Aug 31, 2025
Industry: Media
Client: Unbothered by Refinery29
Our Role: Data Strategist
🧠 Overview
Unbothered is a Refinery29 brand dedicated to celebrating and empowering Black women through authentic storytelling and community-building. Ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Essence Festival—sponsored by Target—Unbothered sought to deepen audience engagement and drive attendance among its core demographic: Black women.
The campaign centered around leveraging Unbothered’s podcast platform to generate excitement and awareness through a mid-roll ad strategy that felt culturally relevant, urgent, and community-driven.
🚧 Challenge
Unbothered needed more than just ad placement—they needed resonance. The challenge was threefold:
Retention: Keep listeners engaged through the ad break
Relevance: Create a sense of urgency and cultural FOMO
Representation: Highlight Target’s authentic involvement in the Black community
They wanted the campaign to feel organic, not transactional. The messaging had to speak directly to the lived experiences of their audience, while also driving measurable attendance.
🔍 Our Approach
Initially brought on as producers via Lumo, our engagement quickly evolved into a full-scale Business Intelligence partnership. We recognized that to truly move the needle, the campaign needed to be rooted in data—not assumptions.
Here’s how we approached it:
Behavioral Analysis: We examined listener engagement patterns from previous podcast seasons to identify drop-off points and high-retention segments.
Competitive Benchmarking: We studied platforms like Earn Your Leisure and other culturally resonant podcasts that drew in physical audiences to understand what was working in similar spaces.
Content Intelligence: We identified themes, tones, and calls-to-action that historically drove clicks, shares, and conversions.
Audience Segmentation: Using psychographic data, we aligned messaging with listener motivations—community, empowerment, celebration.
Strategic Recommendations: We advised on ad copy, placement timing, and CTA structure based on predictive engagement models.
This wasn’t just about making ads—it was about making impactful ads that felt like part of the conversation, not an interruption.
📈 Results
The campaign delivered real-world results that went far beyond impressions:
500,000+ attendees at the Essence Festival
82% (≈410,000) were African American women—Unbothered’s core audience
8% (≈32,800) of attendees reported hearing about the event through the podcast
$9.84M in estimated economic activity generated for the New Orleans metro area (based on a conservative $300 spend per attributed attendee)
These numbers weren’t just impressive—they were attributable. The data strategy allowed Unbothered to connect the dots between content, engagement, and conversion.
💡 Why It Matters
This use case highlights the power of data strategy in media campaigns. When storytelling is backed by insight, it becomes more than content—it becomes a catalyst. At Lumo, we don’t just produce—we partner. We help brands turn audience data into action, and action into impact.
If you're planning a campaign and want to ensure your message lands with precision and purpose, let’s talk.