Michael Bloomberg hired ad agency Oberland and is trying to find black advertising pros to court black voters

• Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg hired New York-based agency Oberland for a new ad campaign to court black voters and has been trying to hire black advertising employees to work on it, sources close to the project said.
• Two people who were approached said they wouldn't work for the campaign, citing the former New York City mayor's controversial stop-and-frisk policy, which one called "racist."
• Bloomberg has apologized for the policy and courted the support of black leaders around the country, launching a "Mike for Black America" initiative earlier this month.
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Michael Bloomberg is trying to win the Democratic presidential nomination with an unprecedented advertising budget and the services of Hawkfish, a secretive digital agency led by onetime Facebook CMO Gary Briggs.

Now, as he prepares for March's Super Tuesday and next week's South Carolina debate in the wake of his widely criticized debate performance in Las Vegas, Bloomberg is looking to grow support and counter rivals' accusations of racism and sexism.

His campaign hired New York-based ad agency Oberland to create a campaign aimed at minority voters, and the agency has tried to hire black advertising employees to work on the project, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter and a recruiting email reviewed by Business Insider.

The email said the Bloomberg campaign needed big ideas, described this project as urgent, and suggested it would be more than a single ad.

A spokesperson for Oberland declined to comment. The Bloomberg campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bloomberg looks to build support among black voters while apologizing for past policies

Bloomberg's campaign launched an initiative called "Mike for Black America" earlier this month as he tries to shore up support among black voters.

But he'll have to deal with the aftermath of stop and frisk, the controversial law enforcement policy that led to the arrests of hundreds of thousands of young black and Hispanic men while he was mayor of New York. Rival candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders called the program "racist" in recent days.

Bloomberg visited a black church in Brooklyn last November to apologize for stop and frisk before officially launching his campaign.

After video emerged in February of Bloomberg defending the policy in 2015, his campaign touted the endorsements of three members of the Congressional Black Caucus and invited current and former black mayors to attend the launch of Mike for Black America, an outreach effort to drum up support among black voters, in Houston, Texas, on February 13.

Two black creatives declined, one citing a personal experience with stop-and-frisk

Business Insider wasn't able to determine how many people the agency contacted to work on the campaign, but BI spoke to two people who were contacted.

One, Melissa Kimble, a freelance social media strategist and founder of the professional network #blkcreatives, said the agency reached out after someone tagged her in a public Twitter thread about the Bloomberg campaign's pending project.

She said the conversation ended after she said she wasn't interested in working for the Bloomberg campaign.

"Bloomberg is not a candidate that I want to endorse in any way, even for a paycheck," Kimble said. "His signature policy of stop and frisk has damaged black and brown communities in more ways than I can articulate. There's not enough money in the world for me to support a racist candidate."

Another black advertising employee who is known to Business Insider but spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their career prospects said a headhunter reached out about the same project.

This person said they were told Oberland has been working with Bloomberg "in good faith" but passed on the opportunity, citing an experience with stop and frisk that presented a "personal conflict."

Oberland's best-known work is "Nothing Changes If We Don't," a PSA addressing racism, ageism, and other forms of bias within the ad industry. It's also created ad campaigns for clients such as Uber and The Blue Man Group.

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