BET’s Head of Media Sales Says Diversity Needs to Be a ‘Business Decision’

Office With a View: Louis Carr says he has watched the Black consumer market grow to $1.5 Trillion annually. ”You would think… people would rush to that marketplace looking for opportunities,“ he says

When it comes to reaching the widest audience possible, BET President of Media Sales Louis Carr believes advertisers need to do a better job when it comes to diversity and inclusion.

“In 2020, you had a lot of marketers right after the situation with George Floyd and the Central Park Karen saying ‘We’ve got to do better’ — and some have, but most haven’t,” Carr told TheWrap for this week’s Office With a View. “There is data showing that consumers — especially young consumers and consumers of color — said, ‘We don’t want advertisers to sit on the sidelines anymore.’ Because advertisers ask them every day when they go down these aisles, ‘Choose me, choose me, choose me.’ And now you see a lot of those same brands acting like May 2020 never happened.”

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Lucas Manfredi

Lucas Manfredi is a TV Business reporter with TheWrap. He has a Bachelor of Science in Television-Radio from Ithaca College. He can be reached at lucas.manfredi@thewrap.com.