July 30, 2008
BrainTrust Query: Do African Americans require a targeted marketing approach?
By David Morse, President and CEO, New American Dimensions, LLC
Pepper Miller, expert on marketing to African Americans and author of What’s Black About It?, recently presented the results of the largest African American marketing study conducted to date.
The study was commissioned by Radio One (the largest U.S. radio broadcasting company targeting Black Americans) and conducted by Yankelovich. It consisted of 3,400 interviews among African Americans ages 13-to-74.
Highlights of the study include:
- Most African Americans have a preference about how they are described.
Forty-two percent indicated they prefer to be called Black and 44 percent
said they preferred African American. Higher income respondents were more
likely to prefer the term Black. - About half of respondents are likely to have mostly Black friends
or interact mostly with Blacks at school and work. Yet, only three-in-10
prefer being around people of the same race. - A quarter indicated that they
have personally been discriminated against in the past three months. Eighty-two
percent believe it is “important for
parents to prepare their children for prejudice.” - African Americans are more
than twice as likely to trust Black media as they are to trust the mainstream
media. About 30 percent “really trust” Black
media compared to only 13 percent who said the same about mainstream media. - Eight-in-10
households watch Black television channels at least once a week. Of all television
time, a third is spent on “select” Black channels. - The Digital Divide no longer
exists. Sixty-eight percent of African Americans are online, compared to
71 percent of all Americans (PEW, March, 2007). Among African American teens,
over 90 percent are online. - The second most important persuader in an advertisement
is an ad that sends a “positive message” to the Black community. Rated first
were ads that show the benefit of a product.
Discussion Question: Do African Americans require a targeted marketing approach?
[Author’s commentary] In January, 2008, Senator Barack Obama had a ten-to-twelve point lead over Senator Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire presidential primary polls, yet he lost the vote by three points. For weeks, the pundits debated whether the polling error was due to the so-called “Bradley Effect,” named for former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, an African American politician whose lead in polls dried up at the ballot box, and the “Wilder Effect,” whose namesake, another African American man, saw his ten point advantage vanish as Virginians cast their ballots for governor in 1989. The question was: Would whites lie when polled and then turn around and do the exact opposite at the ballot box?
The fact that Senator Obama is now the presumed Democratic nominee demonstrates that yes, America, or at least the Democratic Party, is ready for an African American president. Still, in many ways, we Americans live in two worlds: one of them black, the other white.
Unlike Hispanics, nearly all Blacks (including African and Caribbean immigrants) speak English. But their tastes, their media habits, their overall outlook is different than that of whites. Most importantly, African Americans have a strong racial and cultural identity. They notice when they are being spoken to, and when they are not being acknowledged. For that reason, in order to effectively reach them, a targeted marketing approach is a fundamental part of any good marketing program.
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I think one of the keys here is respect. The American culture does not have a history treating African Americans in a respectful manner. That is where the focus should be. All retailers should understand their customers and treat them well. Specifically to African Americans, it is important to listen and work hard to make sure they are being served. I don’t think African Americans require a targeted marketing approach as much as African Americans deserve a targeted marketing approach.
Ethnicity, of any kind, has always been a characteristic taken into account when retailers target market. In an environment of ever-increasing niche retailing, however, retailers of all sizes must be increasingly precise in how they define their target market. These definitions potentially include a great number of characteristics, with no single characteristic able to fully define the target customer. Ethnicity, of any kind, is merely one of many characteristics that retailers potentially take into account.
By the time marketers try to dance around all the unique dimensions of African American/Black marketing, they end up where they started and move on to something else. In my opinion, marketers try to avoid target marketing to Blacks for fear of offending too many consumers. While 50% of the customer base might appreciate the marketing efforts, perhaps the other 50% would be terribly offended.
I had a supermarket client that promoted soul food items during the MKL holiday weekend in only one of their stores which was located in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Although it was well received by many customers, other customers were offended since many of the promotional items are associated with the stereotypes. Yes, we need more target marketing to Blacks, however, we need more Blacks doing the target marketing. I know this sounds racist, but when White people try to target market to Blacks, it often comes across as offensive.
