Transcription
Black women's economic status during the early 1970s could be directly linked to enhanced African-American socioeconomic mobility associated with the civil rights movement. How? By widening job opportunities and giving them access to higher wages and better paying careers. Now, blacks were already making economic progress before civil rights. But civil rights opened up even more doors.
Now, with that said, corporate of women's beauty and personal care products subsequently sought to link African-American women's enhanced sense of self-worth with increased spending on beauty and personal care products. They wanted to link her enhanced self-worth with more spending on personal care products. So, the more she felt she deserved beauty and status, the more corporations wanted her to associate their products with proving and showing it.
This association, while focused on black females, was not unique. American women, regardless of race, had long been socialized to equate self-worth with personal appearance. Still, the 1970s campaign by the beauty and personal care products industry to woo African-American women was especially significant in that it sought to sell black women both beauty and status.
Which caused what? One important consequence of this accelerated campaign was the decline of black-owned companies, which had historically served the needs of black women. White corporations learned about the hidden treasure chest in the black beauty market. And they came with a variety of keys to open up the locks. They brought more products, more choices, and more marketing power into that market. And as black women spent those enhanced earnings we talked about earlier as they spent those with these companies the black owned companies who used to service their needs declined.
A June 11th, 1973 article in the trade industry publication Chemical Marketing Reporter titled Beauty Chemicals, The Ethnic Market provided a cogent survey of the evolving black beauty products market. Quoting Alfred Forney, a prominent black makeup artist, it cited black women's need for race specific beauty products. "Our history is that we were always getting scrubbed down and greased down. We have the same problems with dryness and oiliness as do whites, except that our skin is sensitive in maintaining a proper oil and moisture balance. And thus, we especially need a mild astringent. Many astringents offered by regular lines are found too harsh for black women, producing an undesirable ashy look to the skin."
Forney went on to predict, correctly, that beauty products for black women would be most effectively marketed in department stores rather than in self-service drug stores. Here's why. Such a marketing strategy would provide interaction between the consumer and a knowledgeable salesperson. To basically show that the product was actually a real fit and could do what she sought it to do. These weren't the type of products that were the grab and go that you can put in a drugstore. So, to justify the price and to make effective sales they found that these products sold better in department stores with a knowledgeable salesperson.
Moreover, black women were becoming increasingly amenable to premium quality and higher priced cosmetics. The Flori Roberts Company, established in 1965, was one of the first companies to take advantage of black women's increased interest in higher priced beauty products. Who were they? Roberts, a white woman with an extensive background in the fashion industry, started her company because of her knowledge of the problems faced by black models seeking facial makeup that was compatible with their skin tones and texture. With both financial and technical assistance from her physician husband, Roberts began her product line, which from the beginning was sold only in department stores. They found a problem and they delivered the solution.
Then what happened? By the mid-1970s, Flori Roberts products had satisfied customers throughout the United States and in Africa. The treasure chest unlocked and opened up from the states all the way over into Africa. It dinged. All types of tokens and coins flowing from one treasure chest into another. Flori Roberts products gave the customers what the customers wanted. And in exchange, they received what they wanted. The tokens.
Another visible force in the moderately priced black cosmetics market was the venerable Avon Products Company. Slinging Avon subscriptions door-to-door. Uh-oh. Avon, like other companies in the beauty and personal care products industry, came to view African-American women as a lucrative market to be tapped. As a treasure chest to be unlocked. The company believed that black consumer support would compensate for the declining profits associated with its traditional white-oriented Avon calling campaign.
An examination of African-American expenditures on personal care products during the 1970s helps explain corporate interest in this phenomenon. Observe. In 1972, blacks spent a reported $350 items. Here's some more. Five years later, this figure had skyrocketed to approximately $750 million. million build a city, schools, your own beauty supply stores, and hospitals, and still have enough money left over in that one year. Do you see that?
