For many professionals navigating creative spaces, it can seem difficult to find your own lane in such a saturated market. But for Browned 2 Perfection (B2P) founder Junae Brown, being her own boss was always a part of her master plan to dominate the marketing industry.
Brown — a Harlem native whose been dubbed by her peers as the “Beyoncé of Marketing” — knew early on in her life that she always had a knack for marketing and event planning. Coming from a strong-spirited entrepreneurial family, Brown tells AfroTech that seeing so many people around her take charge of their own lives inspired her to want to do the same.
Being the planner of her friend groups and family was a natural talent for Brown, and after serving as the President of Student Activities at her alma mater — Five Towns College — she realized that she had great potential to succeed in the marketing industry.
“I really love being able to take something from point A to point Z,” she tells us. “Most people that I encounter, whether it’s a solopreneur or a large corporation, typically [have] a great idea but they just don’t know how to translate it to the masses and make the people who should care about it know that it exists.”
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After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and a concentration in music, Brown dived headfirst into the music industry working for label giants like Sony Music, Columbia and RCA Records. Her various roles at these companies allowed her to both spearhead projects and work behind the scenes with names like Beyoncé, Chris Brown, Usher, J. Cole., Tyler The Creator, H.E.R., Jazmine Sullivan and many more.
Brown’s years of experience working in the music industry allowed her to study marketing from another lens and apply that logic to her own agency, Browned 2 Perfection. The marketing maven already wasn’t in love with the idea of sitting behind a desk for the rest of her career, so she took matters into her own hands to launch a culturally-creative boutique marketing and event production company that’s prioritizing Black and brown folks.
“I particularly like to do [marketing] with Black and brown entities because we’re often starved for resources and opportunities, and I’ve just seen the difference that it can make when we know how to position our ideas, products and brands,” she says. “It’s been a great journey [running B2P] and I always say I’m really grateful I was able to bring in my expertise outside of music and entertainment because in hindsight I think you hit a bit of a glass ceiling if you only have corporate or cultural experience. Now I feel like the agency is able to bridge the gap between corporate and culture for whichever client.”
Through her own agency, Brown shares that her and her team have the opportunity to work on campaigns and projects outside of music — including working with tech brands, apps, product brands, media personalities, public figures and more. Moreover, she’s made it a point to build her staff up with nearly all Black women at the helm.
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According to Brown, what makes the agency so special is the fact that Black and brown clients can come to B2P to meet their bottom line but also get the cultural aspect that other companies are missing in their strategies.
“This is [still] business and you have to make money at the end of the day,” she says, “but I think we figured out how to do it in a way where it’s not compromising to the culture, brand or person.”
Not only has Brown created a culturally-unique company that’s providing Black and brown professionals a seat at the table, she’s also making a name for herself on her own merit based on Google’s SEO rules. In an effort to make her name stand out amongst crowded Google searches for terms like Beyoncé and marketing, Brown figured out a way to merge the two in a way that represents everything she stands for.
“I really think [Beyoncé] embodies Black excellence as a person and as a brand. There’s a certain standard that everything she comes out with meets and she’s worked for that,” she says. “That’s someone who doesn’t just want to do their job, they want to do it [excellently]. So that’s something that I’ve [always] strived for in everything that I do and no matter what I want to meet that standard.”
Going the extra mile for her clients, especially Black founders, is all a part of Brown’s recipe for success that’s amplifying the ideas and creations in our culture. Authenticity is a principle she prides herself on and while her peers hone in on mostly end results, Brown is focused on building meaningful relationships to leave an even bigger impact on the world.
“A lot of my peers get caught up in results and numbers only, and I always say numbers are a guide [but] they don’t tell the whole story,” she says. “It’s people first for me. So, a lot of what I do is figuring people out and observing them because [at the end of the day] all of that matters.”
Looking ahead, Brown looks forward to ramping up on event planning with her agency now that things are starting to open back up. In addition to in-person events and brand activations, she’s also working on releasing an upcoming membership program for up-and-coming Black marketers looking to break into the industry.
For more information about Brown and her agency, follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
