Warner Bros. Discovery Announces Dedicated Client Partnerships and Inclusive Solutions Team
Offering Creates Custom Solutions for Clients that Resonate with Multicultural Audiences
Warner Bros. Discovery (Nasdaq: WBD) today announced its dedicated Client Partnerships and Inclusive Solutions Team at its annual Upfront presentation to advertisers at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, showcasing its extensive portfolio of premium entertainment, sports, news and lifestyle brands. The advertising offering, which has been available in the marketplace generating meaningful opportunities for clients, officially debuted as a destination for building custom solutions for marketers that resonate with multicultural audiences who are key to profitability including Black, Hispanic, AAPI and LGBTQ+ audiences. The team sits within the Warner Bros. Discovery Advertising Sales organization and is led by Sheereen Russell, EVP of Ad Sales and Inclusive Solutions, who reports directly to Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer, Jon Steinlauf.
The Client Partnerships and Inclusive Solutions team seeks to pair marketers with impactful opportunities across the Warner Bros. Discovery portfolio of diverse voices, faces, creators and stories to reach multicultural consumers, with tentpole events, brands and talent including: CNN’s Juneteenth: A Global Celebration for Freedom; the HBCU Legacy Classic; coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup; OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network; Jennifer Hudson; Aarón Sánchez; Trixie Mattel; and more. The team also offers sponsorships of year-round cultural moments through programming and streaming content hubs tied to Black History Month, Pride, AAPI Month, Hispanic Heritage Month and Women’s History Month. Additionally, the team is committed to pursuing equity, partnering with and investing in diverse owned and operated creative teams that provide reach and scale across best-in-class, quality programming. For marketers who are unable to produce their own creative assets in-house, the team offers full-service customized marketing opportunities.
The inclusive solutions unlocked within the Warner Bros. Discovery ecosystem are in service to diverse viewers, redefining industry KPIs through cultural resonance, specificity, nuance, authentic representation and psychological safety that accurately represent brands’ connection to audiences. The team’s offering to tap into the portfolio includes branded content, category and thematic packages, sponsorship integration, audience targeting and live experiences.
“Championing inclusion is a Warner Bros. Discovery Guiding Principle, and our sales organization is committed to creating opportunities that not only drive that initiative for our company, but also for our partners,” said Steinlauf. “I am proud of the innovative solutions we are offering clients to integrate their brands into our inclusive content while reaching critical growth segments and meeting their business objectives around Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging.”
“As our team meets with marketers, it is clear to us that brands are seeking innovative ways to reach multicultural consumers, and our Client Partnerships and Inclusive Solutions offering is specifically designed to help clients achieve their marketing and sales goals in intentional and meaningful ways,” said Russell. “We know that reaching diverse consumer audiences is not just good for business, but critical for brands’ continued evolution and growth.”
For more information on Warner Bros. Discovery Guiding Principles, see here.