Laila Ali Celebrates“Greats” in Ancestry & A+E Networks Partnership

The HISTORY Channel and Ancestry are teaming up for a new series hosted by former boxing champion Laila Ali, highlighting influential women throughout history. Taking an item from the 1960s as a starting point the series delves into the varied histories of the ladies who wore it by conducting interviews with their offspring.

The series is the latest result of a multi-year marketing agreement between Ancestry and The HISTORY Channel to inspire individuals to research their family trees using Ancestry.com. Over the course of the month of February, the custom cross-platform entertainment series will debut in conjunction with the premiere of History’s Greatest of All Time with Peyton Manning on The HISTORY Channel.

“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 Ancestry branded greatest-of-all-time content series focuses on three groundbreaking women: Mary Spencer, a British-born entrepreneur who is credited with creating the 1800s candy, Gilbralters, in Salem, MA, which launched the Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie, America; Madam C.J. Walker (born Sarah Breedlove), an African-American woman widely regarded as the first female self-made millionaire; Susan La Flesche Picotte, a Native American doctor and reformer widely regarded as one of the first Indigenous peoples and the first Indigenous woman to earn a medical degree.

Ancestry.com has digitized the oral histories of countless people, including descendants of each “great.” Creatively speaking, the interviewees break the fourth wall by making the audience feel like they are right there in the room with the descendants learning about their family history. The original series was produced in collaboration with Canyon Road Entertainment and Blue Slate Films for A+E Networks. The relationship between Ancestry and The HISTORY Channel was negotiated and structured with the help of The Content Collective, the entertainment and content marketing subsidiary of Omnicom Media Group and OMD.

Three 90-second long original pieces promoting the Ancestry brand will air on The HISTORY Channel’s social media and in a playlist on History.com. Newsletter ads, program announcements, and tagging viewers are all part of the campaign’s dissemination strategy.

Previously, A+E Networks and Ancestry collaborated on a custom-branded multimedia series that highlighted the experiences of African Americans who had been freed from slavery through interviews with contemporary descendants and research into web records. The first episode aired on The HISTORY Channel in 2022 during the launch of the original documentary Abraham Lincoln.