Even before the 1970s, market research had revealed that African Americans spent proportionately more on beauty and personal care products than whites. Yet, as the disposable income of blacks, especially women, rose in the 1970s, the disparity between black and white spending on personal care items dramatically increased. We're going to see why in just a moment. In fact, some surveys estimated that African Americans, by the mid to late 1970s, spent approximately 40% more of their disposable income on beauty and luxury items than did whites. 40% more of its disposable income on beauty and luxury items than whites is wild. There's always this talk about the black to white income and wealth gap. But, what it looks like here is that there's also a black to white spending priority gap, as well. Because the group with less economic power was putting a greater percentage of its available money into looking successful, looking beautiful, and looking like high status. Do you see that?
As one corporate marketer told Chemical Week for a June 8th, 1977 article related to the burgeoning black cosmetics industry, "Blacks have always spent a lot on their looks. It's a cheap way to show opulence. If you look great, who's to know you haven't a dime in your pocket?" It's a cheap way to look like you got it, even if you don't. It's peacocking for surface-level validation, and using appearance as a way to prove value and worth. He says, "Blacks have always spent a lot of money on their looks." Think about that. Now, let's continue.
Essence, established as a magazine for black women in 1970, also profited from the enhanced presence of black women in the US marketplace during this decade. Essence's rising advertising revenues between 1974 and 1980 suggests that corporate marketers came to view the magazine as an ideal mechanism to reach black female consumers. Essence was another one of the tall wooden gates. And corporations needed to pass through that gate to effectively reach many black consumers.
To reinforce Essence's strategic role as an important intermediary between corporate America and black female consumers, the magazine's first publisher, Clarence Smith, and its beauty and fashion editor, Susan Taylor, regularly urged American corporations to take black female consumers more seriously. Here we have some more gate guides that showed white corporations the way and showed them how to reach the black consumer. They were earnest about getting these corporations to target black females. And they had no problem guiding them through the gates.
An interview with Smith and Taylor that appeared in the December 1977 issue of Product Marketing, a national newsletter surveying the cosmetics, toiletries, fragrances, and drug industries focused on their efforts. In an article titled Essence Urges R&D for blacks, Taylor forcefully urged cosmetic marketers to commit more resources toward developing additional hair care and facial makeup products for black women. He says she forcefully urged them to prepare these products for black women. It's almost like many of these white corporations weren't really paying attention to many of these markets in the black space. And they nearly had to be begged by other blacks to target them. Right? At least that seems to be the pattern we keep running into in this book. Scenarios where whites weren't really looking. And then blacks urgently point out why they need to look and where they need to look. Just like he said Susan Taylor did. Now let's hear about her partner in crime, Mr. Clarence Smith.
Smith, for his part, suggested that US corporations were hurting their profitability by not conducting substantive market research related to black female consumers. You see that? Pointing out the way. Here's what he said. "In not studying the purchasing habits of black women, marketers are overlooking an important aspect of the black women's psyche. They don't see how much black women are competing with white women to prove they are as good or better. Since childhood, they have been inundated with media images of beauty as the white woman."
Stop right here. They have been inundated with media images of beauty as the white woman. That means flooded with those images. And like we talked about in the last commentary, the images do not stay stuck on the screen. They enter into the inner worlds. And if they're strong enough, they gain a foothold and they start influencing behavior. And Mr. Smith right here is letting the white corporations know that the images are alive in the black woman's mind. And she's measuring herself against those images to prove that she is just as beautiful or better. That's what he's talking about when he says marketers are overlooking an important aspect of the black woman's psyche when they do not study her buying habits. Because it reveals the pain points. And it reveals how they can capitalize off of those. Here's some more. "They want to be as attractive as possible and show the black man that her beauty is fine. Marketers should see that she is overcompensating in buying products to dispel negative stereotypes."
He's giving out major keys here. He's giving out one of the major whys behind them buying so many personal care products. And what this does is it allows marketers to see the driving force behind their buying behavior. So they can know what to sell and the key words for how to sell it.
By the late 1970s, US corporations began to fully heed Taylor and Smith's advice. And what happened? While this move resulted in more consumer choices for African-American women, black-owned producers of African-American personal care products found themselves losing ground in an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace. That was the trade-off. More variety in exchange for more dependence on white corporations. The black-owned businesses were getting devoured by the larger sharks.