Retailers target market to teens, women, men, children, tall people, short people, ‘plus size’ people and more. Doesn’t it just make sense that marketing to specific ethnic groups is good business too?
If African Americans get and trust messages from different sources, then go where they go with your message. Nearly 15% of the American population is black, so it would be hard to ignore the economic clout they represent. Set aside the political correctness and this issue isn’t really a difficult issue to solve at all, is it?
It’s time, once again, for me to cut-and-paste my timeless rant against ethnic marketing: the vast differences within a particular ethnic group dramatically outweigh the differences across groups. Ethnic/targeted marketing, for the most part, is an enormous waste of resources and a bad thing for most managers to even think about.
It’s not effective to try to paint the Afro-American community with any type of broad brush for marketing and advertising, any more than it would serve any purpose to generalize any other community. However, if the product and its functionality, image, and usefulness can more effectively be explained with a message that reaches a much more specific market within, then it makes sense to plan and approach accordingly but only in a respectful and accurate way.
Target marketing is important for all ethnic groups. A large portion of our retail dollars come from this segment of the population; imagine the volume of business we could have IF we specifically address their culture.
I agree with an earlier comment that ethnic marketing is a waste of time and money. While sitting in a presentation about the benefits of creating direct marketing pieces targeted to Hispanics, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were any Hispanics in the room, would we be generalizing the entire ethnic group so freely. “Hispanics are more likely to buy a flat screen TV….” What? More likely than any other color of the male species with the financial means to do so? I doubt it.
The only racially-specific marketing that has any positive effect on the race to which you are marketing is simple, if you want to get Black Americans’ attention put Black people in your ads. They don’t need to talk a certain way or be doing a certain thing, they just need to be there. The same way that Cadillac markets its vehicles to men and women: same car, same ad, same idea, different gender; is the way that works.
We would never draw out Caucasian Americans’ wants, needs, and preferences in broad strokes, so why do marketers insist on doing so when it comes to other races and ethnicities? The findings of the above study are no surprise and if you pay close enough attention, replace the word Black with any other racial or ethinc category and the same results hold true.
Marketing tailored to a particular ethnicity or other descriptive “segment” should only be done when there is a specific attribute that makes it relevant based on some action or behavior and it can be clearly proven, again using behavior as the indicator.
Examples might include where there is:
(a) certainty that a message of “because you are ___, you should really consider this” will resonate; or
(b) customer-provided data (e.g., profile information) that enables you to say “because you told us you were interested ____ things, we want you to be aware of this”
Without this type of purpose and clarity, ethnicity is no better an indicator than other geo-/demo-graphic descriptive data. Just because two people look alike or even live next door to each other, it does not mean that they will behave the same way.
A few years ago we did extensive direct mail testing of different audiences for a major airline where we evaluated a control creative and list against different audiences and appropriately versioned creative. These audiences included lifestyle (e.g., GLBT), ethnicity, and a few others including various professions such as teachers. As you might expect, the worst performing lists were those that were purely demographic, including ethnic ones.
Purely as an aside, the data point to about only 3 in 10 blacks wanting to be around other blacks reminds me of the old Groucho Marx quote about not wanting to be a member of a club that would allow someone like him to join!
Professor Fader states that ethnic marketing is a “waste of resources” and a “bad thing.” I think he’s missing the boat on this one.
About sixty percent of Hispanic adults and eighty percent of Asian American adults are foreign born. These immigrants, except the most educated or those from countries where English is widely spoken (like India or the Philippines) are looking for marketing that speaks to them in their own language. By definition, these immigrants come from different countries, with cultures distinct from our own. Clearly they will respond better to messaging that speaks to them from a linguistically and culturally relevant manner.
In the case of African Americans, centuries of slavery, Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws have led to the emergence of a distinct African American identity, with its own culture, belief system, and way of seeing the world. Our research shows that African Americans respond to advertising very differently than whites. Eight in ten African Americans, according to the study, watch Black television. Clearly, they give importance to seeing themselves, seeing their culture on television. Is it not worthy of marketers’ dollars to invest in African American media?
