to give
give them a project. And what I what I like to do is I actually will depending on the kind of job, but I actually give people like test projects.
Just to see how they're going to react to stuff.
So you know, I had I was looking for a video editor and I kind of came down to three candidates, and so I gave them a couple of things.
I said, look, i'll pay you. I said, here's the rate.
I'll pay you this rate, which I think is more than fair because it shouldn't take you more than this much time to do this work. Like I don't want you to spending a week on this, but I need you know, a video about this. I need a video about this, and I need you to go on my social media and give me your feedback. And even with the videos I gave them, it wasn't the best video, but I want to see how what they were gonna
make with it. I can tell if you're just gonna stick stuff together on a timeline and just put some fades between it or if you actually did something with it. And so again I think you know, we should do it. Is the only way to see how people work is to actually get them to work for you. And I
would much rather pay somebody for a project. See what they work like, See how we interact, you know, see how long they take the turn stuff around, See if they do the minimum, if they go above and beyond, and if you know, if you're amazing, I have no issue whatsoever, and in paying you and keeping you around. But again if you don't, if you don't knock it out the park, and that that's cool. It's no issues. You've got paid, I got something. But you know, we're
probably not gonna work together. And so like, those are the ways I've seen, especially kind of in this again world where like everybody's just making stuff or some hacks that I found to kind of like find talent, but also find the right.
Folks, because again, you just have to.
It's it's a continuous effort to find the right people to kind of get on the bus to get it that understand what you're trying to accomplish. That they have their own goals and it all works together. So you have to always kind of have your antenna up for talent once you kind of get into that game as well.
So what does it mean to be chief culture and innovation officer?
Like?
What is your what are your days like?
Yeah?
So so on the other side, So again for the folks though, I actually I'm a co owner and partner at the agency I here call majority. We started with Shaquille O'Neil a couple of years ago. We do you know, big creative work. And the whole idea behind the company was founded on the idea that the reality is in most agencies, you know, people of color are the minority, but so much of the content that the agencies make
wants to land in culture. That and the culture at a macro is you know, again more black and brown than people want to admit. I mean, by twenty thirty,
the minority will become the majority in this country. So the whole idea with us is that what if you actually flip that model and made it so that you know, seventy to eighty percent of the company, especially the leadership positions, were you know, minorities, right, But we're also still making general market work, and so because of that culture is
super important, especially in the city like Atlanta. You know, what Butter has given me the ability to do is be able to get into different rooms and just connect with people. But also it's given me the opportunity to kind of give people, to give people opportunities. Again, especially in the agency world. You know, Atlanta's kind of looked
over the talent. It was always kind of considered this is the place that you can't start a career at if you were serious about working an agency, you had to go to New York, LA, Chicago, Miami or something.
And so, you know, from from a keeping people down here standpoint of keeping talent local, you know, one of my biggest remits is really just to kind of go out and engage with different you know, people, schools, talent creatives, just anybody in that space around the city and just kind of build relationships so that they know that at the end of the day, that majority is is authentically rooted and connected to the culture and it's a priority
for us. That means again making sure that we're you know, again being proactive and going to the auc to make sure that we're getting talent from the Atlanta University Center and make sure that we're you know, doing things around the seed to bring in people that might not have had a traditional path. You know, everybody doesn't go to college anymore, so how are we looking for people that didn't go to school and can how how can they
get into this industry? And then on the innovation and then also just again how do we even manage our culture internally? You know, I'm not HR, but I'm a big believer in you know again people people you know, high achievers want to be around other high achievers, and so you know, I really want to help us. I work to kind of help us create a kind of a high achieving atmosphere for our team. That's fund, it's engaging,
but you know, we also get stuff done. And then on the innovation side, like I said before, you know, my background's in tech. I always just have a love for technology. I spent the first half of my career in that. And so it's also about figuring out what are the tools and things that we can use to help innovate and make ourselves more efficient so that as an agency, one again, we're just being more efficient so
we can create more opportunities. But We're also given our people in employees access and experience to use, you know, more cutting edge things that will just help them stay competitive in their jobs. I'm I'm a big believer in AI, but I think even with AI, for example, the people that learn how to embrace it and integrate it into their workflows are going to be the ones that are
the most successful. Like, it's very true that AI might replace some jobs, but on the same time, I think it's a lot like a computer, you know, Like there was a time when everybody had typewriters, and now we have computers. And so the folks that embraced learning how to use email, learning how to use a computer, you know, learning how just to use tech in general, had just more opportunities than the folks that said, I'm only using
a typewriter. And so I think, you know, AI is kind of that same thing, right, like the folks that learn how to you know. I literally was just in a meeting a little while ago with my creative team saying, you know, how can we use AI to help make us more efficient? Like, you know, is it recording all our meetings, you know, with a tool like and then you know, then sharing those meeting notes backed out to everybody, so that somebody just have to do it, is it?
