iONE Digital Solidifies Itself As The Largest Digital Player In Black Culture And Media With Strategic Brand Acquisition

"The decision to acquire these brands falls in line with our overall strategy of building a portfolio of 'meaningful brands' that are rooted in Black culture but have strong millennial and total market audiences," says Detavio Samuels. "In today's ever-changing media landscape, it is imperative that we build a portfolio of brands with distinct voices and engaged audiences across multiple distribution channels; these three brands fit that strategic filter and we look forward to working with the existing teams to catapult these brands to the next level."

The three newly acquired brands will be packaged under the moniker "BHM Digital" alongside existing iONE Digital brand properties, HelloBeautiful, NewsOne, GlobalGrind and the company's new site and master brand, Cassius (www.cassiuslife.com). "With this strategic acquisition, we not only offer brands a larger audience but we also offer advertisers all of the top digital-first brands in the Black culture space under one roof; there simply is no competition," Samuels says.  The combined BHM Digital brands boast an audience of 6 million monthly unique visitors with little overlap with iONE Digital's current audience. BHM Digital will operate as a separate division within the company with dedicated editorial, marketing, and sales teams with future plans to fully integrate and maximize synergies among the brands for better solutions for our clients.

"The brands we are acquiring have great recognition amongst consumers, clients and agency partners. In fact, the Bossip voice is so admired that some of its competitors have dubbed it 'the best of the internet' and there are already plans to extend it outside of the digital world.  We look forward to the plethora of opportunities to grow all of these brands across multiple platforms within and outside of the Urban One ecosystem" continues Detavio Samuels.

Within the past 6 months, iONE Digital has transformed itself within the digital media space under the dynamic millennial leadership of Detavio Samuels. As part of their evolution, the forward-thinking leader moved the company into a new open floor space, set a new company culture and led the company to deliver its highest traffic and direct sales year in the history of iONE Digital.  This year the company has rallied around the launch of their provocative new urban millennial lifestyle platform Cassius, hired a bevy of rock star talent and tripled their investment in video.  "It is truly a new day over here at iONE Digital," Samuels says. "Whether brands are looking to grow their share of the 1.3 trillion dollars Blacks spend every year or grow their total market dollars by tapping into the power and influence of Black culture, iONE Digital is the dominant player in the digital space."

For more information on iONE Digital or media interviews regarding their BHM Digital and Cassius platforms please contact [email protected] or Natarsha Gilliard at 646.695.3814.

About Interactive One
iOne Digital (previously known as Interactive One) is the dominant digital media platform for brands to reach Urban Enthusiasts. A division of Urban One, Inc., we reach 25MM+ monthly digital consumers across a network of online destinations inclusive of our core brands — CASSIUS (Millennial Lifestyle & Culture), GlobalGrind ( Millennial Pop Culture), HelloBeautiful (Women's Lifestyle) and NewsOne (News/Affluent) —  as well as other Urban One owned and operated properties and affiliates. iOne Digital was launched in 2008 by Urban One, Inc. (formerly known as Radio One, Inc. (NASDAQ: UONE and UONEK, urban1.com) to complement its existing portfolio of media companies targeting Black Americans. Since then, its news, entertainment, video and lifestyle content has driven its growth. Across digital, radio and television properties, we are the largest and only fully integrated urban media company in the world. For more information, visit www.ionedigital.com.

SOURCE iONE Digital