Nearly a third of our country is Hispanic, African American or Asian. Is it not logical that they would appreciate – and put their dollars behind – companies that speak to them in their own language? Would they not be best persuaded with a cultural message that addresses their unique needs as consumers? What about the Hispanic immigrant who needs to be educated about the nuances of the American banking system? What about the Chinese immigrant suffering from Hepatitis who refrains from seeking medical treatment because she feels that she suffers from a shameful disease? What about the African American who is tired of being stereotyped in the mainstream media?
Marketing and advertising lend themselves to factual measurement. Doesn’t matter what any expert thinks. All that matters: did the ad spending profitably sell more of the product? Could the ad spending have been more profitable? Many advertisers don’t know the answers to those 2 questions, so they just spread the bucks around and hope. This applies to ethnic ads in nonethnic media, ethnic ads in ethnic media, nonethnic ads in ethnic media, and nonethnic ads in nonethnic media. In other words, all advertising, no exceptions.
A couple thoughts:
1. David, I think I understand what you mean when you say “…when White people try to target market to Blacks, it often comes across as offensive.” Certainly if it ham-handedly invokes stereotypes and talks down to the audience, it’s not just going to come across as racist. It’s going to be racist–to the core.
My friends Sharilyn, Cliff and Mike Franklin of Fuse Advertising, here in St. Louis, have done some very moving work for a number of clients and their own book/reel/site that talk about the experience of being Black in life and in the business that I’m not sure I feel qualified to duplicate.
Yet as I say that, I realize I’ve written copy over the years that put me in the shoes of everyone from a college basketball coach to an industrial purchasing agent. And I’ve never been in those situations, either.
Do I know what it’s like to come home at the end of the day and, no matter how successful I’ve become, never for thirty seconds have been allowed to forget what color my skin was? No. But at least I know I’d better ask that question and think hard about the answer.
2. When the market’s really there, we do have to target? That’s Marketing 101, and anything else is just leaving money on the table–conceivably, a violation of an agency’s fiduciary duty to its client.
Consider this bit of wisdom from Clio Hall of Famer Harry Webber, writing last week at http://www.madisonavenew.com:
“[Imagine] the shock that Cognac distributors had at discovering that huge segments of their audience were upscale, black and single. Conventional wisdom had put the market at suburban, white and occasional. When Hennessy did their homework, it led them to a Transformational Idea. Position their brand to Blacks who happened to be Early Adopters. They didn’t just run their ads in Essence and Black Enterprise. They chose to run them in Wired and Fast Company with ads that were obviously directed to Black tech-buffs.”
I haven’t seen the ads, but if it had been me, I would have written the copy to appeal to technological early adopters of whatever race, because as an early adopter myself, my view is that’s the cultural story, and shot the photography with primarily Black models.
As with so many important and multi-faceted questions of this type, the answer is both “yes” and “no.” “Yes,” African Americans deserve a targeted marketing approach in the same way that soccer moms, retirees, college graduates, men 18-24, and other groups respond well to targeted marketing. But, “no,” if the targeted efforts create divisiveness or encourage African Americans to view themselves as somehow outside mainstream America. And as before, I strongly support Peter Fader’s comments on this topic.
Here’s a thought: Perhaps, contrary to feelings among the population in general and Blacks in particular, the confrontational politics and negative social positioning regarding Blacks is NOT perpetuated by Whites but instead by members of their own race. The recent supposed “passing of the torch” for defining racial relationships – from Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama – was, according to the breathless media, a transfer of power from the Old Guard to the New Guard in the Black hierarchy of they-who-define-the-message/problem/opportunity. Apparently America is ready for some new definitions. (One has to wonder what the new definitions might actually be, and perhaps we’ll receive it from Paris, Berlin, or some other European campaign stop.)
While this mythical transfer of power may not be literally true, it illustrates a commonly-held feeling among Americans of every color that we are simply exhausted by racial conflict and wish to move on. It also illustrates a commonly-held belief that if influential members of racially-oriented groups could simply let go of the past instead of using it to perpetuate divisiveness, our country COULD move on. Are Black leaders really ready to embrace the idea that our society is prepared, even eager, to erase racial stereotypes? Or, do they remain in leadership by perpetuating a culture of victimization?
