Madison Avenue and the Color Line: African Americans in the Advertising Industry

5. The Golden Age

Chapter 5 The Golden Age When they made a flesh-colored Band-Aid, baby, they didn’t have us in mind. —Godfrey Cambridge, 1970 Although black comedian Godfrey Cambridge was joking about BandAids , a stark truth lay behind his assertion. The makers of the popular but pink-toned Band-Aid overlooked that, in fact, it did not match all flesh tones. His joke encapsulated the long-held belief among black consumers that consumer product manufacturers and their advertisers ignored them in creating and advertising many products. Of course, history demonstrates that being ignored as a consumer group and receiving unequal treatment in consumer spaces were routine experiences for blacks for much of the twentieth century. However, as the consumer-oriented protests of the late 1950s and early 1960s demonstrated, black consumers had grown unwilling to continue to accept such disregard. For the advertising industry, blacks’ activism, combined with the public scrutiny from government organizations, necessitated a simultaneous change in both employees and the creation of advertisements. But in the mid- to late 1960s, concurrent with the shift in emphasis on blacks’ employment in the industry—from simply hiring qualified minorities to the development of active recruitment and training— there was also a shift in argument on how to approach the black consumer market. In the early 1960s, the weight had been on the creation of integrated advertisements to be placed in general media. Now, whereas trade journalists once confidently argued that blacks wanted advertisements and marketing approaches that reflected a desire for assimilation into white society, the rising cry of ‘‘Black Power’’ placed those traditional approaches in doubt. Instead, agency executives were increasingly told that black consumers wanted to see unique representations that reflected knowledge of blacks’ lifestyle, culture, and aspira- The Golden Age 207 tions. All of this presented a challenge to advertising executives, who increasingly asked themselves how they could create those representations when they had so few professional blacks on staff and a seemingly limited reservoir of knowledge on which to draw.1 Several black professionals saw these pressures, combined with the continued economic growth of the black consumer market (approaching $30 billion annually), as a prospect for entrepreneurship. Additionally , broader acceptance by many advertisers of the new, small, creative ‘‘boutique’’ agencies that were part of the industry’s Creative Revolution convinced some observers that other traditional industry practices were beginning to change. As corporations seemed willing to end affiliations with traditional large agencies, the chance to open a small agency and garner large, national accounts appeared to be possible. Thus, beginning in the mid-1960s, black advertising professionals, as well as entrepreneurs from outside the industry, began opening advertising agencies at an unprecedented rate. Combined with the attention of observers both inside and outside the industry devoted to minority hiring, these agency openings helped make the years between 1967 and 1975 a Golden Age for blacks in the advertising industry. Never before (nor, sadly, ever since) had such broad possibilities for blacks and other minorities in the advertising field seemed so feasible, and dozens of African Americans positioned themselves to carve out a space in the industry.2 Along with seeking personal success, black agency owners sought to project a different image of African Americans through advertising. In this, they pursued an old ambition of black citizens while drawing inspiration from a new flowering of African American artistic consciousness. The Black Arts movement occurred almost simultaneously with the explosion of black-owned advertising agencies, promoting the idea that black artists should produce relevant art for black people to aid them on their quest for freedom and liberation. Further, that art should celebrate blacks’ distinctiveness and at the same time be political. Black poet and writer Amiri Baraka argued, ‘‘The Black Artist . . . is desperately needed to change the images his people identify with, by asserting Black feeling, Black mind, Black judgment.’’ As cultural producers, this aesthetic unquestionably affected many blacks working in the advertising industry. Through the images and copy they produced, a number black advertising professionals sought ways to both sell the products of their client and, at the same time, contribute to the uplift Baraka mandated. While blacks in mainstream agencies may have contributed to this aesthetic , its major expression in the industry came from the men and women working in black-owned agencies crafting advertising campaigns directed at black consumers.3 208 Chapter 5 Black agency owners...