By Tony Jones
Except in the romance book game, it’s not often that a press release tells a love story, but on election week Monday, Memphis’s widely known and respected African American marketing firm TRUST Marketing issued a quiet but important release that does just that.
Started 32 years ago by husband and wife team Howard and Beverly Robertson, the release introduces the company’s next generation team, their children, Ryan Robertson, Corporate President and Adrienne Robertson King, Corporate Vice President. Third sibling and middle child Howard “Trey” Robertson, III is currently a copyright executive at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and an actor with dozens of television ads and series appearances to his credit.
As marketing agencies go, Trust is not a big firm in number of day to day employees, but as the release states it “is now the lucrative parent company of two additional companies: The Spotset Radio Network and the Play Ode mobile app.”
Known for an optimal sense of integrity and imagination, in 2018, the American Advertising Federation awarded their highest Silver Medal Awards for lifetime achievement individually to Howard and Beverly Robertson, an industry first.
The company and family’s combined corporate lineage is an inspiring story of black business success the incoming new government needs to prioritize and duplicate. Dozens of careers have grown out of that imprint either through direct employment, contract work, internships, mentoring and just plain everyday advice the senior Robertsons are known throughout Memphis for. I’m gleefully proud to disclose my association as on staff publicist because there’s always something exciting afoot.
Newly installed President Ryan shares the company’s latest national campaign. “During my first week at Trust, we finalized a national radio campaign with General Motors for the Cadillac brand called Hip Hop Heritage. The Trust team concepted, wrote, and produced spots with MC Lyte as the voiceover talent, with distribution to 85 Black and independently owned Spotset network radio stations. As kids we sang and listened to MC Lyte on the radio while riding in my father’s Cadillac, so that’s totally full circle for me.” Trey, who secured the clearances and rights for the Play Ode app, was copywriter on the audio spots for the Cadillac Hip Hop Heritage campaign. Adrienne helmed it all to completion.
Prior to that, Trust also engineered a nationally released spot for AARP featuring the Bar Kays’ founding member James Alexander.
And it all started during a romantic walk on the beach. There certainly have been sharp stones in the sand of their journey, after all the story that started there is set in the historically brutal corporate landscape still facing black businesses in Memphis, but perhaps that’s the best message emanating from the newly announced next-gen Trust model. The best thing about long walks on the beach is that you can gaze upon and envision endless horizons.