Regarding the the cited research conducted by a radio broadcast company that makes its money from programming for African Americans, one has to wonder. For instance, substitute “White Americans” for “African Americans” in any of the bullet-pointed highlights and consider if the rest of the text would change at all. This research is like reporting, “100% of the dead people interviewed preferred being alive.” Are so-called “research” projects of this type conducted and reported in an effort to join us together or to divide us? We must understand that many leaders, groups, marketing companies, businesses, broadcasting firms, and others BENEFIT by deepening racial rifts and perpetuating racist myths and untruths. As in all things, consider the source and Caveat Emptor.
There are very few products where specific target marketing would bring real value to the Black/African American community. Where those exist, they are specific products directed towards this market. Most all others would require you to ignore all other labeled groups. Is that a smart thing? A waste of time? Poor judgment?
Whenever we take a direction of targeted marketing or ethnic marketing, there is risk. Those making that decision should, if they do not already, consider that risk. If they don’t, they fail themselves. This risk is ignoring or alienating the other.
Bottom line is that consumers–all of them–deserve our best. Targeting, no matter how it is done, is always a choice to direct towards one at the expense of the other. Retailers make this same poor decision when the pursue card based pricing. Can retailers of any kind afford to turn away anyone based on their group?
What we have in common is far greater than our differences and that deserves our attention. Moving off that point, from my view, is a risk not worth taking.
This is a great article and good discussion. However, I respectfully disagree with Mr. Morse’s premise in his comments. Personally, I believe the choice of Senator Obama by the Democratic party is more a reflection of the rejection of the Democratic party of Senator Clinton, and less about being ‘ready’ for a black president. From my view, Senator Obama is a Senator seeking the office of President. I see no value in the label of ‘Black Presidential Candidate’ or ‘Black Senator from Illinois, or ‘Black Democratic Nominee’. Somehow, it seems necessary for some to make that distinction. Senator Obama, from my view, is the presumed Democratic nominee. From my view his race is irrelevant. Elected or not, agree with him or not, it should be a judgment of the content of his character and his principles. We all should be ready for that discussion. In a very real sense, from the Carolinas, to Ohio, and other states, there were real examples of the failure of target marketing. We should learn from those examples. It’s a strong lesson from this past primary season. It carries into this discussion as well.
In the main it comes down to what you mean, and the extent of, target marketing.
For example, let’s suppose you own a chain of 60 supermarkets. Now, 15 of those stores are located in neighborhoods with a 40% Hispanic or Latino consumer population. Another 15 of your 60 stores are located in neighborhoods with a 40% African American consumer population base.
In other words, half of your 60 supermarkets are located in neighborhoods in which Latino and African American consumers comprise 40% of the total population base.
If you were the CEO of that chain and your director of marketing came to you and said: ‘I think ethnic target marketing is a waste of time because I attended a seminar in which a business professor argued that it doesn’t work, and he did so rather forcefully,’ would you go along with him, get a second opinion–or just fire the marketer right on the spot?
Since my experience tells me crafting targeted marketing programs to Hispanics, Asians and African Americans works well–and is essential to business in the above supermarket chain example–I would probably fire him on the spot; with decent severance, a letter of recommendation and best wishes of course, including a ‘left to spend more time with his family’ press release.
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I think one of the keys here is respect. The American culture does not have a history treating African Americans in a respectful manner. That is where the focus should be. All retailers should understand their customers and treat them well. Specifically to African Americans, it is important to listen and work hard to make sure they are being served. I don’t think African Americans require a targeted marketing approach as much as African Americans deserve a targeted marketing approach.
Ethnicity, of any kind, has always been a characteristic taken into account when retailers target market. In an environment of ever-increasing niche retailing, however, retailers of all sizes must be increasingly precise in how they define their target market. These definitions potentially include a great number of characteristics, with no single characteristic able to fully define the target customer. Ethnicity, of any kind, is merely one of many characteristics that retailers potentially take into account.
