We are in a unique time in history for Black Americans in this country. To inspire, educate and uplift, U.S. Bank and T Brand, the content studio of New York Times Advertising, collaborated to highlight stories of Black excellence in honor of The Harlem Renaissance’s 100th-year celebration.
Inspired by the tradition of self-published Zines that gave birth to old and new voices during The Renaissance—a time in the 1900s that gave rise to a cultural explosion of Black art, music, poetry and literature in Harlem, New York—we launched Legacy Fulfilled: A Modern Renaissance, a series of limited-edition printed Zines inserted within The New York Times newspaper.
Our objective was to spark a national dialogue to show and demonstrate that the Harlem Renaissance was a cultural phenomenon that continues on today. This series leverages the talents of Black award-winning writers, poets, journalists, photographers, illustrators and typographers to specifically:
This is the first program of its kind for T Brand Studio and U.S. Bank where every single contributor on a branded, multimedia campaign is Black.
The Plan: To inspire change while sparking a national dialogue celebrating the Harlem Renaissance’s 100th year. Our series, Legacy Fulfilled: A Modern Renaissance, celebrates this generation’s artists, business owners and independent thinkers. We chronicle untold stories of family, legacy and wealth exploring the rich legacies that continue to shape the modern-day movement. By doing so, we are helping millions of Americans around the country understand that Black culture continues to inspire and reimagine a future rich with creativity and hope.
The Execution: The Wealth Zine, Legacy, launched in August 2024, represents a blueprint for how Black affluents today are redefining what wealth means for themselves, their heirs and their communities. This 12-page print execution, featuring an original poem, love letter, and reported stories bolstered by custom photography and typography, highlights the pivotal role that wealth plays in community and culture. Our forthcoming Culture Zine, set to launch in the fall of 2024, will highlight the people, places and stories that are expanding the cultural conversation started during the Harlem Renaissance. Each Zine will run as a special insert within The New York Times in addition to a digital version of the stories and display ad units that are promoted across The Times homepage.
The Key Features: This seminal work commissioned a team of all-Black creatives to give them the space and opportunity to tell new stories about family, legacy, community and wealth. The representation from not only seeing yourself reflected in the work but knowing that the creators of the work also look like you, can change a life.
Key features of the Wealth Zine include the typography of Tré Seals, who exclusively created a font named “VTC Sarah,” honoring his great-great grandmother, the poetry of Mahogany L. Browne, the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at the Lincoln Center, who penned an original poem that continues the conversation Langston Hughes started in “Harlem” and the images of celebrated photographer Ivan B. McClellan chronicling one family’s fight to save their land.
The Challenge: Wealth is multifaceted, and so is culture. Ensuring the ways we talk with and to an audience of the Black affluent class who very much values self-determination, self expression and the creation of legacy for themselves and their communities, was a core tent of the work. We made it our mission to tap into the rich tapestry of diversity that is Blackness and its legacy. A major part of that was finding ways to pay homage to the ancestors of The Renaissance while simultaneously building awareness and engagement with U.S. Bank’s key audiences. Parts inspirational and aspirational, our team at T Brand Studio had many discussions and lengthy debates on which stories, images and illustrations to include. Finding that creative and strategic balance was pivotal to our success.
The first-of-its-kind New York Times Advertising campaign successfully achieved its goal of sparking a national dialogue to show and demonstrate that the Harlem Renaissance was a cultural phenomenon that continues on today. It made a splash in press from Campaign US to Marketing Dive to It’s Nice That publications with 1.5M total impressions. In addition to the 600,000 Times home-delivery subscribers who received physical copies, the digital components drove excellent engagement with more than 3x the average engaged time on the Paid Post and more than 2.5x CTR on social drivers. All in all, this campaign reflects an innovative, creative and ambitious partnership that successfully provided a blueprint for how Black affluents today are redefining what wealth means for themselves, their heirs and their communities. And, there’s more to come!
