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Some bids for the black market are largely a matter of style. Even before Bill Clinton donned sunglasses and went on The Arsenio Hall Show, Pillsbury put shades on the Doughboy and recast him as homeboy. K Mart, meanwhile, hired a black advertising firm that created an ad campaign around the slogan "Looking Good." In one radio commercial, a woman tells her friend about the store's new fashions. "Girl, I couldn't believe my eyes," she says. "I went out and looked at the store name again. It was K Mart all right."
Other companies have made more substantive changes, developing new products or modifying old ones. Hallmark now markets a "Mahogany" line of greeting cards that features black characters and sayings. And even though it enjoyed good sales with a black version of its Barbie doll, Mattel introduced Shani, whose broad facial features and slightly fuller hips more accurately reflect the way that many African Americans look.
J.C. Penney, which made its name as a mass marketer, discovered the benefits of targeting when it set up 20 experimental boutiques stocked with caftans made from kente cloth, brimless hats called kufis, carved wooden masks and other items imported from West Africa. After selling out all the merchandise in just three months, the retailer expanded the concept to 100 more stores and will add American-made products with Afrocentric designs. In the entertainment world, art is imitating life: four of the five new comedies debuting on NBC this fall will star black actors.
Sometimes the medium is the message. When the National Council of Negro Women held workshops for people organizing family reunions -- increasingly popular events in the black community -- companies like Reebok and Kellogg signed up to exhibit their products. Other major-league merchandisers, like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, distribute samples of their products in gift bags that are handed out after Sunday service to parishioners at black churches.
But marketing campaigns alone aren't always enough to woo black consumers. "Blacks want to see the company involved and contributing," says public relations consultant Myra Bauman. "The concept of a good corporate citizen is important to us." That can mean hiring more black employees, making contributions to black causes, placing ads in the black media, using black suppliers or even naming blacks to the company's board of directors.
The response to all this attention has been largely positive. "It's about time," says Pat Tobin, an L.A.-based adwoman whose clients include Toyota and AT&T. "African Americans helped build this country, and we've been shut out too long." Nevertheless, some blacks are put off by the idea of being treated as a monolithic entity instead of as individuals with tastes as diverse as anyone else's. Indeed, companies that actively pursue the black market run the risk of being criticized for stereotyping black consumers or exploiting them. "There's a fine line between trying to appeal to taste and ethnic heritage and creating a stereotype," says David Stewart, a marketing professor at the University of Southern California.