How Atlanta Agency Six Degrees Is Making Advertising More Inclusive

A similar campaign was created for superstar rappers Drake and Future, when the agency launched a “Hotlanta” pop-up restaurant — located inside Mrs. Winner’s at 4350 Fulton Industrial Blvd. SW — based on the fake fast food chain from the duo’s “Life is Good” music video.

And when Lil Baby later partnered with Foot Locker to renovate an Oakland basketball court, Six Degrees was the creative agency behind the initiative.

When creative agency Six Degrees was founded six years ago by Morehouse graduates Brian “Bwrightous” Wright and Desmond Attmore, Six Degrees was inspired by the adage that we are all separated from one another by six relationships or less. Since its inception, the marketing agency has used its network to create culturally relevant campaigns for a number of brands.

As students at Morehouse, the two used their deep HBCU network to launch a clothing brand and promote musicians who visited AUC. They put that experience to good use in the marketing industry, with Wright interning at Atlantic Records and both men working for producer Mike Will Made It’s EarDrummers Records. At the latter, Attmore and Wright managed and marketed artists such as rap collective Two-9 and “Black Beatles” duo Rae Sremmurd.

Since its inception, Six Degrees has leveraged its network to create culturally relevant campaigns for a number of brands. When Big Boi launched a limited-edition can of Budweiser, Six Degrees worked with the rap icon and the beer brand to create a pop-up activation at a gas station to promote the product.

They did a similar campaign for Drake and Future, launching a “Hotlanta” pop-up restaurant inspired by the fake fast-food chain from the duo’s “Life is Good” music video. When Lil Baby teamed up with Footlocker to renovate an Oakland City basketball court, Six Degrees was the creative agency behind the initiative.

In addition to these in-person activations, the company has also worked on album packaging and designs for popular recording acts such as Doja Cat, Playboi Carti and Jack Harlow.

Today, the company, which had two founders, has grown to about 40 employees based in Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles. Attmore left the company earlier this year, but Wright continues to work as founder and head of marketing.

Credit: Courtesy of Six Degrees

Credit: Courtesy of Six Degrees

When Inc. released its list of companies “Making a Big Impact in the Southeast” earlier this year, the Atlanta-based creative agency ranked No. 6.

Six Degrees rose to prominence in 2020, at a time when brands were intentionally focusing on diversity initiatives in 2020. And while critics question the lasting impact of these DEI pledges, Wright says they’ve still been able to work with brands that prioritize inclusion-centric campaigns.

“We’re definitely a Black agency, but we also do really great work,” he says.

Wright isn’t alone in thinking this way. When Inc. released its list of companies “making a significant impact in the Southeast” earlier this year, the Atlanta-based creative agency ranked No. 6.

The following is a Q&A with Wright — which has been condensed and edited for clarity — on the history and future of the creative agency.

Do you remember what made you want to use your college experience and EarDrummers to start a creative agency?

It wasn’t just one thing. I think we looked at everything we were involved in, whether it was fashion marketing, music marketing, show marketing, partnerships, content creation… We thought, we’re already doing a little bit of this. Let’s make it official and bring it under one roof.

Who was the first client you worked with as a company?

Hendrick’s Gin. It was actually through the creative agency Team Epiphany. We worked with them for two years, creating a strategy and a series of artists. It was a huge success.

The name of the company comes from the notion of “six degrees of separation” and I know that going to an HBCU and being in Atlanta in general, there’s so much synergy in different industries within the Black community that probably helped you make connections.

I would say that’s a big part of why Six Degrees is so successful and the support we get. A lot of our staff either attended an HBCU or have someone in their family (who attended one). When you think about early on in our career, a lot of the chances that people took on us (as) a small, black agency, they definitely came from our direct network of people that we went to school with.

To be honest, we didn’t really set out to do business. This is the first time we’ve done it, honestly. We’re the product of quality work and meaningful relationships with people.

Is this the first year you’ve been intentionally looking for clients and reaching out to brands you want to work with?

Yeah, this is the year I’m like, ‘Let’s go, let’s meet the Braves, let’s go, let’s meet Home Depot.’ I’m not saying we didn’t intend to do it before, we were doing really good deals and working on these really good projects and letting them speak for themselves.

To what extent are you structured like a traditional agency and to what extent are you different?

We don’t come from a traditional advertising background. I didn’t know much about it outside of the internship I did with Team Epiphany. Our mindset and approach are different.

Yes, we are a B2B company and we offer our services to other brands, but we are very community-driven. We want to teach people what an agency is. Our biggest asset is knowing your audience, because we are your audience.

Can you explain what you mean when you say you try to be community based?

We offer our community and fans a glimpse into how our agency works. We are very involved – because of our HBCU background – in educating students on what agencies do and what they might imagine working in an agency., and working with different brands. It’s really great to be able to give this visibility to the younger students.

How much of your company’s work is still based in Atlanta?

We do a lot of work with the Falcons. I would love to do something with the Braves. We’ve done a lot of work with Atlanta United. We’ve done a lot of work with Home Depot (and) Sprite. We also do a lot of work with local small businesses. We love that. That’s what we pride ourselves on. Let’s go out there and give them the same thing. high level services we offer to both big brands and small businesses.

How do you achieve this from a business perspective when you’re working with smaller companies that don’t have the same budget as, say, Sprite?

We make it meaningful. A lot of the energy we get from Six Degrees is community-based, so we always have to reinvest it back into the community.

What kind of projects do you plan to carry out in the future?

I’m really interested in things that we naturally enjoy. That’s a very general statement, but it’s things that we use every day. Things that inspire us. From a local business perspective, I love partnering with a restaurant. A sneaker store.