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The Black community: Marketing’s ‘neglected race’
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Tia Brewer, WCSC-TV Channel 5 morning news anchor and education reporter, and husband Gerald Footman saw the business potential within the area’s black community.
Last spring, they launched Hair, Etc., a health and beauty magazine targeted toward blacks. The husband and wife team distributed 10,000 copies to black-owned salons, barbershops, and to Piggly Wiggly and Bi-Lo grocery stores throughout the Lowcountry.
Result? A glossy, full-color, 96-page magazine that boasts about 40,000 readers and has doubled its number of advertisers, which consist mostly of local salons, barbershops, cosmetics companies and other businesses, plus black-owned hair care and cosmetics companies such as Kernersville, N.C.-based Dudley Products Inc.
The magazine’s popularity stems from a marketing strategy that reached a largely neglected group wielding a healthy disposable income.
In 2004, black South Carolinians had a buying power of more than $19.2 billion, according to the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth. That number is expected to climb to more than $25.3 billion by 2009. Nationally, black buying power is projected to soar from $723 billion in 2004 to $965 billion in 2009.
In the Charleston area, the median black family income is $28,965 compared with the area’s overall family median income of $46,801, according to the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Business Research.
Blacks spend most of their dollars on telephone services, personal care items, children’s apparel, footwear and major appliances, the Selig Center reports.
Reaching black audiences is a profitable goal more businesses should strive for, says Rick Jones, president of FishBait Marketing, a marketing consultancy on Wadmalaw Island. “You’ve got to understand the size of the prize.”
During last September’s Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce’s Sports Summit, a marketing conference that attracted members of the local hospitality and sports industries, Jones referred to blacks as “the forgotten race” in too many nationwide marketing campaigns.
Jones, who is white, describes the general failure to market to black consumers as “a benign negligence.” However, he points to fast-food giant McDonald’s as a company that earnestly tries to reach, and successfully reaches, black consumers.
“McDonald’s is doing a great job nationally,” says Jones, referring to the company’s “I’m Loving It” campaign. “They’re making a committed, dedicated effort. Blacks want to see themselves in advertisements, and McDonald’s does this. [The campaign] appeals to their consumer base and their employment base.”
Misconceptions about blacks prevent advertisers from tapping into a potentially lucrative market, Jones emphasizes.
“Nationally there is a myth that the black community has no strong middle or upper class,” says Jones. Other myths are that blacks are undereducated and renters rather than homeowners.
“Anyone who falls into that trap does so to their own detriment,” says Darrin Thomas, vice president of Columbia-based Thomas-McCants Media, publisher of “Black Pages USA,” a directory that lists black-owned businesses in 12 Southeastern cities, including Charleston.
Not only do blacks have substantial buying power, notes Thomas, but “black consumers are savvy, they pay attention and they’re loyal. You can’t use broad-based advertising to reach that niche.” He says appealing directly to blacks is why companies like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola have “huge” pieces of the black consumer market.
Brewer targeted black salons and barbershops because they are more than mere hairstyling establishments, Brewer points out. They are meeting places where people discuss community issues, events and business deals.
“They’re black chambers of commerce,” Brewer says. “They’re the best way to disseminate information to black people.”
Dr. Dan Lackland, an epidemiologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, uses a similar approach when offering to perform tests that check for diabetes, heart disease and other health problems that heavily afflict blacks.
“We take the program to blacks by going into the community,” explains Lackland. “We go to churches, sporting events, anywhere where blacks congregate. The turnouts are superb.” Lackland leaves the advertising of his community services to the venues where those health care services will be performed.
A crowd of about 10,000 attended Hair Etc. magazine’s three-day beauty and health exposition last July at the Gaillard Auditorium. To Brewer, that signified how effectively her publication reached its market—a niche long waiting to be filled.
“We’ve got a captive audience,” she says.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer at the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.
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