UWG Inc.

Last updated
UWG Inc.
FormerlyUniWorld Group, Inc.
Company type Private
Industry Advertising
Headquarters,
Key people
Monique L. Nelson (CEO) [1]
OwnerLori-Laine Holdings (51%)
WPP Group (49%) [2]
Divisions UniWorld Group Advertising
UniWorld Group Healthcare
UniWorld Group Hispanic
UniWorld Films [3]
Website www.uwginc.com

UniWorld Group, Inc., branded as UWG, is a full-service advertising agency [4] [5] headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite offices in Atlanta, Detroit, Miami, and Los Angeles. It is the longest-standing multicultural ad agency in the United States, founded in 1969. [6] [7] [8] In 2014, the company rebranded itself as UWG. [9] [10]

Contents

Some of its current and past clients include Lincoln-Mercury, Ford Motor Co, CVS Pharmacy, Marriott International, U.S. Marine Corps, AT&T, and Burger King. [6] [1] [7]

History

UniWorld Group was founded in 1969 by Byron Lewis, [11] [12] who pioneered the concept of multicultural advertising. [13] The company conceptualised the marketing campaign for the 1971 "blaxploitation" film Shaft . The company was credited for popularizing Shaft by using the rhetoric of black power. [14] [15] [16]

In 1974, the company created a radio soap opera that centered on the post-Great Migration and African Americans settling in the Northern United States, entitled Sounds of the City . The soap opera helped the company earn its first million dollars in gross sales. [17] [18] The company started creating TV commercials in 1975. Its first television advertisements were for Avon, a cosmetic company. [19]

In 1997, the company launched UniWorld Entertainment, a production company that developed national TV specials. The company has also handled publicity for films such as A Bronx Tale (1993), Amistad (1997), Boyz n the Hood (1991), Glory (1989), Malcolm X (1992), Shaft (1971), Shaft's Big Score (1973), and Shaft in Africa (1973). [18]

UniWorld did Burger King's minority advertising in the '80s and '90s. [20] [21] In 2000, WPP plc acquired a 49% stake in UniWorld Group for an undisclosed amount of sum. [22] [23]

In 2012, Monique Nelson and her family acquired the majority stake and were appointed chair and CEO of the company. [24] In 2014, UniWorld Group changed its name to UWG. [9] [10] [25] Some of the notable clients that UWG served include CVS Pharmacy, Marriott International, U.S. Marine Corps, Gatorade, AT&T, Mars, Incorporated, Amtrak, Smirnoff Vodka, Colgate-Palmolive, Texaco, [26] Lincoln-Mercury, and Ford Motor Co. [6] [1] [27] [28] [29] [30] [7]

Awards and recognition

UWG has been ranked multiple times in Black Enterprise magazine: #16 on their Industrial/Service 100 (1994), [27] Advertising Agency of the Year (2000); [23] [31] #5 in Advertising Agencies (2011); [24] and #8 in black-owned ad companies in the United States (2014). [32] The Association of National Advertisers has given the company Multicultural Excellence Awards in 2010, 2012, and 2017. [33] [34] [35]

The company's founder, Byron Lewis, was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame by the American Advertising Federation (AAF) in 2013. [36] [37]

Other awards and nominations include: Communications Excellence to Black Audiences (CEBA) awards (1983) [38] and the APAC Effie Awards Gold Award in United States Multicultural & Lifestyle Segments the multimedia 'Real Talk' ad campaign produced for the United States Marine Corps (2010). [39] [40] [41]

Further reading

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