Cricket Wireless set out to demonstrate how the brand helps people do more of what they love by investing in the next generation of creators and entrepreneurs. With Black Gen Z audiences driving culture yet often underserved by traditional brand storytelling, Cricket saw an opportunity to authentically champion emerging voices while reinforcing its commitment to accessibility, community, and economic empowerment.
The objective was to deepen engagement within the existing Cricket Nation - a community rooted in self-expression, ambition, and resilience - while attracting new multicultural audiences through culturally relevant, creator-led storytelling. Through the multi-platform branded series, ‘Making It', aimed to spotlight rising Black creators and entrepreneurs, pairing them with mentors in their field to share real stories of growth, career development, and creative hustle.
By collaborating directly with creators, the campaign sought to produce authentic, social-first video content that reflected the realities of building a business, pursuing passion projects, and navigating financial independence. Cricket’s goal was to position the brand not just as a wireless provider, but as a platform that empowers creators to build sustainable futures, connect with their communities, and do more of what they love.
To bring ‘Making It' to life, we developed a culturally grounded, social-first branded series that reflected the realities of today’s creator economy. Designed as a six-episode limited series, with supporting cutdowns and branded moments, the program paired emerging creators with established talent for candid mentorship conversations that explored financial literacy, entrepreneurship, creative independence, and realities of building a career online.
Execution began with intentional talent casting. The team identified Black creators and rising entrepreneurs whose personal journeys reflected Cricket Nation’s values of resilience, ambition, and community. Mentorship pairings were carefully curated to foster genuine dialogue by positioning creators not as brand spokespeople, but collaborators shaping the narrative through their personal experiences.
Devan Anderson, Chizi Duru, and Kier Gaines were paired with rising creators Jerrold Smith, Charisma Lowe, and Isaac Williams to foster meaningful, experience-driven conversations around creative careers.
The content was developed through a production model that prioritized authenticity. Episodes were designed to feel conversational, with storytelling that extended beyond longform YouTube episodes into shortform vertical cutdowns across the creators’ Instagram and TikTok channels. This multi-platform approach allowed the series to live natively across creator channels and Cricket’s owned platforms, creating an ecosystem of content that felt organic to viewers.
One of the biggest challenges was balancing brand integration with creative authenticity, ensuring Cricket played a meaningful role without disrupting the integrity of the creators' storytelling. The solution was to embed the brand through purpose rather than promotion, highlighting how access and community support helps creators build sustainable careers. Another challenge was representing the complexities of entrepreneurship within short-form social formats. This was addressed through layered storytelling that combined mentorship moments, real life business success/failure stories, and emotional reflections on growth.
What makes ‘Making It’ unique is its focus on real mentorship and empowerment. The campaign moved beyond a traditional influencer program. Instead, we created a platform where emerging creators gained visibility, resources, and guidance. Blending branded entertainment with creator voices and culturally relevant storytelling, Cricket transformed a traditional brand partnership into purpose driven content that empowered creators to do more of what they love while inspiring the next gen to pursue their own creative paths.
‘Making It’ successfully advanced Cricket Wireless’ objective to authentically engage Black Gen Z audiences while positioning the brand as a champion of creators and entrepreneurs. Through our creator-led approach, the series generated cross-platform engagement and meaningful community conversation, reinforcing Cricket’s role as an enabler of opportunity for their customers to do more.
Across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, the campaign delivered 8M views and 7.4M impressions, demonstrating the power of platform-native storytelling. Episodes 1 and 2 in particular lifted unaided awareness and Cricket brand favorability.
The series also delivered by amplifying emerging creators and providing audiences with approachable insights into creator lifestyle as a career. The success of ‘Making It’ is due to the series’ ability to merge entertainment, education, and purpose driven storytelling, proving that when brands invest authentically in culture and community they can drive meaningful engagement and empower creators, and Cricket Nation, to do more of what they love.
