BlackWeek is October 15-18 at Spring Studios in Manhattan. Don’t miss out on this powerful event that aims to drive real change and create economic opportunity for diverse communities.

The advertising industry has a big problem. Despite thriving on creativity and connection it struggles to reflect the real world. 

Black consumers hold over $1.4 trillion in buying power, yet Black talent remains critically underrepresented in advertising, comprising only about 7.2% of professionals in the space. When diverse talent is absent from decision-making rooms, it’s more than a staffing issue — it’s a creativity crisis. We end up with ads that miss the mark, reinforce stereotypes, or worse, leave entire communities feeling unseen and unheard.

Enter BlackWeek. Founded by seven Black and Latino agency leaders, the event brings together top talent, brands, and decision-makers to show how real inclusion can turn into real results. As brands and advertisers continue to fall short on diversity promises made during the racial reckoning of 2020, BlackWeek plans to apply the pressure and drive real accountability. Inclusivity leads to better business outcomes. Period. And BlackWeek is here to show that.

As an economic forum, it offers a platform where conversations around opportunity, cultural representation, and diversity in advertising aren’t just happening — they’re front and center. 

Walt Geer, Chief Creative Officer for Innovation North America at VML, knows how to make noise. For years, he’s reinvented how brands connect with consumers and fiercely advocated for Black talent. With BlackWeek, Geer and his co-founders are building more than just a seat at the table — they’re building a new one. Ahead of the event, running October 15-18 at Spring Studios, we caught up with Walt to talk about how BlackWeek is set to reshape the future of advertising.

In this Q&A, Geer explains why BlackWeek is designed to create space and fundamentally transform how Black professionals are represented and empowered in the advertising ecosystem. With keynotes featuring leaders like Shannon Sharpe and Gary Vaynerchuk to intentional discussions on Black buying power and cultural reinvention, BlackWeek is set to move the needle on inclusion, opportunity, and economic equity.

Lighting the Fuse: What Sparked BlackWeek?

AdMonsters: What gaps in the industry did you and the other founders see that made you want to start BlackWeek?

Walt Geer: It’s an interesting conversation. This idea actually started with Joe Anthony, one of our founders, during a birthday party. He had gathered a lot of executives, and there was this moment where it felt good being together and talking about what was going on in our industry. That led to a quick conversation among the seven of us — Andre Gray, Monique Nelson, Dabo Shea, Gabrielle Shannon, Adan Romero, and myself — about how we could move the needle forward. 

Joe was the driving force. He brought in his agency, Hero Collective, to back it and get the ball rolling. And before we knew it, we were all in. We posted a promo video on LinkedIn, and the response was wild. That’s when we knew we were onto something big.

DEI Is Dead? Not So Fast

AdMonsters: We keep hearing that DEI is dead. Did that have an impact on your decision to launch BlackWeek?

WG: Absolutely. I think this whole idea that DEI is dead is bullshit. We’ve seen companies backslide on their promises. Our goal is to put this conversation back on the map in a disruptive way. Black people represent trillions in buying power, yet the leadership at these companies often doesn’t look like us. BlackWeek is about creating a space for real, inclusive conversations with people who are doing the work, not just showing up for a photo op.

Key Conversations That Pack a Punch

AdMonsters: What are some of the key topics and conversations attendees can expect at BlackWeek?

WG: We’re trying to make BlackWeek the Black Davos, an economic forum focused on driving dollars back into the Black community. Some of the sessions are heavy hitters like “Broken Promises,” “The Future of Advertising is Black Women,” and “The Rise of Black and Brown Influence.” We’re not just talking about DEI as a feel-good topic; we’re pushing conversations that will lead to real outcomes like investments, acquisitions, and promotions. It’s all about action.

From the Stage to the Boardroom: Turning Talk into Action

AdMonsters: How do you plan to translate these conversations into tangible outcomes for Black professionals and companies

WG: It’s not just about the conversations on stage — it’s about who’s in the room. We have leaders like Peloton’s CMO, Lauren Weinberg, and others who are not just talking but showing how their companies are walking the talk. 

We want attendees to leave inspired and equipped to go back and make changes within their organizations. We’re also hosting sessions with WPP’s top M&A guys to give Black-owned companies insight into acquisitions. It’s about making sure that we’re funneling real dollars back into the Black community.

Breaking Down Barriers for the Next Generation

AdMonsters: How are you making the event accessible to young, creative Black talent while also meeting your financial obligations?

WG: We’ve been super intentional about making BlackWeek accessible to young talent, and that’s key to what we’re trying to achieve. Conferences like this are expensive — sometimes $4,000 or $5,000 just to attend — and it’s usually the senior leadership who gets sent. To level the playing field, we’ve partnered with organizations like The One Club, 100 Roses, and Creative Ladders to give 60 passes to individuals with five years or less of experience. 

