Reaching African-Americans

In our continued series on multicultural marketing, this week we’re looking at the power of African American consumers and how brands and marketers must tailor their messaging to reach this important segment.

African American consumers have steadfastly proven their value to brands by accumulating a buying power of $1.3 trillion dollars.1 With that much buying power, if African-Americans were a country, they’d rival the buying power of the 15th largest country in the world – Canada! Additionally, there has been a 44% increase in African-American households earning  $50,000 or more and a 23% increase in African-American households earning $75,000 or more. We’ve also noted that African-Americans have experienced a 64% faster population growth than the general population since 2010.

afambuyingpowerThese numbers are proof that African-Americans are an important and powerful population that brands and marketers cannot afford to overlook. Every marketing plan that’s developed to reach a diverse consumer base must include strategies to reach out to African Americans. Why? Because African-American consumers look for products that represent their image and cultural values. Successful brands align with core values and speak to black consumers by communicating quality and value.

Tell us your thoughts in the comments below and come back next week when look deeper at the things that African American consumers value.

1 Source: Nielsen – State of the African-American Consumer, 2012; Nielsen – The multicultural economy 2005: America’s minority buying power, Jeffrey M. Humphreys, University of Georgia, Georgia Business and Economic Conditions, Vol. 65 Number 3, 2005.

Changing Demographics in the U.S. and How It Impacts Marketing

For several years, we have witnessed a seismic demographic shift in the U.S. population in which people of color – Latinos, African-Americans, Asians and other ethnic groups – are becoming the majority. In 1990, non-Hispanic whites made up 74.5 percent of the population. In 2010, they dropped to 63.75 percent of the population and 63.03 in 2012. And, they are expected to decrease to 60.9 percent by 2017. The chart below displays the increase in minority populations from 1990 through 2017 as well as the decrease in population of non-Hispanic whites.

population change

Source: http://www.esri.com/library/brochures/pdfs/minority-population-growth.pdf

Also, we note that millennials have become the majority demographic, in terms of age, as there are over 75 million totaling 25 percent of the U.S. population1. Not only do they have strength in numbers but also their buying power has reached 1.3 trillion dollars. 2

population change1

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

What does this mean for brands, advertisers and marketers? With these demographic changes, brands must tailor their marketing to effectively reach these multicultural consumers. And, advertising and marketing agencies must craft the messaging that the brands need. In this space, we’re going to delve into more statistics and insights on multicultural markets and look at some of the strategies brands can deploy in order to stay relevant to these consumers.

1 https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-113.html

2 http://www.leadscon.com/18-statistics-that-marketers-need-to-know-about-millennials/