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Ashley Henderson has created a league of her personal.
Together with her brainchild, League Twenty-Two, a culturally-empowered, millennial boutique experiential advertising company, the Los Angeles native is pioneering the best way for shoppers to attain the near-impossible. The rising crew of eight now serves shoppers nationwide.
Based in 2016, the female-owned and led company exists to attach manufacturers with cultural audiences.
As a proud HBCU alumna and proud member of Alpha Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Henderson reps Howard College and serves because the league’s founder and chief artistic officer.
“Since Howard modified my life, I want to make it possible for I assist and affect different HBCU college students in the identical means,” Henderson tells BLACK ENTERPRISE.
“We’re intentional about hiring HBCU creatives, comparable to photographers, videographers, manufacturing assistants, and Black -owned catering firms, as we’ve got been doing for a few years,” she provides.
Company beginnings
Earlier than graduating from Howard College with a public relations diploma, Henderson dominated in internet hosting and particular occasions. She then served as regional occasions supervisor at MAC (Estee Lauder Corporations) till she was impressed to champion the facility of creativity and cultural technique at her personal company.
At Estée Lauder, Henderson realized market merchandise. Her emergence got here when the sweetness trade was booming, so she relocated from Los Angeles to New York to pursue the worldwide magnificence stage.
“I acquired an opportunity to work on massive magnificence occasions, like technology ipsy, magnificence con, and I acquired an opportunity to work on Mac cosmetics, one of the common magnificence manufacturers on the time, in addition to curate and activate completely different artistic occasions the buyer would love,” she says.
“The expertise I gained working with massive company names impressed me to create my very own company that resembled me and created for people like me with the information I gained from working with these bigger companies.”
Together with her artistic management, Henderson not solely leverages her distinctive experiences of Black and Bison satisfaction, she channels her abilities as a former company government within the magnificence trade.
“I left Estee Lauder in 2018 to run my very own firm full-time. All the things I realized from Estee Lauder I took to my firm and now Estee Lauder is considered one of my shoppers,” she says.
She provides: “When you take it all the way down to numbers, Latinos are the number-one client within the make-up trade. Cultural technique have to be genuine. Black individuals have a trillion-dollar spending energy, so if you consider it Black and Brown individuals are what make up a lot of the spending in retail and procuring.”
League Twenty-Two curates unforgettable experiences via strategic perception, experiential manufacturing, cultural reference, and fascinating content material for the likes of Nike x Lebron, Nike x YardRunners, Estee Lauder, META, YouTube, Beautycon, Jordan, and Diageo.
“As a small model once you wish to have interaction with clients you must establish who the audience is,” Henderson observes.
“Then in case you have the instruments to survey them, then ask their wants, their spending habits, and research the traits. Attaching your model to an influencer in an natural means is an efficient strategy to push your model ahead. Even discovering macro-influencers who’re loyal to particular manufacturers and might communicate to their neighborhood in an genuine means is essential.”
The quantity 22
The League Twenty-Two crew is the precise audience manufacturers try to achieve. Named after numbers symbolizing precision and steadiness, the company brings a sturdy understanding of deeply join with the Millennial and Gen-Z viewers by emphasizing true cultural relevance and social consciousness.
However it’s not as straightforward because it appears to be like. Henderson skilled challenges from being neglected by bigger companies to scaling and capital elevating challenges.
“Consequently, we’re competing with bigger non-diverse companies which have been grandfathered in and that market to Black individuals however do not need any individuals of coloration on employees,” Henderson says about her challenges as a Black lady founder.
“That’s why they aim us by utilizing high athletes and types to promote to us, but we’ve got no possession, much more so it’s vital that we’ve got fairness and have a stake on this,” she provides.
For 12 months two of the Yardrunners marketing campaign, the place Nike celebrates HBCU tradition via sport, Nike tapped company League Twenty to provide and execute the multi-platform marketing campaign.
“I wish to communicate authentically to these people whose pursuits align with ours. The initiatives I’m engaged on should push the tradition ahead, they have to be multicultural, they usually will need to have a goal.”
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