Jermaine Hall Brings Latest Website to Another Level
Jermaine Hall Brings Latest Website to Another Level
Several weeks ago, LEVEL, which was previously located on the Medium website has branched into its own website, LEVELman.com. The property is geared toward Black men as it offers commentary on race, identity, and culture. The brand speaks to Black men age 30+ and will continue to focus on the areas of Race & Politics, Culture, Relationships, and Self (finance, wellness, career, identity, and aging).
The man who brought LEVELman.com to life, industry veteran, Jermaine Hall recently connected with THE INDUSTRY COSIGN to speak about the recent move from the Medium platform to stand alone on its own. With stints working with VIBE, BET, The Source, KING magazine and RIDES, his experience working with brands that catered to a Black audience prepared him for LEVEL. Hall talks about how the site was started, what led him to pitch the website to the Medium platform, and gives his view when it comes to web3.
A new online publication specifically for Black men, LEVELman.com was recently launched. What spurred the making of the new property and how would you describe the purpose of the new website?
This is actually a relaunch. I started the brand in 2019 on Medium after pitching it to Siobhan O’Connor who instantly saw why the brand needed to exist. Building a space for Black men to have conversations about race and identity and how that’s affecting our daily lives was important. Being able to make Black men smarter as it relates to finance, health and wellness, and sex and relationships is necessary. Giving you a more nuanced take on celebrity is refreshing. All that said when I think of our purpose it’s really making Black men smarter tomorrow than they are today. I want to build a community for this group through the dot com, social and amazing experiential experiences.
You’ve been in the industry for a number of years, how has your past experience working with different properties through different eras prepared you for this?
I’ve approached every position I’ve had from a rounded cultural perspective. For me, it’s about figuring out how to feed an audience with information they didn’t know they needed after they’ve come to a platform for a specific thing. I’m more fascinated with human interest and service and gravitated to that content. But it’s always been additive to the brands I’ve spearheaded. With LEVEL it’s not additive. It’s primary.
How has the changing atmosphere and technology that is currently happening throughout the world kept you focused on all that is taking place? How do you approach how you work and what you do in this environment?
It makes us look far beyond 2.0. It forced the team to figure out how we intended to show up on social, experiential, and web3. The audience that we’re speaking to is a powerful one who doesn’t have outlets to be vulnerable. So the question that needed answers is how are we going to build a community for them outside of the dot com. What is the fully-formed community for Black men that LEVEL is building and why will the consumer care? It was a necessary exercise that resulted in a roadmap that I feel builds a very viable, mission-driven business.
What advice would you give someone who has a passion that they want to turn into a career?
Make peace with it being scary and do it anyway. It’s really that simple. That thing that you’re passionate about will never feel like a gig.
You’ve been through many trends working in this industry for years. What do you anticipate or even hope will be a trend in the future?
Web3 feels like a tremendous shift is upon us sort of like what happened in 2000. The way that we engage with content is going to change. I spoke to a kid the other day—a 24-year-old—who was telling me about the club he went to the night previous. He was raving about the time he had but it was in the metaverse! That was fascinating. It makes me think about the out-of-box opportunities that we have to build community at LEVEL. It gives me a clearer vision of what a subscription offering could look like for the brand because the experiences that we can create are beyond what we’ve been able to do.
One of the reasons we chose to work with Create Labs as our development partners were their experience and passion for web3. They’re so far ahead of what’s happening which bleeds into how we think of making LEVEL relevant and successful five years from now.
Jermaine Hall Brings Latest Website to Another Level