You know, using tools like mid Journey or you know, Getty Images even has an AI generator now to help us quickly ideate on you know, conceptual you know design for clients to kind of just get stuff out the door, not that they will ever go live, but it just gets the juices for them. Right, How can we just think about technology to help us be more efficient? So you know, that's kind of what my day typically includes, is that, and you know also a lot of spreadsheets and budget stuff too.
So with Butter, I mean, you guys are covering every category of the culture in Atlanta, and that's you know, sports, news, food, music, and et cetera. What is so special about the black entrepreneurial landscape and these particular verticals in Atlanta?
Yeah, I mean, you know, well, I always say Atlanta is a special place in general, just because if you're ever not clear why the once you get off the get off your plane at the airport, you know, Atlanta is different. I've been all over the world and that's one of the few places I've ever been that when you get off from the moment you kind of touch down.
You see people of color at all, you know, all walks of life, from the pilots to the janitors, right, you know, so and I think you know, the different verticals around Atlanta are very much the same thing.
You know.
It's it's it's a very unique thing that we can go to these brands, go to these companies, go to these large organizations, and the people that are making decisions at the top, you know, look like you. And you know what does that mean. It means that one, it's easier for you to be your authentic self. You know, it's easy for you to walk into certain conversations and say, you know what, I don't have thought I have to you know, overly code switch or be somebody I'm not.
I can actually be authentic. I could bring my whole self in here to this conversation. But also what's amazing about that is because you have people that you know that are from the culture or or they get it at the top making those decisions, you're just able to do things that resonate more broadly because everybody's kind of understanding it.
Right.
So again, you know, it's it's it's it's like again, it's like, you know, when people would say, yeah, we got to get an influencer on this, it's like, well, why you know?
But but now when you have.
Somebody in there at the top that understands the nuances around, I'm just gonna use it Atlanta as like Atlanta culture. It's not like you're just you know, throwing things in there to say we gotta do this, we gotta do this, we gotta do this. It's really the conversations more often not tend to leverage around what's impactful, what would really you know, resonate, what would really help this be successful? And then how can we kind of do that together?
And again it's just having that ability to be collaborative while also just being your full self, I think is what makes Atlanta really special and unique.
And again, having.
Traveled and worked all over the world, I I you know, I've said that's not always been the case, and that's why I think that again, that's why lant is such a special place.
So if you think about what you guys have done with butter Ato and how it's work for Atlanta, and then giving the platform to people doing really great things in Atlanta, what can other communities learn from that think about Detroit, you know, Cleveland, Baltimore, Chattanooga. What can other cities replicate that has worked well for Butter.
Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, you know, every city. I think every city has a story. I mean, use Detroit as an example, right, Like you think about just the history from you know, the car companies, the motown and everything in between. Right, Like, there's an element of just having pride, you know, in your city, in the place you live, in the place you call home. And I think, you know, the great thing about that pride is is that you can activate it and really
fun and interesting ways. Just recently, you know, just recently, we did the very a very similar thing, right you know, here in Atlanta, an announcement came out that the city of Decatur schools had a path do balance of almost eighty eight thousand dollars for student unpaid school lunches, and because of that, they were going to start giving students that had unpaid balances a cheese sandwich and a cart.
And of milk.
Now, there's a lot of common questions that come up when you say that, like what if they're Lato's intolerant, or you know, is that now singling out the people who might be having issues at home. But what was really interesting was, you know, we partnered with another amazing entrepreneur right here called Jasmine, Jasmine Crow of Gooder, and she had this idea to basically say, you know what, because we're the people that you know, care about this city.
If the city of Decatur can't raise eighty eight thousand dollars, why we can. And literally, in forty eight hours, we raised eighty five eighty six thousand dollars on GoFundMe, enough to pay off the entire outstanding Student Outstanding Student lunch balance for the entire city of Decatur.
Right.
So I think that's where that whole city pride comes from, right because why the people that followed Butter, they went to school, Indicator, they went to school, they have kids, they have family around there, they have pride in that sense.
Right.