We’ve also given out 50 passes to unemployed professionals who submitted their portfolios and resumes. That’s 267 submissions for 50 passes. It’s about giving access to those who usually get left out of these spaces.

We’re also working with local colleges like NYU and Columbia to bring in Black student organizations and get them involved. These students and young professionals are the future, and we’re committed to making sure they have a real seat at the table.

Where Opportunity Meets Creativity

AdMonsters: What makes BlackWeek different from other conferences when it comes to connecting talent with opportunities?

WG: The structure of BlackWeek is intentionally designed to connect talent with real opportunities. We’re not just hosting panels for the sake of discussion. We’ve built-in moments for attendees to pitch themselves. On the last day, we’re bringing 15 organizations into a room where young professionals and even mid-career folks can present their work. 

It’s like a live TED Talk, giving people five to seven minutes to speak directly to decision-makers about who they are and what they do. These moments are designed to spark real connections that can lead to hires, partnerships, and more. The goal is that in two or three years, we’ll see millions of dollars funneled back into Black communities through job creation, acquisitions, and investments. That’s the long-term vision of BlackWeek.

Big Names, Bold Conversations: Who’s Showing Up

AdMonsters: Who are some of the key players and content highlights that attendees can expect at BlackWeek?

WG: We have a crazy lineup of speakers. You’ll see Greg Oden, Shannon Sharpe, Dave East, Eric Austin from P&G, Danny Robertson from The Martin Agency, Gary Vaynerchuk, Aliyah Kemet, and so many more. 

What’s wild is that most of these people are donating their time, paying for their own travel and hotels just to be part of this. They believe in what we’re doing, and that’s what makes this so special.

Support the Movement, Show the Love

AdMonsters: Any final thoughts for those attending BlackWeek or thinking about getting involved?

WG: Look, showing love is showing up. Whether that’s liking a post, commenting, or sharing — it all helps. We’re seven founders self-funding this event, and we’re almost at break-even, which is incredible for year one. But this isn’t about getting rich — it’s for us, by us. We’re trying to create a moment, and we appreciate any support.

The post Shaping the Future of Advertising: Walt Geer on Why BlackWeek is the Black Davos appeared first on AdMonsters.

After twenty years in the game, from getting his start as The New York Times first rich media hire to his latest role as Executive Creative Director, Experience Design at VMLY&R, Geer has developed a knack for seamlessly melding the worlds of story-telling, design, technology, data, and research.

With an eye toward innovating digital advertising, he’ll be sharing actionable takeaways for publishers looking to change the industry in his AdMonsters Publisher Forum Virtual Keynote, “Resolving the Great Disconnect,” on August 25.

We caught up with Geer to learn about how he’s connected the dots between what he learned in his early ad ops days to now being an agency creative and how ad ops is a breeding ground for innovation and the jumping-off point for a range of careers within digital media and advertising. As well, we talked about the importance of diversity and inclusion in advertising.

Lynne d Johnson: So, we heard you just switched shops from your role as SVP and Group Creative Director, Digital Experience and Innovation at TBWA/WorldHealth to Executive Creative Director, Experience Design, VMLY&R. What are you most excited about with this new opportunity?

Walter T. Geer: I think what excites me is the opportunity to go someplace that has been long known as a digital powerhouse and working in the health space. Going over there really gives me the ability to take what I do best, which is innovation and creating compelling experiences for brands and level it up on a scale that I haven’t been able to do before.

For the first time in my career, I’ve actually felt as though the work that I’ve done has made a real impact on people’s lives, and it made me really rethink a lot about how I approach my work, my voice, and my platform to help people of color.

It gives me the opportunity to continue doing that but also being able to work across other brands like New Balance and to really lead the innovation—it’s the best of both worlds.

LdJ: You also worked as an ad ops guy back-in-the-day at a publisher. What from that experience has been most helpful throughout your career? 

WTG: Ad ops folks are the ones who have to get it right 100% of the time, and just one small mistake—they get beat down. People need to realize there’s a benefit to working closely with ad ops because they’re at the forefront of everything.

They truly understand the technology and how things work and how things are delivered, so these are the people you should partner with to actually figure out how to innovate and how to create better and more engaging opportunities. These should be the people that also have a greater insight into what brands should or should not be doing. They should be integrated at a greater level into things like the sales process, the creative process, and innovation. Unfortunately, they aren’t tapped into as much as they should be.

