May 2008: African-Americans

quick links
websites to watch: african-americans
websites to watch - general
blog trends
technology trends
marketing: african-americans
interesting articles: african-americans
interesting articles: general
 

websites to watch: african-americans

Rushmore Drive
A new search engine geared towards providing results specifically relevant to African-Americans. Just launched by IAC, Rushmore Drive is based on the Ask.com search engine, but gives greater weight to results geared toward perceived African-American interests.

The Root
Launched by The Washington Post, The Root is a daily online magazine that provides thought-provoking commentary on today's news from a variety of black perspectives.

 
websites to watch - general

Zookazoo
ZooKazoo is an online environment of imaginary and adventurous destinations where children can safely hang out, have fun, and make their world a better place.

Trendpedia
Trendpedia finds trends in social media. You choose the topics, enter the keywords, and click “Search Trend”. Trendpedia organizes the articles in a trendline that shows the popularity of the topic over time – you can track a topic’s trendline from three months ago up to today.

Ideeli
Enjoy the cheap chic of a sample sale without the sharp-elbowed frenzy. Ideeli.com sells incredible accessories, available for a limited time, at sample sale prices.

 
blog trends

Media Take Out
Media Take Out is a blog-style gossip website catering to African-Americans.

Rings
The recently launched New York Times Olympics blog covers the 2008 Beijing Games from every angle – the politics, the arts, the culture, the competition.

Stereohyped
Stereohyped is a black-interest blog delivering a mix of news and politics, entertainment and celebrities, education and career, dating and sex, and travel and culture.

 
technology trends

Hop-On 1800
Hop-On, Inc. announced that its GSM cell phone, the Hop1800, is now available in the United States for $10. One of the new breed of ultra convenient cell phones, the pre-paid HOP1800 is ideal as a backup cell phone, when traveling abroad, or for anyone looking for a super affordable cell phone that does one thing extremely well: make phone calls.

Fuji FinePix Z200fd
The FinePix Z200fd is a perfect social camera. In addition to the Face Detection technology and people-friendly self-timers modes, the FinePix Z200fd features a Blog mode, which resizes images for easy upload to social networking sites such as Facebook, and an Auction mode, which combines up to four photos in one frame – ideal for eBay users.

Netflix Roku
Netflix's first streaming box is finally here. First of all, the box is $99, and designed by Roku. It's fanless and quiet; has HDMI and optical outputs; and is about the size of five CD cases stacked together. Any Netflix disc mailing plan over $9 gets you unlimited streaming of almost 10,000 titles.

 
marketing: african-americans

Affluent African-Americans Buoy Community Buying Power
The African-American community’s buying power is expected to top $1.1 trillion dollars by 2012 – a nearly 30% jump – driven in large part by a relatively small affluent sub-segment, according to a new paper from Packaged Facts. more info

Affluent African Americans Represent 45% of AA Buying Power
According to a recent Packaged Facts study, reported by MarketingCharts, African Americans are crucial to the consumer economy, with a population of 39 million and buying power of $892 billion, and expected to exceed $1.1 trillion in 2012. This represents a cumulative growth of 28.4% during the forecast period. more info

African-American-Targeted Ad Spending
National Cable Up, Syndicated TV down
Advertising spending on media outlets that reach African-American consumers totaled almost $2.3 billion from October 2006 to September 2007, according to The Nielsen Company. more info

The Catch-22 of Buying Black Media
You Should Be Buying Black-Owned Media, But There's Not Much Left-And It's Hard to Find Outlets With Scale
Examining the decline of black media in the ever more complex arena of advertising. more info

Minorities Dominate Use of New Media
According to BIGresearch's most recent Simultaneous Media Survey, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Whites not only use traditional media differently, their adoption of new media is also quite unique. more info

TBS Is Down with Def Jam to Hype ‘House of Payne’
TBS is playing for viral viewership response for its second season of top-rated ad-supported cable sitcom “House of Payne” based on buzz about an original song from Def Jam Recordings’ Chrisette Michele in a music video featuring the show’s cast. more info