So, while we have fun and we try to keep it positive and we try to you know, do things when we do need to activate our audience, our audiences is very engaged and they want to see the city and the culture be protected.
And so I was super proud for that.
Moment just and again it wasn't even my idea, it was not that we helped out with, but the idea that we had a huge audience and you know, just putting this message out here drove tens of thousands of dollars and you know, submissions literally in twenty four to forty eight hours, you know where on Monday, you know, they were saying this is what was going to happen. Two three days later they're like, Okay, the balance is paid off.
Right.
So I think that's the benefit of a butter like object in other cities. Right, It's like there could be moments where because government moves slow, or because it takes a while to activate, like, how else can you just get the best of a sty to kind of stand up and say, you know what, we're all gonna get behind this thing and make something happen right now. And I think, you know, when you cultivate that audience by providing them value, giving them an outlet, letting them have fun.
But then when you say hey, y'all, I need y'all to step up and they do it, it's just an amazing thing to kind of see. And so I think that's something that again, all these other cities could really use, you know, a very a very similar like I said, Butter like object.
And then so when you started Butter, like this was this design to be a business or was this design to be something We care about the community, we want
to tell these stories, et cetera. And here's why I'm asking this question is you know, I have the belief that and maybe you agree that you can build You can try to sell a product without a brand, and you may sell something, but if you build a brand, you can sell anything almost that aligns with your product, it aligns with your you know, true north Like, think about a Rihanna. Rihanna can sell almost anything. She can
sell many things. But if she just had didn't have the name, but just had a product, she could sell some product, maybe sell some fansy, maybe people will buy it, maybe they don't, but they will follow her anywhere now because she has a brand. And so my reason for asking question about Butter is was this design to be I guess was it more contributory, contributive to the community and a business happened, or was like, Hey, we're going to start a business and we're going to create content.
Yeah, So when we started Butter, I actually launched and incubated it inside of an agency that I was working out here in Atlanta. You know, in the beginning, folks thought there was like some weird angle. I had people hitting me up like, are y'all just trying to market to black people? Or what are you selling? I said, no, honestly, there's no hidden agenda. The only agenda is I'm just
trying to do cool shit for the city. But the beautiful thing about that it kind of being incubated was it allowed us for the first couple of years to not worry about making money and just focus on the brand. I think there was always an there was always a goal or I think a vision that this could be something.
We just had kind of figure out what it was.
And you know, the trick is is, like I said, when you actually have the ability to build an audience and build a brand first, what you can then do is you can then go to them and ask them what they want, and then it's easy. Like that's honestly, that's that's like almost the definition of marketing at its core, right, It's like understanding your audience and just giving them what they want. And so, you know, building up this brand, building up this audience, is super just tied in and
resonated to Atlanta. You know, we would do little stuff here and there to just kind of have fun, but it was never kind of a you know, Okay, we got to do this to pay the bills kind of situation. When I left that agency and then fully acquired all the IP for Butter, you know, I was like, Okay, we have to do more of a business now. But again, we already kind of knew because our audience and we knew what they wanted, what are the things that would work?
And so for me, the fun part is is now that I have such a good understanding of our audience, the fun part is really figuring out, Okay, what are the things that we could do to kind of do this, because at the end of the day, you know, great content needs a business model. You know, I'm not a huge fan of the advertising business model in general, even though I work in that space, but you know, I do think for us, it's it's kind of similar to what.
You said about Rihanna.
What I'm looking at now is what are things that only Butter could do and that could push out because of our audience and they would just love this and they would actually want to you know, buy it or do something with it. So you know, I'm thinking about you know, different you know, events, activations, we think about actual real products. There's lots of stuff that we're kind of working on right now with that idea that we kind of came out of last year, with that realization
of Okay, the audience is here. We kind of we have the distribution built in. Now, the question is what do we put in front of them? What do they want? And so that's going to really be the focus. You know, that was the focus last year and going into this year is you know, products and services that our audience you know, we know they'd like that we could just put right in front of them, and we know they would just you know, snatch it up off the gate.
Because again, you know, in order to stick around, you do got to make money. And you know, again that money goes to help you know, fun, the salaries of the team and everything else. And so that's why it's important that we that we go out and create those things so that this can exist one so we can do things, but to the next time a Decatur Schools type situation happens. There's a brand here that can also help activate people and make stuff happen, you.
Know, black tech. Green money to production to Blavity, Afrotech from the Black Effect Podcast Network and I Hire Media. It's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas. If you got something out of this episode shared with somebody, we'll get your money.
Piece of luck.