The Hidden Targets of the Mad Men Era Advertising

Believe it or not, the real-life “Mad Men” of Madison Avenue actually sought out the dollars African Americans had to spend in the 1950s, but more so in the 1960s and beyond.

Shocking, I know, but they went after the African American consumers because they realized they had money to spend, and were willing to spend it if they saw people in the advertisements who looked like them. This was a super-stealth advertising campaign that remained in the shadows of the broader mainstream society until about the mid 1960s, when advertising agencies reluctantly allowed a few Black advertising men and women to take the reins of the accounts targeting middle to upper middle class affluent African Americans.

“By the 1960s, African Americans made advertising an important issue of the civil rights movement and they began to see changes with a fuller range of visual representations, the recognition of African Americans as consumers and the development of Black-owned agencies. In the late 20th century, with the development of multicultural advertising, most major companies hired Black-owned agencies to create ads that drew on perceived cultural traditions.’’ — Race and Ethnicity in Advertising: America in the 20th Century

Mainstream brands, that everyone knew then and now, targeted the African American middle and upper classes in magazines such as Ebony and Jet. For decades, these sacred publications were the only place African Americans could find stories about their own people, where images portrayed affluent Black members of society.

Revelling in the African American American Dream, consumers could open an Ebony or Jet magazine wherever they were, and see Black architects, lawyers, entrepreneurs, beautiful women in elegant clothes and handsome men in suits, gracing the pages alongside advertisements featuring Black people selling a glamorous, middle to upper middle class lifestyle. But the ads NEVER had a wider societal presence because they showed a very different face of Black America at the time, that didn’t fit the pervasive propaganda and stereotypes that all African Americans were living in poverty, ghettos, and were uneducated without access to the finer things in life. It completely flew in the face of the belief that African Americans hadn’t realized their “American Dream”.

There have been numerous campaigns over the years that that have left their mark on the advertising industry and our cultural psyche such as Aunt Jemima and the United Negro College Fund. But Aunt Jemima played up the pervasive trope of the overweight, subservient dark-complexioned “mammy” that literally enabled every White household to be secure with the non-threatening southern “Mammy” coming into their homes.

One of the most famous ad campaigns of the late 20th century was for the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), credited to Forrest Long of the Young and Rubicam agency, a White-owned firm, in collaboration with the Ad Council. With the UNCF motto, “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste,” Long and his colleagues created one of the most popular global campaigns. The UNCF campaign is best remembered for the imagery conjured up by the text rather than the imagery itself. The slogan resonates globally about the value of education for all.

But major thanks should go to Ebony and Jet for creating work for Black journalists, Black models, Black photographers and also Black-owned ad agencies helmed by brilliant men and women, who thankfully stopped the tendency to mimic the copy and imagery created by White-owned ad agencies, which was exactly like that geared toward White consumers. The way White ad agencies approached Black consumers was completely tone deaf. White ad agencies had the subliminal message that ultimately African Americans wanted to be White. Black ad men and women knew exactly how to speak to Black consumers and celebrate who they are and what they’ve accomplished.

Has advertising changed since then, yes, but not necessarily as much as it should have in all of these decades since Madison Avenue realized there was money to be made gearing advertising toward African Americans. There’s still some questionable messaging in many of these modern print ads and TV commercials. But the only way that the still pervasive stereotyping will be addressed and/or eliminated, is when more Black people are in the room, sitting at the head of the table, and calling the shots.

SYDNEY CHANDLER is a Los Angeles based freelance journalist, essayist, screenwriter, PR specialist, editor and producer. Follow her on social media: www.instagram.com/sydthewriter, www.twitter.com/syds180turn and www.facebook.com/Sydthewriter