By the time marketers try to dance around all the unique dimensions of African American/Black marketing, they end up where they started and move on to something else. In my opinion, marketers try to avoid target marketing to Blacks for fear of offending too many consumers. While 50% of the customer base might appreciate the marketing efforts, perhaps the other 50% would be terribly offended.
I had a supermarket client that promoted soul food items during the MKL holiday weekend in only one of their stores which was located in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Although it was well received by many customers, other customers were offended since many of the promotional items are associated with the stereotypes. Yes, we need more target marketing to Blacks, however, we need more Blacks doing the target marketing. I know this sounds racist, but when White people try to target market to Blacks, it often comes across as offensive.
Retailers target market to teens, women, men, children, tall people, short people, ‘plus size’ people and more. Doesn’t it just make sense that marketing to specific ethnic groups is good business too?
If African Americans get and trust messages from different sources, then go where they go with your message. Nearly 15% of the American population is black, so it would be hard to ignore the economic clout they represent. Set aside the political correctness and this issue isn’t really a difficult issue to solve at all, is it?
It’s time, once again, for me to cut-and-paste my timeless rant against ethnic marketing: the vast differences within a particular ethnic group dramatically outweigh the differences across groups. Ethnic/targeted marketing, for the most part, is an enormous waste of resources and a bad thing for most managers to even think about.
It’s not effective to try to paint the Afro-American community with any type of broad brush for marketing and advertising, any more than it would serve any purpose to generalize any other community. However, if the product and its functionality, image, and usefulness can more effectively be explained with a message that reaches a much more specific market within, then it makes sense to plan and approach accordingly but only in a respectful and accurate way.
Target marketing is important for all ethnic groups. A large portion of our retail dollars come from this segment of the population; imagine the volume of business we could have IF we specifically address their culture.
I agree with an earlier comment that ethnic marketing is a waste of time and money. While sitting in a presentation about the benefits of creating direct marketing pieces targeted to Hispanics, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were any Hispanics in the room, would we be generalizing the entire ethnic group so freely. “Hispanics are more likely to buy a flat screen TV….” What? More likely than any other color of the male species with the financial means to do so? I doubt it.
The only racially-specific marketing that has any positive effect on the race to which you are marketing is simple, if you want to get Black Americans’ attention put Black people in your ads. They don’t need to talk a certain way or be doing a certain thing, they just need to be there. The same way that Cadillac markets its vehicles to men and women: same car, same ad, same idea, different gender; is the way that works.
We would never draw out Caucasian Americans’ wants, needs, and preferences in broad strokes, so why do marketers insist on doing so when it comes to other races and ethnicities? The findings of the above study are no surprise and if you pay close enough attention, replace the word Black with any other racial or ethinc category and the same results hold true.
Marketing tailored to a particular ethnicity or other descriptive “segment” should only be done when there is a specific attribute that makes it relevant based on some action or behavior and it can be clearly proven, again using behavior as the indicator.
Examples might include where there is:
(a) certainty that a message of “because you are ___, you should really consider this” will resonate; or
(b) customer-provided data (e.g., profile information) that enables you to say “because you told us you were interested ____ things, we want you to be aware of this”
Without this type of purpose and clarity, ethnicity is no better an indicator than other geo-/demo-graphic descriptive data. Just because two people look alike or even live next door to each other, it does not mean that they will behave the same way.
A few years ago we did extensive direct mail testing of different audiences for a major airline where we evaluated a control creative and list against different audiences and appropriately versioned creative. These audiences included lifestyle (e.g., GLBT), ethnicity, and a few others including various professions such as teachers. As you might expect, the worst performing lists were those that were purely demographic, including ethnic ones.
Purely as an aside, the data point to about only 3 in 10 blacks wanting to be around other blacks reminds me of the old Groucho Marx quote about not wanting to be a member of a club that would allow someone like him to join!
Professor Fader states that ethnic marketing is a “waste of resources” and a “bad thing.” I think he’s missing the boat on this one.