H'wood Hits Mark in Targeting Black Auds
When Screen Gems released "This Christmas," aimed at a black audience, the reviews were tepid. "The critics talked about how (the movie) had this 'ridiculous dance sequence,'" says Screen Gems topper Clint Culpepper. "What they don't know – because the movie wasn't made for them – is that this thing called a 'Soul Train' line is such a tradition in African-American homes." more info

 
interesting articles: african-americans

Nearer to Overcoming
Barack Obama's Success Shows that the Ceiling Has Risen for African-Americans. But Many are Still Too Close to the Floor
African-Americans have risen to hold prominent ranks in business and government, but many still struggle with poverty and joblessness. What ails Black America?
more info

Next in Line
African American Filmmakers Are Ready with Stories to Tell. They're Arriving Behind Trailblazers, But Lately, The Going Has Been a Bit Tricky.
With his 1986 breakout film, "She's Gotta Have it," director Spike Lee unwittingly kicked open the door for a new wave of young independent African American filmmakers armed with audacious visions and fresh perspectives about black life. But now, more than 20 years later, and in a time when race has taken center stage in presidential politics, another type of African American filmmaker has established himself as the dominant voice. more info

 
interesting articles - general

Trends Point The Way To Goji Berries, Gluten-Free Comestibles
What's the big deal with gluten? And what is it, anyway? Who cares – you don't need it, and soon you'll know that. Gluten-free is just one of several new food trends that the Center for Culinary Development (CCD) says is going to show up in greater quantity on store shelves and restaurants – including the fast kind – in coming years. more info

Is U.S. Innovation Headed Offshore?
Apparently Not, Even Though More Research and Development Is Joining Manufacturing in the Shift toward Low-Cost Nations
To those worried about America's ability to compete in the 21st century, the trend is alarming: Just as key manufacturing industries fled offshore in the 1970s and '80s, U.S. companies are now shifting more engineering and design work to low-cost nations such as China, India, and Russia. Surely, innovation itself must follow. Apparently not, according to a new study published by the National Academies, the Washington organization that advises the U.S. government on science and technology policy. more info

Does Being Ethical Pay?
Companies Spend Huge Amounts of Money To Be 'Socially Responsible.' Do Consumers Reward Them For It? And How Much?
For corporations, social responsibility has become a big business. Companies spend billions of dollars doing good works – everything from boosting diversity in their ranks to developing eco-friendly technology – and then trumpeting those efforts to the public. But does it pay off? more info

Study: Gay, Lesbian Consumers Favor 'Friendly' Brands
Bravo, Apple, Showtime, HBO, Absolut and Levi were cited as the gay-friendliest brands, in a study released this week by Clark, Martire & Bartolomeo. On the other hand, Wal-Mart, Dunkin' Donuts, Cracker Barrel, ExxonMobil and Samsung received the lowest marks. more info

Consumers Are Dining In More – At The Supermarket
A recession may not be officially under way, but it has already claimed a victim and a beneficiary – casual dining chains and supermarkets, respectively. Some argue that the frozen food category is also suddenly hot. more info

Affluent African-Americans Buoy Community Buying Power
Marketing Daily
February 13, 2008

The African-American community’s buying power is expected to top $1.1 trillion dollars by 2012 – a nearly 30% jump – driven in large part by a relatively small affluent sub-segment, according to a new paper from Packaged Facts.

According to the study, "The African American Market in the U.S.," the 2.4 million African-American households identified as "affluent" (with annual incomes of $75,000 or more) represent only 17% of the total African-American market but account for 45% of its buying power. Reflective of the economy as a whole, the rich tended to get richer in the African-American community as well, Robert Brown, one of the authors of the report, tells Marketing Daily.

"Affluence has affected the African-American market to the same degree as the rest of the economy," Brown says. He notes, however, that the average annual affluent African-American income of $122,000 is less than that of affluent whites or non-Hispanic minorities, he says.

In terms of buying and spending, African-Americans are more likely to buy food and clothes – particularly dress clothes – than other ethnic groups. They are also more influenced – or at least less distrustful – of television advertising, and prefer to shop in person rather than online.

According to the study, more than 3 million African-American men bought suits over the past 12 months, representing 22% of all suit purchases. (Some 3.4 million African-American women bought suits in the past 12 months, reflecting 26% of all women's suit purchases.)