The experiences of the Chicago-based Johnson Products Company epitomized the problems faced by black beauty entrepreneurs during this period. This story is wild, so pay attention. Ironically, before the late 1970s, Johnson Products Company represented one of the more spectacular instances of African-American business success. The originator of the popular Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen product lines, in 1973, the company became the first black business to be listed on a major stock exchange. Johnson Products fortunes began to change for the worse in 1975 after it was forced to sign a Federal Trade Commission consent decree acknowledging safety problems with its popular Ultra Sheen permanent cream relaxer.
The safety regulation even before this should have been a warning to not put this stuff in their hair in the first place. It should have said, "Warning. Causes low self-esteem." But that warning apparently wasn't given, and people put it in their hair anyways. So, now that it's in their hair, the FTC found safety problems. According to the FTC, this product contains sodium hydroxide, which could cause both hair loss and eye and skin damage. Have your head hot and flaming up. That sodium hydroxide is caustic. So, I know there were no shortages of heads that were on fire when they put this stuff in their head.
The Federal Trade Commission mandated that Johnson Products place a special warning on all its hair straightening products, warning consumers that improper use could result in eye and skin damage. George Johnson, the president of Johnson Products, agreed to the consent decree with the distinct impression that his competitors, including the white-owned Revlon company, would quickly be forced to follow suit. But what happened? To his surprise and disappointment, Revlon was not required to place a similar warning in its advertising or on its comparable products until nearly 2 years later. Uh-oh. In the meantime, black women consumers were given the impression that Revlon's French Perm and Realistic Protein Cream Relaxer, which also contained sodium hydroxide, were safer products than Johnson Products Ultra Sheen Permanent Cream Relaxer. An understandably bitter Johnson later asserted that the FTC's actions represented a conscious attempt to inhibit black business development. Do I believe it? Yes, I think it's very plausible.
In a 1978 speech to black beauticians, he alluded to an even broader attempt to diminish the influence of black entrepreneurs in the black hair care industry. "White people, for the most part, ignored this industry as long as they thought it was a nickel-and-dime business. We were overlooked or else looked down upon as just business. It was too little to be involved with or concerned about. Today, they are making strong efforts to take over every level of the kinky hair business. They want the manufacturing business. They want the beauty shop business, and they want the beauty jobber business."
Ever since blacks helped show them the way and helped them realize just how much tokens were in the treasure chest, they now want to take the entire treasure chest. And Mr. Johnson here is feeling the weight of that.
Like black-owned companies in the black personal care products industry, black-owned insurance companies faced increased white competition during the 1970s. For most of the 20th century, white-owned companies had disdained the black consumer market. Didn't want much to do with it at first. Yet, as the collective African-American standard of living began to rise at mid-century, large insurers began to actively seek black clients. How so? A technique widely used by white-owned insurance companies to make inroads among black consumers was to recruit the top agents from black insurance companies by offering them higher pay. Pay them a couple dollars. That was the key. You have to remember, the main driving force behind many blacks at that time wasn't to build some great black community. It was status, recognition, and individualism. And more money makes people in America feel like they've gotten closer to that. So, if a person just needs to be paid more, and that decides where they work, then they can always be bought out. That's how the white-owned insurance companies recruited top agents from black insurance companies.
Perhaps, the major problem facing African-American insurance companies during the 1970s was the need to adjust to a new social reality. The Black Power movement of the late 1960s, with its emphasis on buying black, had provided black insurers a temporary respite from increased white competition. The buy black pattern has been circulating itself in that community for some time. It typically starts as an emotional reaction to some trauma, which ignites blacks to buy black. But then once the fuel of the emotion burns out and the dust settles, then the pattern of convenience kicks back in. And it returns things as they were until the next event creates another reaction. Right? It's a living pattern. And it was what allowed the black insurers here to get a little bit more breathing room in the '60s.
