Artists Are the Ultimate Brand Partners
Because they expand what a brand is capable of meaning.
By Robert Vincent Hébert
Artists do more than make a brand look culturally relevant. They bring a singular way of seeing the world. They transform values into images, environments and experiences people can feel. And when they are champions of their cultures and communities, their work carries an authority that no media investment can manufacture.
That was the premise behind the artist partnerships I created and led for AT&T Dream in Black and AT&T Turn Up the Love.
We invited Temi Coker, Handel Eugene and Zipeng Zhu to create with the brand—not simply for it. AT&T brought resources, reach and an ecosystem of canvases. The artists brought unmistakable perspectives, cultural authority and the ability to inspire people.
The result was more than advertising. Each artist helped create a world.
One artistic vision. An entire brand ecosystem.
The work appeared in broadcast spots, traveled through more than 100 brand, partner and talent social handles, was amplified by influencers and took over AT&T stores nationwide. It shaped the brand’s expression at sponsorships, community gatherings and employee events.
A single artistic idea could become a television commercial, an animated portrait, a social story, a retail environment or an experience people could enter.
The work was designed to travel without losing the artist’s hand.
Culture at broadcast scale
Temi Coker’s work fuses photography, graphic design, pattern and his Nigerian heritage into images that feel at once deeply personal and monumental.
For Dream in Black, Temi creative-directed a national advertising film featuring LeBron James. Portraiture, animation, music and storytelling came together to honor the changemakers, culture shifters and everyday heroes moving Black culture forward.
Watch“When We Dream in Black, We Dream as One”Creative direction by Temi Coker ↗The film became part of a much larger visual system. Temi’s artistic language traveled through Black Future Maker portraits, social content, digital experiences, retail environments and community activations.
“He did not simply illustrate the campaign. He helped determine how Dream in Black looked, moved and felt.”
An artist builds the campaign world
Handel Eugene is a Haitian American multidisciplinary artist working across direction, design, animation and three-dimensional image-making.
As the Dream in Black artist in residence and lead campaign designer, Handel developed a vivid world of dimensional painted forms. His animated portraits brought cultural leaders and Black Future Makers to life across broadcast, social content, interviews, AT&T stores and live experiences.
The scale of the assignment allowed Handel to demonstrate something significant: his distinctive visual practice could anchor an integrated national campaign without being diluted by it.
This is what a meaningful artist collaboration can become: ambitious work that serves the brand while becoming consequential evidence in the artist’s own career.
“The work remained recognizably his. The brand provided the resources and distribution to help it travel.”
Pride becomes a place
Zipeng Zhu’s world is exuberant, graphic, queer and defiantly alive. His work uses color, typography, animation and humor to turn visibility into celebration.
For Turn Up the Love, Zipeng transformed his artistic language into a world people could enter. Bold type, symbols, pathways and dimensional forms made Pride feel louder, bolder and brighter.
Years later, Zipeng revisited the work publicly as his “AT&T Pride takeover.” The collaboration remained part of his story because his authorship remained visible within it.
“It felt like a queer artist had been given the space and resources to lead.”
Mutual recognition
The art world has long acted as an institution that bestows value, relevance and stature. A gallery exhibition, museum acquisition or critical endorsement tells the world that an artist deserves attention.
But the art world is not the only institution with that power.
As one of America’s largest advertisers, AT&T could confer a different kind of recognition. A national advertising film was not a museum acquisition, and an AT&T store takeover was not a gallery exhibition. But both made a powerful public declaration:
“This artist’s vision has value. It belongs in contemporary culture. It deserves to be seen.”
The artist expands the brand
Meaning
Cultural authority
Community trust
A distinctive world
Enduring creative value
The brand expands the artist
Visibility
Creative resources
National distribution
Institutional recognition
Career-defining proof
Contributing to the artists’ careers was part of the strategy. We knew that when a brand contributes something of genuine value to a community, it earns relevance and builds trust.
The artists expanded what AT&T was capable of meaning. AT&T expanded where their work could appear, how many people could encounter it and how consequential it could be understood to be.
Neither party arrived empty-handed. Each made the other more meaningful.
Give artists the opportunity to create with your brand
Choose artists for what they champion.
Look beyond visual style. Find artists whose work contributes to their cultures and communities—and whose perspective can inspire yours.
Build from their authentic practice.
Begin with what makes the artist’s work unmistakably theirs. The collaboration should enlarge that identity, not dilute it.
Give them an ecosystem of canvases.
Think beyond a commissioned asset. Let the artist’s vision travel across content, media, retail, sponsorships and experiences.
Put real scale behind the work.
Production resources matter, but distribution can be transformative. Use the full strength of the brand to help the work reach people.
Make the artist visible.
Credit them, tell their story and help audiences discover the person behind the work. Authorship is part of the value.
Design for their career, too.
Ask what the artist should gain beyond compensation: new capabilities, a defining body of work, institutional recognition or access to a larger audience.
Let the exchange change you.
There is value in working with an artist to make your brand more culturally relevant. The greatest value, however, is that their perspective can make your brand more culturally meaningful.
Relevance can capture a moment. Meaning outlasts it.