In a new series hosted by undefeated retired boxing champion Laila Ali, Ancestry® and The HISTORY® Channel will profile women who made an outsized impact on history. Through interviews with their descendants, each 60s custom piece explores the women’s unique stories and diverse lineage. The series is the latest collaboration between Ancestry and The HISTORY Channel that marks a multi-year marketing partnership to encourage people to learn about their own history by exploring Ancestry records. The custom cross-platform content series will roll-out over the course of the month, premiering February 6 adjacent to The HISTORY Channel’s premiere of History’s Greatest of All Time with Peyton Manning.
“Our collaboration with Ancestry is especially fulfilling because it seamlessly marries each partners’ efforts to illuminate lesser-known history,” said Niki Mandell, vice president Ad Sales Marketing Partnerships, A+E Networks. “We’re honored to again deliver well-known talent, along with the trusted, custom, creative environment for this important partner to reach audiences with stories of diversity and family exploration.”
The three featured subjects of the Ancestry branded greatest-of-all-time content series are women who proved to be pioneering giants: Madam C.J. Walker (born Sarah Breedlove), an African American woman credited with being the first female self-made millionaire; Susan La Flesche Picotte, a Native American doctor, and reformer widely acknowledged as one of the first Indigenous peoples, and the first Indigenous woman, to earn a medical degree; and Mary Spencer, British born entrepreneur credited with creating the 1800s candy, Gilbralters, in Salem, MA which launched the Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie, America’s oldest candy company.
Descendants of each ‘great’ were interviewed as they narrate their personal family history through Ancestry digitized records. From a creative perspective, the interviewees break the fourth wall, evoking a feeling for viewers of being in the room with the descendants as they learn more about their family’s past. The custom content series was created for A+E Networks in partnership with Canyon Road Entertainment and Blue Slate Films. Ancestry worked with The Content Collective, the entertainment and content marketing division of Omnicom Media Group and OMD to negotiate and structure the partnership with The HISTORY Channel.
The Ancestry branded content series is also supported by three :90 extended custom pieces to be featured on The HISTORY Channel social platforms and featured within a playlist on History.com. Campaign promotion includes newsletter placements, in-program messaging, and tagged tune-ins.
A+E Networks previously produced a custom-branded content series with Ancestry that told the inspiring stories of formerly enslaved African Americans through conversations with their modern-day descendants and exploring online records that uncovered stories of their ancestors’ lives. The series premiered during the 2022 broadcast of The HISTORY Channel’s original documentary, “Abraham Lincoln.”