In terms of advertising, television still continues to be a main driver for African-Americans, with 42% of African-American families having four or more television sets (versus 32% of other households). They also have a less negative view of advertising, with only 18% saying they don't like advertising in general (versus 39% of the general population) and only 15% viewing it as a waste of their time (versus 32% of the general population). "African-Americans have a less negative view of advertising, and/or a more positive view of what advertising can do for them," Brown says.

In general, African-Americans are most receptive to pharmaceutical advertising, being more likely to seek out advertised medications (30% versus 24%), and are more likely to believe its worth paying more for brand-name prescriptions (24% versus 16%).

African-Americans are also more likely to pay for digital cable than the general population (35% to 27%), and are more likely to purchase premium channels like HBO. The most popular cable network is BET, and while professional football programming is still the most-watched sport by all men, African-American men watch more professional basketball than other American men, according to the report.

While African-American newspaper readership lags behind the general population (32% versus 39%), those readers are more likely to rely on magazines for information (16% versus 14%) and entertainment (12% versus 10%), and are more likely to believe spending money on magazines is worthwhile (25% versus 19%).

The Internet, meanwhile, has had less of an impact on African-American media usage than the general population; African-Americans are less likely to cite the Internet as a resource for information or to say that it has taken time away from television or magazine usage, according to the report. They are also less likely to have made a purchase over the Internet than the general population (26% versus 44%).

In part because they're more often brick-and-mortar shoppers, African-Americans are more influenced by in-store promotions than the general population. They are more likely to visit more stores while shopping, but are less influenced by sales and discounts. And they are more likely to cite themselves as trendsetters and influencers when it comes to buying items. "A lot of that is a product of the urban culture [leading fashion and other trends]," Brown says. "It is a pattern that would hold across other urban segments as well."

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Affluent African Americans Represent 45% of AA Buying Power
Center for Media Research
February 20, 2008

According to a recent Packaged Facts study, reported by MarketingCharts, African Americans are crucial to the consumer economy, with a population of 39 million and buying power of $892 billion, and expected to exceed $1.1 trillion in 2012. This represents a cumulative growth of 28.4% during the forecast period.

Additional findings from the study:

54% of African-American buying power lives in the South. Other key buying power segments:

• Residents of central cities ($430 billion, or 48% of the total)
• Married couples ($428 billion or 48% of the total)
• Households with an income of $75,000 or more ($405 billion, or 45% of the total)

There are 2.4 million African-Americans in $75K+ households, and they are:

• More likely than other affluent consumers to spend money on fashionable dress, toiletries and cosmetics, and cruise vacations
• Less likely to use the internet to plan shopping trips, gather information for shopping, or make online purchases

African-American consumers create a wide range of possibilities for marketers in various industries:

• 3.9 million black consumers spend $150 or more per week on groceries.
• 7.6 million African Americans said they exercise regularly at home, which opens up possibilities for marketers of exercise equipment
• African-American men and women represent 22% and 26% of all suit-buyers, respectively
• Approximately 9 million African Americans plan to buy a new vehicle, accounting for more than 9% of all consumers who plan to purchase a new vehicle

Black media continue to offer advertisers access to African-American consumers, who also share many of the mainstream media preferences of other American viewers and readers:

• Television is a top source of media consumption, with 4 in 10 households containing 4 or more televisions.
• Spending on magazines is 6% more than the national average.
• Radio and newspapers are less popular than the average.
• Internet use is still lagging, but by 2012 penetration in the African-American community is expected to reach 62%.

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African-American-Targeted Ad Spending
National Cable Up, Syndicated TV down.
eMarkerter
February 6, 2008

Advertising spending on media outlets that reach African-American consumers totaled almost $2.3 billion from October 2006 to September 2007, according to The Nielsen Company.

The study did not account for spending on general circulation media intended to reach African-American consumers.

More than a third of the nearly $2.3 billion went to local radio, accounting for the largest ad spending category measured, at $805 million.

Nielsen said that national cable TV had the highest ad spending growth rate over the prior one-year period, at 14.5%.

