Are books like this going to be regulated to history? Hmmm…….

Thought this was good enough to share in full.

Article published Mar 6, 2007

Procter & Gamble ads targeted to blacks paid off

By Cliff Peale
Gannett News Service

CINCINNATI — When Procter & Gamble Co. rolled out its Tide with a Touch of Downy detergent in late 2004, it included a special advertising campaign targeting black consumers.

“Nostalgia Dad” featured a black man lovingly cradling his sleeping young son. The ad was designed to convey warmth and fatherly caretaking, and the pair’s crisp white T-shirts seemed almost peripheral. It also was designed to counter stereotypes of fatherless black households.

“It was very deliberate to have a man with his son,” says Najoh Tita-Reid, associate director of P&G’s multicultural marketing unit. “It was very deliberate for him to have a wedding ring on.”

The heartwarming images are only the latest evolution of a 40-year movement inside Cincinnati-based P&G to try to reach more black consumers. The early efforts — in the 1960s, when racial tensions throughout the country were running high and white faces dominated nearly every commercial message — were not without risks.

Today P&G is acknowledged as a leader in creating advertising for black consumers.

“Without question, P&G has to be seen as one of the companies that other companies pattern their behavior after,” says Ken Smikle, president of Target Market News in Chicago, which tracks patterns of advertising to black consumers.

Along the way, reputations were made and enhanced. Crest toothpaste used a young Bill Cosby for a television commercial in 1969. In the 1980s, some Tide ads featured the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

In the past decade, the movement has accelerated. P&G spends at least six times more on media targeting black consumers than it did five years ago. And it’s constantly adding new ways to reach black consumers, such as a 2004 sponsorship deal with the popular Tom Joyner morning radio show.

Today you’ll see Queen Latifah on commercials and Internet sites pitching a Cover Girl line for black women. Angela Bassett promotes the benefits of Olay body lotion for black skin. Soon, Tiger Woods will tout the virtues of Gillette razors.

Black spending power is driving much of P&G’s strategy.

The $68 billion company has pledged to investors that it will add at least 5 percent to total sales every year, and the spending power of black Americans is an important piece of that growth, having reached $799 billion in 2006, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia.

Procter executives say they want both marketing efforts and employee base to reflect the more diverse face of the 21st century American consumer.

“We need to define diversity broadly and leverage it to the hilt,” chairman and chief executive A.G. Lafley said last fall at an internal event. “Being ‘in touch’ is an attitude. To lead in this kind of environment, we need a balance of business skills and empathetic skills.”