A Sign of the Times

Are you cultivating the African-American consumer? Whether or not you are could determine the success of your brand.

Last year’s Viacom buyout of BET, the black cable TV network (with 62 million viewers), and the purchase of Essence (one of the oldest and most respected black women’s magazines) by AOL Time Warner are signs of the times: Corporations have turned on their radar for the black consumer — the one who spends two out of every three minority dollars.

Last year, African-American purchasing power was estimated at more than $572 billion dollars. The University of Georgia Selig Center for Economic Growth, which tracks statistics, notes that black families are young and tend to have more children than the general market.

“We know that African-Americans index higher in many categories,” notes Joseph Rodney Lawrence, executive vp of Segmented Marketing Services, Inc. “Things like magazines, cards, fruit-flavored beverages, household cleaning products, and analgesics.”

Meanwhile, college-educated blacks and entrepreneurs are breaking income barriers. African-American households making over $100,000 doubled in the recent U.S. Census and the median income rose to $28,000.

Here’s a few other recent trends.

Going Mainstream

The 32-year-old Essence (which “reaches one-third of all black females 18-49,” according to advertising vp Barbara Britton) is taking its annual Fourth of July Essence Music Festival to even more of the masses this year. In addition to reaching more than 200,000 attendees in New Orleans, this year’s event for the first time will be televised and have a Web component. Title sponsor Coca-Cola will be joined by other marketing partners including Nokia, Anheuser-Busch, and General Motors.

Hitting the Streets

McNeil Consumer and Specialty Pharmaceuticals and its Motrin IB brand became a first-time sponsor of Unity Day in Philadelphia last summer to make an “emotional connection” with black consumers, says a company spokesperson.

Sampling was a key element of the promotion, as tens of thousands of the nearly one million African-Americans traveling on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway received small foil packets of Motrin. Urban contemporary radio station WDAS promoted the 20-year-old festival, as did the country’s oldest black newspaper, the Philadelphia Tribune.

Specialty Publishing

Retailers and manufacturers have created targeted publications. Harris Teeter, a Southeast grocery chain, published Smart Shopper for in-store distribution. Alberto-Culver’s Sally Beauty Supply’s Sally magazine reaches women of color in 52,000 stores across the U.S. And its Pro-Line has Just for Me magazine, named after its child hair-care brand, and a spin-off Web site for young black girls. Elsewhere, Kmart’s Inside Out features hair-care products and styling tips.

Retailing conferences like those put on by Efficient Consumer Response Management, Warrensville Heights, OH, have introduced ethnic overlays. The conference trade magazine, Expose, educates retailers and manufacturers on a variety of social and economic issues.

Public Relations and Advertising

Ketchum Public Relations Worldwide created its own in-house African American Markets Group. With groundbreaking work for Procter & Gamble’s Tampax brand executed at historically black colleges, Ketchum has been twice honored by the Public Relations Society of America.

The American Advertising Federation’s inaugural Mosaic Awards last fall spotlighted Leo Burnett USA, Lincoln Mercury, PepsiCo, P&G, Verizon Communications, and the U.S. Postal Service for “extraordinary achievements” in multicultural marketing and advertising.

Never have there been more black media venues. Black radio has gone national, with ABC Radio Network’s Tom Joyner now reaching an audience of seven million in 100 markets and Doug Banks heard by 1.5 million listeners in 36 markets.

Research

Data on ethnic consumption and consumer patterns is not only available from companies like International Resources, Inc., Chicago, but also urgently sought. Simmons Market Research Bureau, New York City, presents information on age groups, and varying income and education brackets.

Meanwhile, the Food Marketing Institute, in conjunction with P&G and Kraft, published a study on black shoppers. Don Coleman Advertising, Southfield, MI, and Yankelovich, Chapel Hill, NC, even put real numbers on the old dictum, “The best place to reach black people is in church,” finding that 94 percent belong to a church, and 69 percent consider the church highly important in their lives.

As DiversityInc.com notes, “The African-American market is positioned to make or break profits for many leading U.S. companies.” Not everyone can buy a mega-company with ready-made loyal black consumers like Viacom or AOL.

But profit-driven marketers have discovered many other new and cost effective ways — from sampling to retailing to Internet and media — to reach these valuable customers.

Lafayette Jones is ceo of Segmented Marketing Services, Inc., Winston-Salem, N.C. He can be reached at [email protected].