As we move forward with issues of privacy and other things in the space, we’re going to see publishers start doing bigger and better things with inventive solutions. With programmatic, the ad ops role has been kind of diminished but I think we’re going to see that role start to expand more as we go back to this place of leaning on them to build and create more engaging opportunities.

LdJ: And what advice would you give ad ops folks about their career ambitions?

Ad ops is the nucleus of how brands reach people.

WTG: My first job in ad ops was at The New York Times 20 years ago. I was their very first rich media hire when Flash was just starting to jump out and become a thing—like, “Wow, we can use Flash for ads and we can do DHTML overlays.”

That kicked off my career in a great way because it allowed me to gain an understanding of the delivery of ads and understand the technology and how it all works.

That has been the crux of my entire career—ad formats and solutions and deliveries and how this is built out and how do you utilize technology. Now we’ve moved to a place of delivering with data and taking third-party data and finding—I hate to use this term—the right person, right place, right time, and that all sits within ad ops. Ad ops is the nucleus of how brands reach people.

There’s so much opportunity beyond that in terms of going in the direction of a creative technologist on the agency side—being that creative person that understands technologies and how to bring them to life and how to work with different clients in that space. There’s also the data side, now that data has become such a big thing.

It’s an incredible starting point to learn many of the things about this business that not many other people get. There are so many directions you could move to from out of the ad ops world—creative, technology, data. It all starts with the question, “Where do I want to be?” and the opportunities are endless.

LdJ: A couple of years ago, you wrote a now-famous article about being a Black creative—”Tackling the ‘Black Quarterback Problem’ in Advertising.” With all of the light shining on racial injustice right now, have you seen any changes when it comes to inclusivity at agencies? Or maybe even with advertisers?

WTG: I wrote that article about two years ago, and to be 100% honest with you I don’t think that we’ve seen enough change. I think that we are now, as of recent, in a bit of a moment.

But I also feel that for a lot of companies as a whole, it’s about joining in and tagging along with the conversation as opposed to actually doing the work. So the work to me looks like more than just talking about these issues but providing action. Action, when we talk about the agency world, is about your Black leadership. I want to make sure that we have a seat at the table because for so long we have been told to wait our turn to have these opportunities and it’s unfair.

I think that we’ve seen some changes from some agencies and some companies as well, but not at the pace that we saw for things like the #Metoo movement and white women. I want to see change happen that fast.

LdJ: You’ve provided a platform to help agencies in this regard. Can you tell me about the project, DiverseCreatives, you launched with Ron Lewis, VP and Creative Director at McCann Health? What was the impetus behind it and what has been the reception so far?

WTG: It’s funny because we didn’t know each other a little over a year ago. At the same time, we had both been working separately on creating a list of Black creatives. My intent was to find other Black executive leadership on the creative side so that I could network with them. In my entire twenty-year career, I’ve only worked with two Black creatives, and it was in my last job and they worked for me—they were both engineers.

Ron reached out to me and told me he was working on this list and I said, “I’m working on this list too. Let’s put them together and see where we get.” We were both on one another’s lists. At first, we weren’t sure what to do with the list. But now with all of these agencies trying to make moves—and we’re both trying to get other people of color a seat at the table—we kept hearing that talent is so hard to find. Even with our small list of just 80 or 90 people, we knew that wasn’t true.

I did one post on Linkedin asking people to sign up on a Google Doc. From that one post, we got 1,600 people in about four or five days. Within the next week, we launched a site. And we strategically launched the site with press in AdWeek and Forbes, which gave us the opportunity to show all of the recruiters that we’re out here in high numbers. Now we have like 2,271 people on it—we’re getting like 10-to-15 people added every day. I’ve had every agency reach out to me to ask me about it and it’s been filling jobs.

LdJ: Another interesting point that came up earlier was about brands putting their money where their mouths are. With the pandemic and the racial unrest in the world, we’re seeing consumer behavior shift and people are leaning more towards brands that are mission-based or values-based in their messaging. Have you seen this new wave of messaging in your work?

WTG: It’s interesting you brought that up. I think everyone was jumping on the bandwagon with the Black Lives Matters posts and Black Tuesday posts and what we saw happen really quickly is that a lot of these companies got called out. So what we’re seeing people do is taking advantage of the opportunity by going out and making statements but not really doing the work internally. I think it starts internally first before you go externally to show off work of what you think you should be doing.

It’s about creating an environment where your employees feel safe, where your employees feel welcome, where your employees feel they have an opportunity, and where your employees feel that they can succeed.

If you work at a publisher, brand, or agency, you can hear more insights from Geer in his Publisher Forum Virtual Keynote, “Resolving the Great Disconnect,” on August 25. Register now!

The post Walter T. Geer III: Ad Ops is the Nucleus of Digital Advertising appeared first on AdMonsters.