Anthony Anderson Reveals Why He’s Getting Business-ish

Black star Anthony Anderson is getting into the advertising… uh, business. With his eighth season as an advertising executive on the hit ABC comedy in the rearview mirror, the actor and entrepreneur made his maiden voyage to CES in Las Vegas to debut a new one adventure, ADvolution.

“It’s life imitating art,” Anderson told an enthusiastic audience during an ADWEEK House panel where he and business partner Alex Chatfield unveiled the celebrity adtech business going forward. (Chatfield is the company’s co-founder president, along with co-founder and CEO Marc Mordoh.) “Hopefully, I’m not ashamed of the company we started!”

It’s safe to say that ADvolution did better with the CES crowd than Kangaroo Jack did with movie critics. Inspired in part by Anderson’s own experience as a veteran Hollywood presence with a loyal fanbase and myriad brand partners, the company seeks to be the conduit between a diverse roster of celebrities and the digital advertising industry .

“ADvolution’s mission is to enable actors, musicians and athletes to galvanize their social media platform and use it in conjunction with partners in the advertising world,” emphasized Anderson. “The industry is in flux [point] now – things are very different than they were 10 years ago.”

The media matters

Chief among those current inflections is the fact that social media platforms have recast celebrities in the role of—as Chatfield put it—”their own media networks.” And like legacy media networks, from ABC to TLC, stars have access to often granular data about their followers and fans courtesy of platforms that can lead to interested brands.

“It allows brands to be very targeted and focused on a curated community of people,” Chatfield said. “The idea of ​​delivering an ad to your spokesperson’s fan base… [means] that people actually tune in and hear. You break the noise. “

Anderson and Chatfield see ADvolution’s role in this brave new world as a curation engine, using its technology to target advertising opportunities that benefit brands, celebrities and fans. These opportunities will go beyond traditional partnership agreements to more specific experiences. And for celebrities who already have brand partnerships in place, ADvolution will look to expand their involvement into new arenas.

“Beyond just being in business, [they are] now it helps distribute the commercial,” Chatfield said for example, adding that the company is currently focused on recruiting “more established” celebrities. He also distinguished ADvolution’s services from what creators could provide, citing brand partnerships Anderson as his favorite model.