Still, many African-American consumers welcomed the wider range of buying choices associated with increased racial desegregation. Many of them did, just like Dr. Claude Anderson told us. As a contemporary analysis of the black insurance industry noted, there is another side to the buy black coin. What is it? It is buy white. Many blacks evidently feel that whites and white companies give superior products and superior services. There exists, moreover, among some blacks the feeling that dealing with white companies constitutes a status symbol, a badge of arrival for upwardly mobile blacks.
Which brings us back to what? The colonial contrast. Black is downward at the bottom, and white is upward at the top. It's all the same stuff over and over, but just in different time periods. Now, from here we finished up with the '70s. Let's go ahead and move on into the '80s. All right? Here we go.
This quotation from Charles Dickens' classic work A Tale of Two Cities accurately reflects the situation of African-American consumers during the 1980s. While aggregate black income increased from $183 billion to $242 billion between 1978 and 1988, other census data, along with the introduction of the words underclass and buppie to the national vocabulary, demonstrated growing class distinctions within the black community. This market segmentation prompted corporate marketers to develop class-specific advertising aimed at African-Americans. The old ways weren't cutting it anymore. They had to adjust. They couldn't market to the middle and upper-income earning blacks the same way they did the lower-income blacks. And they knew that.
The 1980s also witnessed the accelerated marketing of liquor and tobacco in the black community. The overt and sometimes outrageous manipulation of black consumers by tobacco and liquor companies had, by the end of the decade, generated an angry national response among African-Americans of all classes. In addition, revelations in the late 1980s concerning the lack of substantive black economic progress, despite increased consumerism, had a sobering effect on thoughtful African-Americans. What's one of the sobering effects? The realization that they were spending more, but they were not really building more.
One of the illusions to grow out of the civil rights movement was that all African-Americans had gained from remedial changes in US society. Yet, by the 1980s, it became increasingly clear that not all blacks were benefiting equally from the partial desegregation of America. The national African-American community during the 1980s consisted of readily observable haves and have-nots. Moreover, the socioeconomic distance between the two groups appeared to be increasing. Predictably, this significant development attracted the attention of journalists, scholars, and corporate marketers.
During the early 1980s, African Americans, especially those without college training, were harder hit in a recession-riddled economy. How so? In 1980, the black unemployment rate hovered around 13% compared to a nationwide peak rate of 7.8%. By October 1982, the official black unemployment rate stood at 20%, but the National Urban League's hidden unemployment index, which factored in discouraged blacks who had ceased looking for work, placed the actual African American unemployment rate at nearly twice the US Labor Department's figures. Perhaps the most significant consequence of the high black unemployment rates of the 1980s was the extremely large percentage of African Americans possessing incomes below the poverty level. At the peak of the 1982 recession, a mind-boggling 35.6% of blacks, compared to 12% of whites, were officially categorized as poor, a ratio of 2.85 to 1. In 1988, comparative black/white poverty figures stood at 31.6 to 10.1%, a ratio of 3.13 to 1. These figures, along with comparative unemployment statistics, indicate that the economic recovery of the late 1980s all but passed a significant number of African American consumers by.
Now, watch this. The widespread economic deprivation in the African-American community puts into better perspective the actions of certain cigarette and liquor companies during the 1980s. Here comes the sharks ready to devour the prey. The consumption of cigarettes and especially alcohol have historically been viewed as effective short-term escapes from the sometimes harsh realities of everyday living. For a significant number of African-Americans during the 1980s, reality consisted of protracted demoralizing unemployment. In this context, the accelerated marketing of cigarettes and alcohol in urban black enclaves could be construed as an attempt to profit from human misery.
Which many of these white corporations had no problem doing. Remember, the objective is profit, and many are willing to make profit at the expense of other people's lives. And they won't lose an ounce of sleep over doing so. That's how ruthless some of these corporations are.
