The Black Press Lighting the Way To Opportunity
Valley Teen Ranch will host a benefit dinner with Stedman Graham celebrating 25 years of business, serving vulnerable children and youth from CA and the San Joaquin Valley.
As a 54-year-old exercise amateur in training, Kemisole Solwazi wasn't looking to be anything more than 'healthy', but now she looks back at an unexpected start in the U.S. Olympics.
Ask anyone who knows Janet Glaude and they will tell you she's a quiet person enjoying a loud acting career. She has acted in over 45 plays since she launched her career and dove head on into the theatrical world.
Research has proven time and time again that Fresno's African Americans respond more favorably to messages targeted to them. With the resurgence of cultural pride, more African Americans are aware of who they are and are responsive to more positive images of themselves as reflected in their own media. The Advocate delivers Fresno's African American Consumer.
In the past, many advertisers assumed that their mass market advertising and general, major newspaper advertisement would reach all consumers with equal effectiveness. The ideology of mass marketing continues to erode as market research reveals the American market is a pluralistic grouping of various market segments, e.g., working women, Hispanics, Blacks, seniors, etc.
Historically, the Black consumer market has been the most misunderstood & least researched major consumer group. For whatever reasons, the marketing tools and information considered to be basic in the general market, have only recently been applied to the constantly growing and changing Black consumer market.
Today, most marketers recognize this as the age of market segmentation. Astute marketers of the 90s are looking at special interest segments, special user segments and finally, there are paying even more attention than before to "psychographic" market segments.
John Naisbitt, author of "Megatrends", stated in his popular book, "In today's Baskin Robbins society, everything comes in at least thirty-one flavors."
He added, "Do you remember when bathtubs were white, telephones black and checks green?"
In our changing and highly competitive environment, retailers and others must display a great deal of "marketing knowledge and muscle" to survive and prosper.
George R. Edwards, director of marketing for the World Institute of Black Communications, summarizes it this way: "...From all indications, this decade will be more complex and challenging to marketers than any previous decade.
"Mature products and the stores that sell these products must fight harder to maintain share of mind, share of inventory and share of sales.
"Yesterday's new stores and new products will have to spend more agressively and strategically to protect and expand their shares and newer products will most likely be more specifically targeted against 'highly defined segments' rather than the traditional masses.
Accordingly, marketers will have to segment the market more strategically to determine relationships between segments of users, segments of segments and changes in lifestyle caused by the aging population, the growing ethnic segments, such as Blacks and Hispanics, and the significance of changing urban mixes of ethnic groups.
"Given the quantity and magnitude of changes that have occurred and will certainly continue, together with the incredibly high cost of marketing today, strategic analysis and market segment augmentation will become more important than ever before..."
In such a dynamic and changing marketplace, no sales strategy can be truly "effective" without recognizing the dramatic, demographic, cultural and physical growth (size and affluence) of the Black consumer market.
Cities: Fresno, Madera, LeMoore, Kerman, Visalia, Selma, Tulare, Clovis, Hanford & Merced
Counties: Fresno County, Kings County, Tulare County & Madera County
Paid Circulation = 33,013
Newsstand Sales = 6,500
Extra Distribution = 12,500
Total Distribution = 52,013
Total Readership = 156,039
Less than 15% of Advocate readers claim a subscription to any other newspaper. In the 93706 zip code area (West Fresno) which is predominately Black, less than 8% claim any other newspaper subscription.