Spending on ads for syndicated TV programs with a 50% or greater composition of African-American audiences was down year over year, at $102.4 million dollars. The Nielsen study did not include online ad spending.

Nielsen Monitor-Plus told eMarketer that spending on these media categories aimed at African-American consumers fell 4.4% from the prior one-year period.

Ad spending excluding the Internet grew at a paltry 0.5% in 2007 for the US overall, according to eMarketer.

Local radio ad spending, which accounted for such a large portion of African-American targeted media, was down 1.8% for the first three quarters of 2007 compared with the first three quarters of 2006 for the US as a whole, according to TNS Media Intelligence data released in December 2007.

So the 4.4% dip in African-American-targeted media ad spending (excluding the Internet), although hardly insignificant in dollar terms, was not outsized as a percentage, given the sluggish growth for US media excluding the Internet and the decline in all local radio ad spending.

Media Audit has noted that African-American consumers generally spend more time with media than does the general US population.

The study, conducted from January 2006 to April 2007, found that African-Americans spent almost an hour more a day watching TV and 37 more minutes a day listening to radio than did the general population. Comparative data were not given for time spent on the Internet.

The research company did include the Internet in a measurement of the time African-American consumers spent with media compared with the general population.

The study, which examined time spent with radio, TV, newspapers, billboards and the Internet on a typical day, showed African-Americans spending an average of 692 minutes a day with these media, compared with the average of 608 minutes a day for the whole population.

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The Catch-22 of Buying Black Media
You Should Be Buying Black-Owned Media, But There's Not Much Left-And It's Hard to Find Outlets With Scale
Ad Age
April 7, 2008

The chief marketing officer dreads opening the survey request from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People each fall.

The request is always the same: Detailed data on where the brand this CMO manages spends its sizeable advertising budget-including black-owned media. And each year, the request for a breakdown of ad budget is politely declined by the marketing chief, who cites its proprietary nature.

And so each year, the brand winds up with an F in the area of marketing and communications-along with 16 others-in the NAACP annual Consumer Spending Guide. The stated goal is to measure corporate America's relationship with the African-American community-a consumer segment that represents 13% of the U.S. population with spending power of $845 billion in 2007-a figure expected to leap to more than $1.1 trillion by 2012, according to the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth.

``All things being equal, we'd have no problem supporting'' black-owned media, said the CMO, but ``a lot of the true African-American owned media companies are small and very decentralized. That doesn't fit our strategy of needing to have a national reach. We have looked at some of the options, but the delivery is so small in relation to cost it doesn't fit our strategy.''

The survey's goal is to urge the black community to buy from marketers that support black media and to boost media ownership within the community, according to Richard McIntire, a spokesman for the organization. ``Brands have these huge budgets, and less than 1% is reinvested back into African-American media,'' Mr. McIntire said. ``The black press does not see the advertising dollars coming from major corporations who will advertise in a market with two dailies but won't in the smaller community papers.''

But some marketers argue that in an ever-more-complex media environment, it's not that simple. In a world of scale-and the benefits of lower ad pricing that come with it-there are few independent, black-owned media outlets left to support, and those that exist don't have the reach to offer competitive rates.

Some of the biggest names in black media today actually are owned by corporate titans. The most notable example is BET, which founder Bob Johnson sold to Viacom for $3 billion in 2000. Then there's Essence: Time Warner's publishing arm took full ownership of the legacy brand in January 2005.

But the most dismal rate of media ownership among African-Americans is in TV. Only five African-Americans own full-power commercial TV stations; they collectively own eight out of 1,379 commercials stations nationwide (see story above).

``It's not an impossible environment, but it's tough,'' said Lyle Banks, founder and CEO of Banks Broadcasting in Chicago, which owned two TV stations before selling KSCW-TV, Wichita, Ks., to Schurz Communications in August 2007. ``It's not just minorities. For anyone coming in the last two years, it's difficult to raise enough money to buy into TV stations that are being sought by those who have scale and lower costs. You might have enough money to buy one TV station in a medium or a small market, but unless you plan to hold on to that station and grow it, it's going to be very difficult to buy more stations to survive in this competitive business.''

The minority-ownership rate in TV has plummeted in recent years, falling nearly 70% in the past decade, according to a 2007 Free Press study.