While statistics related to African-American alcohol consumption helped perveyors of beer, wine, and liquor to refine their enticements to black consumers, another study reveals the ramifications of black drinking patterns. Which was what? In its influential 1987 publication, Marketing Booze to Blacks, the Center for Science in the Public Interest highlighted alcohol's profoundly negative impact on the health of African-Americans. Citing studies that documented disproportionately high black death rates from cirrhosis of the liver and esophageal cancer, both associated with alcohol and cigarette consumption, Marketing Booze to Blacks apportioned the blame for this appalling situation. Come on with it. Besides offering a predictable critique of beer, wine, and liquor companies, the study criticized the government for not providing the funds necessary to counteract alcohol's growing presence in the black community. Which is good. Along with personal responsibility as well as what I would add. So, it hit up the liquor company and it hit up the government. Now, watch who else it hit up. It also blasted those African-American businessmen and politicians who, for personal gain, encouraged the growing relationship between the marketers of alcoholic beverages and black consumers.
Do you see that? They were also in there, too. This is why you have to rely on mindset and values over skin color. Because there's too many of them in there that can or have been purchased. They were right on in there with the whites who were involved with this. Both of them together promoted the cancer to the black community.
The marketing of malt liquor in the African-American community in the 1980s is a good example of what the authors of marketing booze to blacks and others would describe as corporate misconduct. Market surveys clearly revealed African-Americans, especially black men's, preference for these power brews, which generally contain as much as 20% more alcohol than regular beer. For many undereducated and unemployed young black men, these beverages provide both a potent and a relatively inexpensive means to escape a depressing reality. Or it was just something that many of them simply enjoyed doing.
Besides the cheap high produced by the product itself, the producers of malt liquor devised advertising campaigns to accentuate their product's desirability among black male consumers. Watch the strategy they used. For example, Anheuser-Busch employed the actor Fred Williamson to enhance the macho image of its King Cobra brand. Likewise, Schlitz featured such popular entertainers as Kool & the Gang, the Shirelles, and the Four Tops to sing the praises of the Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull. Do you see the pattern? It's the same one that keeps working. Use popular entertainers when you really want to reach the black community. That's one of the keys they found that keeps turning the lock.
The Heileman Brewing Company, the makers of Colt 45 Malt Liquor, devised the most talked about advertising campaign to sell malt liquor to African-American men. Utilizing the suave image of the black movie star Billy Dee Williams, Heileman, through Williams, implicitly told black men that Colt 45 would assist them in getting sexual favors from women. You see that? As Williams stated in a controversial television commercial that featured him and an attractive woman, "The power of Colt 45, it works every time."
While the makers of malt liquor sought to reach its primarily young black male constituency with illusions to sexual conquest and the alcoholic kick of its products, purveyors of other alcoholic beverages sought to reach African-American consumers by linking drinking to wealth and glamour. This strategy, which exploited historical black anxiety related to status, proved successful. The treasure chest opened up wide. As one contemporary black advertising executive observed, "The average black consumer can't talk about his stock portfolio or second home in the country, but he can certainly demonstrate that he has good taste by ordering premium liquor." Prominent examples of the drink-to-success message included Martell Cognac's ad featuring an attractive, well-dressed black woman pouring a glass of cognac with the banner, "I assume you drink Martell." A Canadian Club Whiskey ad featuring a well-dressed African-American couple that proclaimed, "The CC man is a winner. He drinks the best because he is the best." And various ads for Johnny Walker Scotch that included vignettes illustrating the social habits of affluent blacks. Even lower-priced products sought to glamorize their image to attract black consumers. For instance, Riunite wine, which Marketing Booze to Blacks described as a cheap Italian import, featured ads showing a tuxedo-clad gentleman and his attractive, bejeweled female companion. Black consumers in the 1980s were bombarded with such sales pitches from the perveyors of alcoholic beverages.
Which tells us what? Blacks were letting these advertisers through the tall wooden gate. They hosted these alcohol ads. The ads that would eventually land in front of the attention of the targeted black consumer. A content analysis of popular African-American periodicals revealed a preponderance of such ads in these magazines. For example, 40% of the ads that appeared in the December 1985 issue of Black Enterprise were for alcoholic beverages. Although the marketing of alcoholic beverages on television during the 1980s was aimed at a general audience, malt liquor notwithstanding, African-Americans received proportionately more exposure to the blandishments associated with beer and wine companies' $700 million annual television advertising budget. A contemporary research study by the Arbitron rating company documented that blacks viewed considerably more television than their non-black counterparts.
