Sponsor (July-Dec 1952)

t. Tie into radio with your newspaper tuts. )!>achs furniture stores builds large-space ads in Negro press iround WLIB, New York, personality, Ruth Ellington James -f. Follow up at poittt'Of'Sale. Strong p-o-s follow-through is always good but makes more sense than u?ual with Negro radio where loyalty of audience to stations is unusually strong. Above, Negro magazine Ebony, a WBOK, New Orleans, advertiser, uses cards on magazine rack goods even if it means cutting down somewhere else." This is a hard fact for some advertisers to grasp, but to ignore this precept is to invite disaster. To use it properly can bring results out of all proportion to expenditures. WLIB — a New York independent station that has managed to attract a huge and loyal Negro audience — explains it this way: "The most important factor in approaching the Negro through air advertising is considering the Negro consumer a human being of dignity and self-respect — one who does not want to be talked down to, or catered to blatantly. "The Negro buys the best, whether it is clothes, automobiles, food, liquor, houses or furniture. High-priced staples and luxuries are bought by Negroes in greater quantities than by any other comparable population group. "It is an accepted psychological fact that a minority people seek to attain more of the good things in life and articles of better quality than would ordinarily be expected of the general populace in comparable income levels. This understandable desire for recognition makes the Negro far more brand-conscious than tbe average consumer." These comments are typical of the advice Negro-appeal stations are quick to give new advertisers who feel that the Negro market is a golden opportunity for second-rate or left-over brands. So many advertisers have made this mistake in the past that Negroes are today apt to become instantly suspicious, and close their purses accordingly, to anything that sounds like an inferior buy. On the other hand, the advertiser who throws away his notions about Negroes "not being able to afford my best products" when he is deciding mhat he's going to sell is headed in the right direction. 2. Negroes are proud and sensitive Americans, and can spot a chauvinistic advertising approach every time. In selling to Negroes on the air, one of the surest ways to bring the Negro sale of even the best brand of merchandise sliding downward instead of upward is to use an approach in commercials that is patronizing. Few advertisers, of course, would dream of being as obvious as the drug firm which once planned to advertise a hair product on Negro-appeal radio stations with a transcribed pitch of "Attention Negro women ! Now you can have hair that's just as attractive as that of white ladies!" (The stations to whom this campaign was offered refused it, knowing that Negro women would not only steer clear of the product, but of the station as well. ) However, many a well-meaning advertiser who doesn't want to leave the selling up to the individual performers on Negro-appeal outlets and who insists on having agency written copy read verbatim on the air can make other and more subtle mistakes. As WDIA, Memphis, stated to SPONSOR: "What sells a white person will sell the Negro listener in almost every instance. He needs and buys a home, food, clothing and little luxuries. He needs respect in the community, recreation, a good job, just as white people do. Our commercial policy is never to high-pressure the Negro listener. They have been high-pressured too long. Attempts by advertisers to create a "friendly" commercial impression usually turn out to be a resounding flop when a radio client goes off the deep end in trying overly hard to be a real pal to Negro listeners. Even if colored talent is being used, when the ani Please turn to page 86) 28 JULY 1952 37