About sixty percent of Hispanic adults and eighty percent of Asian American adults are foreign born. These immigrants, except the most educated or those from countries where English is widely spoken (like India or the Philippines) are looking for marketing that speaks to them in their own language. By definition, these immigrants come from different countries, with cultures distinct from our own. Clearly they will respond better to messaging that speaks to them from a linguistically and culturally relevant manner.
In the case of African Americans, centuries of slavery, Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws have led to the emergence of a distinct African American identity, with its own culture, belief system, and way of seeing the world. Our research shows that African Americans respond to advertising very differently than whites. Eight in ten African Americans, according to the study, watch Black television. Clearly, they give importance to seeing themselves, seeing their culture on television. Is it not worthy of marketers’ dollars to invest in African American media?
Nearly a third of our country is Hispanic, African American or Asian. Is it not logical that they would appreciate – and put their dollars behind – companies that speak to them in their own language? Would they not be best persuaded with a cultural message that addresses their unique needs as consumers? What about the Hispanic immigrant who needs to be educated about the nuances of the American banking system? What about the Chinese immigrant suffering from Hepatitis who refrains from seeking medical treatment because she feels that she suffers from a shameful disease? What about the African American who is tired of being stereotyped in the mainstream media?
Marketing and advertising lend themselves to factual measurement. Doesn’t matter what any expert thinks. All that matters: did the ad spending profitably sell more of the product? Could the ad spending have been more profitable? Many advertisers don’t know the answers to those 2 questions, so they just spread the bucks around and hope. This applies to ethnic ads in nonethnic media, ethnic ads in ethnic media, nonethnic ads in ethnic media, and nonethnic ads in nonethnic media. In other words, all advertising, no exceptions.
A couple thoughts:
1. David, I think I understand what you mean when you say “…when White people try to target market to Blacks, it often comes across as offensive.” Certainly if it ham-handedly invokes stereotypes and talks down to the audience, it’s not just going to come across as racist. It’s going to be racist–to the core.
My friends Sharilyn, Cliff and Mike Franklin of Fuse Advertising, here in St. Louis, have done some very moving work for a number of clients and their own book/reel/site that talk about the experience of being Black in life and in the business that I’m not sure I feel qualified to duplicate.
Yet as I say that, I realize I’ve written copy over the years that put me in the shoes of everyone from a college basketball coach to an industrial purchasing agent. And I’ve never been in those situations, either.
Do I know what it’s like to come home at the end of the day and, no matter how successful I’ve become, never for thirty seconds have been allowed to forget what color my skin was? No. But at least I know I’d better ask that question and think hard about the answer.
2. When the market’s really there, we do have to target? That’s Marketing 101, and anything else is just leaving money on the table–conceivably, a violation of an agency’s fiduciary duty to its client.
Consider this bit of wisdom from Clio Hall of Famer Harry Webber, writing last week at http://www.madisonavenew.com:
“[Imagine] the shock that Cognac distributors had at discovering that huge segments of their audience were upscale, black and single. Conventional wisdom had put the market at suburban, white and occasional. When Hennessy did their homework, it led them to a Transformational Idea. Position their brand to Blacks who happened to be Early Adopters. They didn’t just run their ads in Essence and Black Enterprise. They chose to run them in Wired and Fast Company with ads that were obviously directed to Black tech-buffs.”
I haven’t seen the ads, but if it had been me, I would have written the copy to appeal to technological early adopters of whatever race, because as an early adopter myself, my view is that’s the cultural story, and shot the photography with primarily Black models.
As with so many important and multi-faceted questions of this type, the answer is both “yes” and “no.” “Yes,” African Americans deserve a targeted marketing approach in the same way that soccer moms, retirees, college graduates, men 18-24, and other groups respond well to targeted marketing. But, “no,” if the targeted efforts create divisiveness or encourage African Americans to view themselves as somehow outside mainstream America. And as before, I strongly support Peter Fader’s comments on this topic.
