Marketers Target Black Youth  

  (BLACK PR WIRE) We’re all consumers. This is a definite fact for those of us living amidst extreme commercialism here in the United States. Yet most people aren’t cognizant of their own power in the buying and selling market and how they are often exploited for other people’s gain. According to a recent report released by the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, African American spending will reach $845 billion in 2007 and is estimated to top $1.1 trillion by the year 2012. This is a lot of buying power!

As consumers living in the society that we do, it is important to be aware of what we are buying and where our hard earned dollars go. African American youth need to be particularly aware of the marketing campaigns set out to manipulate them into buying things they often times can’t afford. Luxury sneakers, electronic equipment and other apparel are expensive. In fact, many wealthy parents won’t even buy these items for their children due to perceived extravagance. Race-based marketing is prevalent in the United States and several non-profit organizations exist solely to try and counteract the negative effects of these advertising campaigns on the minority youth influenced by them.

Velma LaPoint of Howard University is one such African American academic fighting to educate parents and children alike on the power of the media to influence and control their spending habits. LaPoint speaks at various academic conferences and through the non-profit organization Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, stating that African American youth are targeted primarily because they are trend-setters. If black American youth pick up on a trend, then the rest of the nation will follow closely behind in accepting it as the standard. Marketers and advertisers would thus foolish not to cater to the African American market and black youth in particular.

The Selig Center states that African American buying power will rise in 47 states this year with the largest market share increases in Georgia, Maryland and Mississippi. These states reflect the largest black consumer markets in addition to the District of Columbia at 30.6%. In Mississippi African Americans reflect 24.3% of the consumer market, Maryland at 22.2% and Georgia at 20.8%. With so much buying power at the hands of African American consumers throughout the country it is exciting to think about the positive steps scholars and advocates like Velma LaPoint will make in the right direction toward consumer responsibility as well as appropriate advertising marketed towards the educated black consumer.