Buying Black

By JANICE C. SIMPSON

Cosmetics companies usually promote their products as miracle cures that will make users look younger or more alluring. But Estee Lauder's Prescriptives had something else in mind when it introduced All Skins, a line of 115 foundation shades spanning the color spectrum from antelope to mahogany. Its foundation, the company promised in a blatant appeal to African Americans and other women of color, "matches your skin tone exactly." The message hit home: All Skins now adds 4,000 new black customers a month, and overall foundation sales are up 50%. This fall, rival Revlon will also offer a line of makeup specifically for black women.

The complexion of America is changing. And cosmetics companies aren't the only ones that have noticed. According to the 1990 census, the African- American population is growing at a rate more than twice as fast as that of whites. Moreover, during the past two decades, the aggregate annual income of blacks has grown nearly sixfold, to an estimated $270 billion. As a group, blacks are younger and tend to spend a higher percentage of their money on consumer goods than their white counterparts do. They also show a preference for top-of-the-line merchandise and a willingness to try new products.

Those are precisely the attributes that turn the heads of corporate marketers, especially in these recessionary times when so many people are pinching their pennies. Thus everyone with something to sell, from book publishers to automakers, has begun targeting the growing numbers of middle- class blacks with specially designed products and marketing campaigns. "Marketing to African Americans is a competitive imperative," says Ken Smikle, president of the African American Marketing and Media Association. "It's not a question of if firms should market to blacks, it's how."

Merchandisers have long welcomed black consumers, of course, but in the past, most assumed that their mass-marketing campaigns would reach them along with everyone else. Some progressive-minded companies demonstrated their good intentions toward the black market by integrating a few black models into their ads. But that old one-size-fits-all approach won't wash today. Instead there is a growing recognition that cultural preferences and values influence what black consumers buy. A De Paul University study found, for example, that African Americans prefer products that acknowledge their ethnic heritage and respond best to ads that reflect the full panorama of the black community.

None of that is news to the scores of small specialty companies that traditionally catered to this market, but now mainstream companies are catching on. Advertising dollars aimed at black consumers have jumped 85%, to $757 million, just since 1984. Meanwhile, black marketing specialists and advertising firms are being hired to help companies customize their products -- and their pitch -- to black tastes.

Some bids for the black market are largely a matter of style. Even before Bill Clinton donned sunglasses and went on The Arsenio Hall Show, Pillsbury put shades on the Doughboy and recast him as homeboy. K Mart, meanwhile, hired a black advertising firm that created an ad campaign around the slogan "Looking Good." In one radio commercial, a woman tells her friend about the store's new fashions. "Girl, I couldn't believe my eyes," she says. "I went out and looked at the store name again. It was K Mart all right."

Other companies have made more substantive changes, developing new products or modifying old ones. Hallmark now markets a "Mahogany" line of greeting cards that features black characters and sayings. And even though it enjoyed good sales with a black version of its Barbie doll, Mattel introduced Shani, whose broad facial features and slightly fuller hips more accurately reflect the way that many African Americans look.

J.C. Penney, which made its name as a mass marketer, discovered the benefits of targeting when it set up 20 experimental boutiques stocked with caftans made from kente cloth, brimless hats called kufis, carved wooden masks and other items imported from West Africa. After selling out all the merchandise in just three months, the retailer expanded the concept to 100 more stores and will add American-made products with Afrocentric designs. In the entertainment world, art is imitating life: four of the five new comedies debuting on NBC this fall will star black actors.

Sometimes the medium is the message. When the National Council of Negro Women held workshops for people organizing family reunions -- increasingly popular events in the black community -- companies like Reebok and Kellogg signed up to exhibit their products. Other major-league merchandisers, like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, distribute samples of their products in gift bags that are handed out after Sunday service to parishioners at black churches.

But marketing campaigns alone aren't always enough to woo black consumers. "Blacks want to see the company involved and contributing," says public relations consultant Myra Bauman. "The concept of a good corporate citizen is important to us." That can mean hiring more black employees, making contributions to black causes, placing ads in the black media, using black suppliers or even naming blacks to the company's board of directors.

The response to all this attention has been largely positive. "It's about time," says Pat Tobin, an L.A.-based adwoman whose clients include Toyota and AT&T. "African Americans helped build this country, and we've been shut out too long." Nevertheless, some blacks are put off by the idea of being treated as a monolithic entity instead of as individuals with tastes as diverse as anyone else's. Indeed, companies that actively pursue the black market run the risk of being criticized for stereotyping black consumers or exploiting them. "There's a fine line between trying to appeal to taste and ethnic heritage and creating a stereotype," says David Stewart, a marketing professor at the University of Southern California.

G. Heilman Brewing Co. learned that the hard way when protests from the black community caused the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to revoke its approval of a potent malt liquor whose primary consumers were expected to be black males. Similar protests caused R.J. Reynolds to snuff out a new cigarette specifically designed to attract black smokers. Those companies are studies "on how not to market a product and how to ignore the community concerned," says Doug Alligood, vice president of special markets for BBDO New York. "Nobody bothered to find out that the black community is really concerned about health."

But even such missteps are unlikely to slow down the move toward more diversified marketing. After all, notes advertising executive Caroline Jones, "come the year 2000, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and women will be the majority in this country. Targeting will no longer be a luxury but a requirement." In other words, don't be surprised when the Pillsbury Doughboy pops up in a sombrero or a kimono.

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With reporting by Sally B. Donnelly/Los Angeles, Allan Holmes/Atlanta and Jane Van Tassel/New York