And that's the black to non-black TV watching gap. Blacks watch considerably more TV than everyone else. Which means less time for doing things like studying and developing practical skills. Right? That's another gap. And there's a whole bunch more. Which when you objectively consider the thing, then the end result becomes much less of a mystery. But it was this black to non-black TV watching gap that allowed blacks to be more uh targeted.
By the end of the 1980s, increased black consumer criticism of the marketing campaigns of cigarette and liquor companies revealed the growing sophistication of African-American shoppers. Corporate marketers would now have to do more than simply recognize blacks and invite them to use a particular product. So, at the end of the '80s, the African-American adjusted as well and could not be sold as easily as the blacks in the past.
Still, the furor over the black-targeted marketing campaigns of tobacco and liquor companies brought to the surface the powerful influence these companies had in the African-American community. And particularly their influence over civil rights organizations and black media outlets. Now, watch this. As a March 26th, 1989 Atlanta Constitution article on the marketing presence of liquor and cigarette companies in the black community noted, "Therein lies a dilemma for organizations such as the National Urban League and the National Association of Colored People, which have traditionally railed against black exploitation."
What's the dilemma? They have become economically dependent on the very corporations that saturate their communities with billboard ads. In many instances, the same corporations donate millions of dollars each year to financially struggling black organizations. Meaning they better keep their mouths closed. That's what this means. Those white corporations were funding them and paying the bills. So, if they spoke out, then they might not have a job the next morning. You see that? They were trapped by the dollar.
When asked in 1989, what would happen if black media forsook alcohol and tobacco ads and revenue, the veteran black advertising executive Caroline Jones of the black-owned Mingo Jones agency predicted that black media would go down the drain tomorrow. And they didn't want to go down the drain. So, instead, they zipped their lips because they had been purchased for a couple dollars.
Revelations concerning the pervasive role of liquor and tobacco companies in the black community put African-American consumers in a challenging situation. A growing number of blacks from all classes were increasingly concerned about the negative impact of legalized drug use via tobacco and alcohol consumption in the African-American community. Yet, it was also increasingly clear that any sustained consumer movement against liquor and cigarette companies would not include the group's traditional advocates, civil rights organizations, and the black press. Because they had been purchased for a couple dollars. These were old vehicles that had already served their purpose way back in the day. But at this point, they had been neutralized.
If thoughtful African-American consumers were troubled about the role of cigarette and alcohol companies in their community, other research related to the extent of black wealth created even greater concern. Billy J. Tidwell's 1988 essay, Black Wealth: Facts and Fiction, suggested that increased African-American consumerism since the 1960s didn't necessarily reflect substantive economic progress. Tidwell, then director of research for the National Urban League, offered a bleak assessment of contemporary black America in the annual State of Black America 1988. He asserted, "On a per household basis, whites enjoy about 12 times the net worth of blacks. The average net worth of black households is $3,400 compared to $39,000 for white households. Viewed from any perspective, the position of black Americans is very marginal."
That's the black-to-white wealth gap. And there are a bunch of smaller gaps that contribute to this outcome. It's not like it's just some magical gap that appears out of thin air. It's an end result of certain activities. So, by this time, the white household wealth was about 12 times greater than the black household wealth.
As the 1980s drew to a close, notions of substantive African-American economic progress had been all but dashed. Although the number of blacks who possessed upper-class status stood at an all-time high, a significant number of African-Americans still found themselves at the bottom of the US economic totem pole. Moreover, while collective black spending power had increased, the primary beneficiaries of this phenomenon were not African-American consumers, but the corporations that sought their relatively limited dollars. It is what it is, good people. It is what it is. The price paid for taking certain routes. So, corporations, rather than the African-American consumer, benefited more financially. Think about that. So, we conclude here, and we will commence with the '90s in the next commentary. I thank you for your time and attention. My name is Brooklyn Saint Michael, and I'll see you in the free world.