Black magazines are bucking the 
industry trend with higher average 
growth in advertising revenue

(August 30th, 2001) This may not be the best of times for magazine publishers. The slow economy has taken its toll on advertising revenues, and each month there is news that another title has ceased operations. But there are exceptions.

Perhaps as a sign of the value they place on the black consumer market, advertisers are buying pages with black-oriented magazines at a rate that exceeds the industry averages for all titles.

Unlike many of their counterparts serving the general population, magazines targeted to African-American readers are holding their own. According to figures from the Publishers Information Bureau, black magazines are out-performing the industry as a whole with revenue and page growth well above average.

Advertising pages for magazines thus far this year have dropped 11.6% when compared to the first six months of 2000. Ad revenues have dropped 3.1% for all titles during the same period.

All of the five black titles reporting to PIB - Ebony, Jet, Essence, Black Enterprise and Vibe - reported gains in advertising revenues. The average increase for the five was 9.5%. That's better than three times the industry average. Total ad revenues generated by these titles between January and June of this year was $141.1 million. Revenues decreased by 0.3%, or three times less than the industry average.

The leader among the group in generating revenue and pages was Vibe. The monthly chronicle of hip-hop lifestyle posted a a 6.4% increase in pages and a 22.4% climb in ad dollars.

Black magazines may be the only category that has not experienced a significant drop in advertising revenues. The women's magazines and business magazines category, for example, had major declines in attracting ad dollars.

None of this is to suggest that advertisers are giving African-American magazines their due for the audiences they deliver. For example, Jet has a circulation slightly higher than US Weekly (1 million vs. 918,000). But the popular black weekly earned only $14 million in ad revenues compared to US Weekly's $31 million since the
beginning this year.

Still, advertisers must be paying attention to the value they are getting for their ad dollars, and the pattern suggests that they know how important African-American readers are, especially during tight economic times. They must also be aware that the audience for black magazines is growing steadily. None of the five black titles lost circulation in the first half of the year, according to the Audit Bureau
of Circulation.

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Read All About It: Black Consumers Are Creating New Opportunities for Print Media

By Ken Smikle

( March 13, 2001) This may be a time of opportunity for newspapers and magazines - especially as vehicles for marketing to African-Americans.

As the financial fortunes of black households improved over the past five years, the daily habits of the black middle-class changed. In fact, it may be more accurate to say their habits intensified. Renewed by a sense of making real progress, African-Americans not only continued doing what they have always done, but did more of it.

Information in all forms became an important tool in maintaining the gains, and black consumers devoured all that they could get their hands on. Internet access and usage mushroomed. Television viewing jumped. Radio listening increased. Perhaps overlooked in this trend, even by the most savvy media watcher, is what is occurring with African-Americans and non-electronic information sources.

Target Market News has analyzed recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce and you don't need to read between the lines to find this story; newspapers and magazines are attracting more black buyers. African-Americans are reading more periodicals, and anyone that sells print is - or should be - benefiting.

At a time when most general market dailies are losing circulation, black households are increasing their purchases of newspapers. Between 1998 and 1999 (the most recent data available), the average annual amount spent by white households on newspapers dropped by 13 percent. During that same period, blacks increased their purchases by 8 percent. During the same period, the average amount spent annually by African-Americans for newspapers edged past the amount spent by whites for the first time in history.

Newspaper subscriptions and home delivery charges between '98 and '99 showed no increase for white households, and a 17 percent jump by African-Americans. Even in the numbers reflecting trends in the suburbs, statistics suggest that black households are a growing opportunity. Since 1995, home delivery and newspaper subs have increased five percent for black homes, but dropped by two percent for whites.

Magazine purchase patterns revealed the same trends. Between 1998 and '99, black consumers increased the dollars they spent for mag subscriptions by 40 percent, while white consumers' sub purchases dropped six percent. For the five-year period from '95 to '99, white households' single copy sales purchases fell by one percent, while blacks pushed up their purchases by 15 percent.

Will this pattern continue? Typically, black households invest more time and money on average than whites on information and communications -- more on telephone service, more for cable service, more on time watching TV and listening to radio. In 1999, for the first time since records have been kept, African-Americans spent more on average than whites on newspapers. Now that's worthy of a screaming headline. 

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New food industry study shows black consumers sweeten the bottom line for grocers and manufacturers

By Ken Smikle

(November 29, 2000) 'Tis the season for eating, drinking and making merry, and black households will be doing more than their share of grocery shopping. Food has always been a central part of African American life and tradition, and thanks to a recent study, the food industry can now have a better understanding of what this means to the bottom line.

The Food Marketing Institute recently released The African American Grocery Shopper 2000, a research report jointly sponsored by Kraft and Procter & Gamble. This first-ever study adds new insight into the habits black shoppers, and most significantly, it points out the differences between African Americans and others in preferences, habits and attitudes.

FMI commissioned Yankelovich Partners and Don Coleman Advertising to conduct the study. The results are based on telephone surveys with 800 African Americans and 205 non-blacks.

Among the highlights detailed in the study are these:

* African Americans make more trips to the grocery store than others. They average 2.2 trips per week.

* The leading influence on purchase decisions for these shoppers is newspaper advertising (58%), followed by in-store displays (57%). By comparison, only 47% of non-black shoppers said they were persuaded by ads in newspapers.

* A preference for well-known brand items is strong among African Americans. More blacks than whites said they would only consider buying established brands (32% versus 26%).

* The leading item for 59% of the African Americans surveyed for deciding where to shop was the presence of African American employees and managers at the store.

* Two-thirds of the African Americans questioned said their last main meal was made from scratch ingredients, compared with 56% of non-blacks.

The preference among blacks to prepare meals from scratch should make them more desirable to grocers because they are more likely to spend more. According to Target Market News' latest report on The Buying Power of Black America, black households spent $47.3 billion on food in 1999, and two-thirds of that money went to food prepared or consumed at home.

The Buying Power reports also shows that black households spend 8% to 40% more on food that require preparation, thus offering grocers a greater return on the marketing dollars spent attracting these consumers to the store.

The good economic times will give African Americans plenty of reason to toast themselves this New Year -- not that they'll need one. Dollars spent on purchasing wine increased 334% last year.

Copies of the African American Grocery Shopper 2000 can be ordered from the Food Marketing Institute for $65 by calling 202-452-8444, at www.fmi.org.

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