With racial injustice taking center stage in America in 2020, corporations asked how they could be better Black allies.

Barbecue is synonymous with American, but many overlook the first 350 years of its history. As the Guardian once noted, "enslaved Africans have largely been erased from the modern-day story of American barbecue.”

As a barbecue leader for 100 years, Kingsford aimed to fix that.

To develop a purposeful strategy, Kingsford partnered with Dr. Conyers, a southern barbecue expert to immerse itself in his years of research and interviews. This partnership inspired our work and provided credibility in the Black community.

For 100 years, Kingsford has been?bringing people together?around food and fire?as?the?premier brand in barbecue and outdoor grilling.?As conversations about racial injustice grew last summer, the brand realized it had the opportunity and responsibility to honor the Black community’s contributions to the culture, tastes, and?traditions of?barbecue in America.?At the same time, the brand committed to helping future generations of Black pitmasters blaze their own trail.

To achieve those objectives, the PR agency created Preserve the Pit, a movement anchored by a fellowship program awarding aspiring barbecue professionals with one-on-one mentorship by industry leaders and a monetary business grant. Amplified by an integrated marketing effort prior to Black History Month, widespread awareness was raised via a launch video, custom social content, robust earned media pulses, endorsements from Black influencers, and paid media partnerships with VOX and Complex.

Barbecue today originated out of necessity by enslaved Africans, yet this story has been forgotten or ignored. Our creative idea focused on the need to preserve this legacy while propelling its future with a new generation.

To authentically bring Preserve the Pit to life, we partnered with a diverse group of barbecue authorities, including Dr. Howard Conyers, an expert on southern barbecue. They inspired our work and provided credibility for the Black community.

To reach the Black barbecue community while capturing the attention of future grillers and multicultural millennials – a new target for Kingsford that expects brands to take a stand – we anchored the effort with a video that pushed beyond “food porn” to popular culture with a poetic style heard in everything from preaching to hip-hop. Visuals mixed modern-day footage of Black pitmasters in Detroit and New Orleans with historical images from barbecue gatherings.

Through conversations and research, we identified a clear problem the brand could work to solve and the important story we needed to tell.

Insight: The Black community shaped American barbecue and deserved recognition, and without a new generation at the pit, their stories, recipes, and techniques risked being forgotten.

Solution: Kingsford committed to preserving the history of Black barbecue in America and investing in its future by supporting Black pitmasters.

To ensure we got it right, Kingsford engaged experts like Dr. Conyers to serve as consultants; media partners with strong multicultural strategy teams; and the agency’s and brand’s internal DEI teams.

Preserve the Pit reached and resonated with the Black barbecue community and multicultural millennials through an attention-getting video, custom social content, influential endorsements, media partnerships, and earned media coverage.

The program launched January 25, 2020, with the video released across brand social channels and a CNN exclusive that announced: “Black Americans helped make barbecue a cultural phenomenon. Charcoal company Kingsford is helping to preserve that legacy.”

The video was integral to carrying the story through to all other program elements, including the call for entries to the Preserve the Pit fellowships. An integrated marketing campaign leveraged earned media, influencers, social media, and paid media to reach the brand’s target audiences.

The campaign was built to be repeated annually to continue to support and amplify the voices, stories, and businesses of Black pitmasters and Black barbecue enthusiasts for years to come.

Preserve the Pit received widespread attention with more than 1.5 billion earned impressions that positively conveyed key messages, such as:

“Kingsford Launches a Groundbreaking Program for Aspiring Black Barbecue Pitmasters.” – Forbes

“Black Americans helped make barbecue a cultural phenomenon. Charcoal company Kingsford is helping to preserve that legacy.” – CNN

“Kingsford Charcoal Launches "Preserve the Pit" Fellowship to Mentor Aspiring Black Pitmasters.” – Southern Living

“Kingsford Celebrates the Legacy of Black BBQ with New Fellowship.” – Black Enterprise

“This is fantastic from Kingsford…a MUST-WATCH for everybody, a MUST-APPLY for aspiring Black barbecue professionals.” – Cindy Gallup

Other metrics included:

203% increase in media conversation of Kingsford*

24% increase in media conversation of Black barbecue*

62% increase in social mentions of Black barbecue*

73,273 video views

In just 30 days, the Fellowship received 1,051entries with three people awarded $16,720

Nothing is more American than barbecue, but many people overlook the first 350 years of its history and the many contributions of the Black community that helped bring it into the center of American culture. As a leader in barbecue for 100 years, Kingsford wants to fix that.

2020 made every company step back and take a deeper look at how they could do more to support the contributions of the Black community, which are so integral to the past, present and future of barbecue. To preserve the rich history of Black barbecue culture in America, it is imperative to invest in its future. Preserve the Pit was created to provide the resources and support to make it possible for future generations to pursue barbecue as a career, rather than only as a passion.