Recent declines in TV ownership are attributed to the bankruptcy in May 2007 of a single company: New York-based Granite Broadcasting, which operated nine stations in seven states. That's not to say that TV ownership among African-Americans was ever strong.

In fact, it wasn't until 1975 that an African-American even owned a TV station. In 1978, among other new policies, the Federal Communications Commission tried to encourage minority ownership by giving tax deferrals on capital gains to radio or TV owners when they sold stations to minorities. Additionally, tax certificates were awarded to investors for giving start-up capital to minorities to buy radio or TV stations. Ownership rates peaked in the mid-1990s, according to the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, when African-Americans owned 23 TV stations and 240 radio stations. But after the Republican takeover of Congress in January 1995, Congress voted to eliminate the tax programs.

A year later, the 1996 Telecommunications Act relaxed ownership rules-prompting some of the most successful African-American TV owners to sell out to bigger players. ``Some of them did very well, and most of them who cashed out did so because they figured they couldn't compete anymore,'' said Jim Winston, executive director of NABOB.

But TV is certainly not the only place where black-owned media outlets are in decline. Newspapers historically have been an area of strength for black ownership. Blacks published newspapers as early as the 1820s, and there were 250 newspapers operated by African-Americans by 1950, according to a report by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council.

Yet today, there is no longer a daily black-owned newspaper. The last daily black newspaper, the Chicago Defender, cut back to a weekly schedule in February.

And since 2000, the industry's trade group, the Black Press of America, has seen its membership decline to 189 weekly newspapers from 300. National weekly circulation for its members has dropped to 250,000 from a high of 500,000 in 2000, according to John Smith Sr., chairman of the trade group. Mr. Smith, publisher of The Atlanta Inquirer, a weekly newspaper with a circulation of 42,000 (down from 60,000 two years ago), blames the internet for the circulation declines.

Indeed, with advertisers stampeding toward digital marketing, it's hard to overlook the fact that not a single legacy black media brand has made a successful transition to the online world. Consider EbonyJet.com: Its traffic is so small it doesn't register with ComScore or Nielsen. The website aggregating the biggest black audience online is Time Warner's Black Voices. The second-most popular is BlackPlanet.com-owned by five Asians.

But Eric Blankfein, senior VP-channel insights director at Horizon Media, New York, said advertisers should not just look at traffic figures, noting that there are opportunities to gain more credibility with the audience by buying in outlets owned by African-Americans.

``Our research shows that web environments, even those below the radar, so-called grass-roots websites that may not see a whole lot of ad support but have a high contextual relevance among consumers, can give marketers instant credibility,'' he said. ``From an advertising standpoint, you need to be in media that is credible to your market. If it is credible and minority-owned, that's valuable to the advertiser.''

In 2001, Black Press launched a national network and news portal, BlackPressUSA.com, ``to bridge the gap as far as technology is concerned for member newspapers,'' Mr. Smith said. Despite the efforts, the site has garnered little traffic and has yet to register with ComScore and Nielsen/NetRatings. Mr. Smith said the site gets about 10,000 hits a week.

Yet prominent advertisers have bought ads on BlackPressUSA.com, including Home Depot, Microsoft, Sprint, Coca-Cola, General Motors and Comcast.

``All of us, in time, must find a way to have a combination of the two forms-both print and online,'' Mr. Smith said. ``We must be able to face up to the challenge of new technology or we, too, will go by the wayside.''

It's not limited to newspapers. The legacy magazine brands-Ebony, Jet, Essence and Black Enterprise, all black-owned except Essence-are struggling to gain new readers. Average circulation was essentially flat from 2006 to 2007 for all four, according to the Magazine Publishers of America (see chart, P. 28).

The low rate of media ownership in broadcast has been blamed by some on the policies of the FCC, including David Honig, executive director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. ``The relative success of minorities in the weekly-newspaper industry was possible because no federal agency acted as the gatekeeper of newsprint and ink,'' Mr. Honig wrote in a recent report. ``In broadcasting ... the FCC's regulatory policies ensured that media companies could not cross the line from print to broadcasting.''

