Stellantis North America has hired Louisville-based TKT & Associates to handle marketing outreach to Black consumers, continuing a recent trend of automakers bringing on Black-owned communications firms. 

Stellantis—which owns Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Fiat and Alfa Romero—has previously used Black-run agencies for individual marketing efforts, executives said. But the company described TKT as its “first-ever agency of record dedicated to Black audience marketing efforts.”

The assignment, which is expected to begin with a forthcoming campaign for Jeep, will be handled by TKT Collab, a division the firm launched in 2020 whose services include creative, social media and PR. TKT Associates was founded in 2006 with offerings including DE&I and supplier diversity consulting. 

“Partnering with TKT & Associates to lead our Black audience marketing efforts across the North America brand portfolio will allow us to ensure we are authentically speaking to different audiences, strengthening relationships with diverse audiences and embracing all consumer audiences by practicing diversity every single day,” Marissa Hunter, senior VP of marketing for  Stellantis North America, said during a media briefing.

The agency beat out “five or six” other agencies for the agency of record assignment, Hunter said. 

Stellantis also announced an expanded role for Kim Adams House, the automaker’s head of merchandizing and licensing who has added multicultural marketing to her remit. House, who was head of Jeep advertising from 2009 to 2018, said TKT was selected for its “strategically sound and data-led approach to reaching our target audience,” while also crediting its “rich understanding of Black social media communities.”

Media spending

Stellantis’s move comes two years after Hyundai hired Maryland-based Culture Tags as its first agency of record hired to reach Black audiences. General Motors bolstered its roster of agencies dedicated to reaching diverse audiences in 2022, when it hired Atlanta-based Majority as its agency of record for branded diversity marketing initiatives, with its responsibilities including increasing electric vehicle adoption among diverse audiences.

Related: WPP takes a 30% stake in Majority

In 2021, GM was targeted by a group of media owners, including Byron Allen, founder and CEO of Allen Media Group, who alleged the automaker was allocating less than 0.5 of its ad spend to Black-owned media. GM later announced a goal to boost spending on Black-owned media to 8% by 2025, which it recently told Ad Age it was on track to reach.

Stellantis has been in discussions with Allen, Hunter confirmed during this week’s media briefing. “He's offered perspectives on marketing and how we should be poised with a diverse roster of partners that has been very beneficial to the team,” she said, but added that those talks did not directly result in the hiring of TKT.

A Stellantis representative declined to share what Stellantis spends on Black-owned media, only saying it “has seen an increase year-over-year in 2022.”

Boosting representation

Marc Bland, chief diversity officer at S&P Global Mobility, which tracks the automotive industry, said the hirings of Black-owned agencies come as consumers demand more representation in auto marketing. “If you're trying to reach me, then I want all the content to be about me—Black creative, all-Black actors, real Black scenarios,” he said. 

Read more: Hyundai leverages a TikTok trend to connect with Black consumers

Toyota currently ranks first among Black buyers based on new vehicle registration data, according to S&P, followed by Chevrolet and Honda. Jeep ranks eighth (better than its 10th-place ranking among all buyers), while Dodge is 17th (22nd for total market); and Ram is 18th (15th in total market.)

Stellantis got to know TKT & Associates via its participation in Stellantis’s National Black Supplier Development Program, an initiative meant to “develop Black suppliers for future contracting and procurement opportunities in pursuit of greater racial equity in the marketplace,” according to the program’s website. TKT & Associates first started working with Stellantis as a supplier in 2020 through TKT & Associate's subsidiary, Astute Sourcing LLC, providing contingent staffing and workforce solutions.  

Through those efforts, TKT was “able to really hone our skills, get to [Stellantis] better,” Kimberly Bunton, CEO and chief strategy officer of TKT Collab, said during the media briefing. The agency of record assignment is  “a tremendous opportunity for us. It is not something that we take lightly… and we appreciate the opportunity to have a creative expression and energy to connect [Stellantis] with the Black community,” she said.