Every year, a small number of Black and Brown students walk out of marketing and advertising programs at HBCUs across the South with real talent and nowhere close to enough access. Not enough internships that actually teach. Not enough portfolio feedback from people who look like them and have done the job. Not enough of the informal, hallway-conversation kind of career advice that moves a resume from “promising” to “hired”—or even real advice on how to navigate spaces as someone who looks like them.
We’re a Black woman-owned strategic marketing studio in Jackson, Mississippi. Our purpose is to partner with mission-driven organizations to generate social impact in marginalized communities. Mentorship is where that purpose gets personal—where it stops being just a client engagement, but becomes community—a village that carries relationships through careers.
Why mentorship, specifically
Marketing and advertising remain some of the least racially diverse fields in throughout our business infrastructure, and the pipeline problem starts well before the first job offer. Students who don’t have a trusted professional in their corner—someone to review a portfolio, explain what a creative brief actually is, make an introduction, or help coach them through the microaggressions we often face in any space—lose ground before they ever compete for a role. Mentorship and coaching help close that gap directly, one relationship at a time, in a way that what you learn in school could never teach.
One story that captures why this work matters: Madison Grant became a mentee of ours the summer before her final semester at Xavier University of Louisiana, through the ANA Educational Foundation’s MADE (Marketing & Advertising Education) Mentorship Program, which pairs students with industry mentors they choose themselves. In her own words:
“I became Brooke Williams’ mentee the summer before my last semester at Xavier, and I thought I knew what that meant. A few check-ins, some portfolio feedback, maybe a piece of career advice here and there—I figured that would be about the shape of it. What I didn’t expect was that the most valuable thing I’d walk away with had nothing to do with any of that at all.
Brooke showed up for the scheduled check-ins and mentored me. That mentorship gave me a different outlook and set of goals I actually had to sit with and get honest about.
We didn’t talk in vague terms about “figuring it out.” We built a routine I could stick to five days a week, one that made room for job searching and my creative work and, honestly, just resting, because nobody tells you how much energy the in-between takes. And Brooke pushed me to keep making things—one new photography or writing project a month, something I could point to and say I made that, even while everything else in my life felt unsettled.
It was more than a program that pairs you up and hopes you figure out the rest. It was a relationship of someone other than family and friends, cheering you on, being there when you need advice, and knowing how to navigate difficult moments in your career.
— Madison Grant, Xavier University of Louisiana ’25
Where Madison is now: before graduating, she applied to the BLAC Internship Program (Building Leaders and Creators), the paid agency internship consortium created to bring more Black and underrepresented talent into advertising, and was placed at BarkleyOKRP in Chicago as a Client Experience Intern. She is still with the agency today, now in a full-time capacity as an Associate Client Experience Manager.
How we structure it
Our mentorship engagements follow a defined 3–4 month cycle, and every cycle starts the same way: setting SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) tailored to what the mentee is actually trying to build toward. From there, we work across brand strategy, creative direction, digital marketing, portfolio development, professional networking, and career readiness—whatever combination the mentee’s goals call for.
We built it because vague, unstructured mentorship tends to fade out around month two, and a defined goal with a defined timeline is what ensures everyone stays engaged and keeps showing up.
What this costs us, and what it’s worth
We’re candid about where we stand: mentorship at Creative Attitude has so far been a volunteer effort, layered onto client work, not yet a formal company program with a budget line of its own. We’ve set a public commitment to change that—at least one mentorship engagement every year at a minimum, growing to three per year by 2028. That’s our commitment to fill any gaps we see in this space.
Where this goes next
This mentorship work is also the seed of something larger: a formal Creative Attitude mentorship program, extending what has so far been individual, volunteer mentoring into a structured offering with its own cohort, its own curriculum, and its own accountability.
If you’re an HBCU student or emerging professional in marketing or advertising looking for a mentor, or you lead a program looking for volunteer mentors from the industry, reach out at info@ourcreativeattitude.com.