Buying Black

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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.