Indeed, it wasn't until 1949 that an African-American even owned a radio station, and by 1971, there were only six minority-owned stations.

That's not to say ownership rates in radio are stellar today, even if they do surpass that of TV; African-Americans own just 3.4% of the full-power commercial broadcast radio stations nationwide.

The largest black-owned radio company is Radio One, based in Lanham, Md. The company operates 53 radio stations in 17 urban markets but has been struggling of late. On March 23, it announced plans to sell KRBV-FM in Los Angeles for $137.5 million, using some of the proceeds to invest in its internet strategy, according to Chief Content Officer-Interactive Smokey Fontaine. ``If we can reach more African-Americans than our competitors at the other big media companies online, we can then offer more reach to advertisers.''

But to some, it's more than a question of reach. ``Media targeted to African-Americans is not valued to the degree that other media is,'' said Earl Graves Jr., president-CEO of Black Enterprise, publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, which has a subscription base of 525,000 and an estimated 4 million readers.

Since 1970, the magazine has published an annual list of the top 100 black-owned businesses, including media companies (see chart, P. 29). After the takeover of Essence by Time, Mr. Graves removed the legacy media brand from the list. Despite the magazine's tough stance on what constitutes a black-media property, Mr. Graves questioned whether efforts such as the NAACP's survey does black-owned media any favors, especially in reshaping marketer misconceptions of the value of targeting black consumers.

``It's counterproductive when people feel they are filling it out under duress,'' he said, suggesting instead the argument for spending more on black media should be made on economic grounds. ``Tell me how this makes sense: 15% to 20% of your business is coming from this market but you spend less than half to one-half percent of your marketing budget on it.''

Linda Jefferson, senior VP-media at Burrell Communications, said for advertisers to capitalize on demographic trends, there needs to be not only better media-ownership rates in the black community but more content-creation opportunities as well. ``It's not an either/or; they are both important,'' she said, adding: ``When will there be a black Rupert Murdoch?''

``Given our contribution to the overall economy,'' she said, ``it is absolutely an abysmal statement that we don't own more and aren't in control of our story and of where it's told and when it's told.''

Michelle Ebanks, president and publisher of Essence since 2005, when Time Inc. acquired full ownership of the magazine from its founders, said the focus on ownership often overshadows the rights of African-American business owners. ``I respect the pride of black ownership and the critical importance it is to our community. I also respect the right of individuals to then sell their business to a public entity if they believe that is in their best interests,'' Ms. Ebanks said.

For marketers, she said, the question of ownership also fails to address the lack of content created for the market. ``The audience is underserved by content across all the media platforms, and the audience is under-targeted by marketers. As such, there is an opportunity to create more content that is speaking directly to African-Americans,'' she said.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University and editor in chief of the Washington Post Co.'s The Root, a site intended to be a ``black version of Slate,'' dismisses the notion that ownership is the crucial factor. ``There's a romantic, black-nationalist ideal that it's great if everything is all-black-owned. But what's all-black-owned? We are living in an era of a multinational, multicultural environment. Diversity is the rule. Interrelationships are the rule.''

Not so, said Leonard M. Baynes, professor of law and director of the Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development. ``Owning the media channel is the only way to be assured you can have a voice.''

Said Black Enterprise's Mr. Graves: ``If all ethnically owned media goes away and the people who control the channels say, `That African-American voice is too angry or too controversial; I'm just not going to have you on the air anymore,' it would be a disaster for people of color in this country.''

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Minorities Dominate Use of New Media
Center for Media Research
May 28, 2008

According to BIGresearch's most recent Simultaneous Media Survey, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Whites not only use traditional media differently, their adoption of new media is also quite unique. When it comes to traditional media, types of TV shows watched as well as radio formats listened to most often differ by consumer group.

Although movies are the most watched type of TV show among all categories, according to the study:

• 66% of African Americans are most likely to watch them regularly
• 63.6% of Hispanics watch them regularly
• 52.5% of Asians watch them regularly
• 51.4% of Whites watch them regularly

Dramas and police/detective shows round out the top three for types of shows watched most often except for Asians, who would rather catch a sporting event or a cartoon.

There are more differences for radio formats listened to most often:

Top 3 Radio Formats