Here’s a thought: Perhaps, contrary to feelings among the population in general and Blacks in particular, the confrontational politics and negative social positioning regarding Blacks is NOT perpetuated by Whites but instead by members of their own race. The recent supposed “passing of the torch” for defining racial relationships – from Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama – was, according to the breathless media, a transfer of power from the Old Guard to the New Guard in the Black hierarchy of they-who-define-the-message/problem/opportunity. Apparently America is ready for some new definitions. (One has to wonder what the new definitions might actually be, and perhaps we’ll receive it from Paris, Berlin, or some other European campaign stop.)
While this mythical transfer of power may not be literally true, it illustrates a commonly-held feeling among Americans of every color that we are simply exhausted by racial conflict and wish to move on. It also illustrates a commonly-held belief that if influential members of racially-oriented groups could simply let go of the past instead of using it to perpetuate divisiveness, our country COULD move on. Are Black leaders really ready to embrace the idea that our society is prepared, even eager, to erase racial stereotypes? Or, do they remain in leadership by perpetuating a culture of victimization?
Regarding the the cited research conducted by a radio broadcast company that makes its money from programming for African Americans, one has to wonder. For instance, substitute “White Americans” for “African Americans” in any of the bullet-pointed highlights and consider if the rest of the text would change at all. This research is like reporting, “100% of the dead people interviewed preferred being alive.” Are so-called “research” projects of this type conducted and reported in an effort to join us together or to divide us? We must understand that many leaders, groups, marketing companies, businesses, broadcasting firms, and others BENEFIT by deepening racial rifts and perpetuating racist myths and untruths. As in all things, consider the source and Caveat Emptor.
There are very few products where specific target marketing would bring real value to the Black/African American community. Where those exist, they are specific products directed towards this market. Most all others would require you to ignore all other labeled groups. Is that a smart thing? A waste of time? Poor judgment?
Whenever we take a direction of targeted marketing or ethnic marketing, there is risk. Those making that decision should, if they do not already, consider that risk. If they don’t, they fail themselves. This risk is ignoring or alienating the other.
Bottom line is that consumers–all of them–deserve our best. Targeting, no matter how it is done, is always a choice to direct towards one at the expense of the other. Retailers make this same poor decision when the pursue card based pricing. Can retailers of any kind afford to turn away anyone based on their group?
What we have in common is far greater than our differences and that deserves our attention. Moving off that point, from my view, is a risk not worth taking.
This is a great article and good discussion. However, I respectfully disagree with Mr. Morse’s premise in his comments. Personally, I believe the choice of Senator Obama by the Democratic party is more a reflection of the rejection of the Democratic party of Senator Clinton, and less about being ‘ready’ for a black president. From my view, Senator Obama is a Senator seeking the office of President. I see no value in the label of ‘Black Presidential Candidate’ or ‘Black Senator from Illinois, or ‘Black Democratic Nominee’. Somehow, it seems necessary for some to make that distinction. Senator Obama, from my view, is the presumed Democratic nominee. From my view his race is irrelevant. Elected or not, agree with him or not, it should be a judgment of the content of his character and his principles. We all should be ready for that discussion. In a very real sense, from the Carolinas, to Ohio, and other states, there were real examples of the failure of target marketing. We should learn from those examples. It’s a strong lesson from this past primary season. It carries into this discussion as well.
In the main it comes down to what you mean, and the extent of, target marketing.
For example, let’s suppose you own a chain of 60 supermarkets. Now, 15 of those stores are located in neighborhoods with a 40% Hispanic or Latino consumer population. Another 15 of your 60 stores are located in neighborhoods with a 40% African American consumer population base.
In other words, half of your 60 supermarkets are located in neighborhoods in which Latino and African American consumers comprise 40% of the total population base.
If you were the CEO of that chain and your director of marketing came to you and said: ‘I think ethnic target marketing is a waste of time because I attended a seminar in which a business professor argued that it doesn’t work, and he did so rather forcefully,’ would you go along with him, get a second opinion–or just fire the marketer right on the spot?
Since my experience tells me crafting targeted marketing programs to Hispanics, Asians and African Americans works well–and is essential to business in the above supermarket chain example–I would probably fire him on the spot; with decent severance, a letter of recommendation and best wishes of course, including a ‘left to spend more time with his family’ press release.