SHOPPING

Marketing reports indicate that black consumers long to feel authentically represented in advertising campaigns, especially black women. Black female consumers outpace other consumer groups in a number of spending categories, notably personal care and hair products, but feel unappreciated by top brands. This line of thinking raised several questions for me: With the fairly recent launch of an ethnic corporate product line, Pantene’s Gold Series Collection, are black women feeling the love? When faced with choosing between this new corporate option and Shea Moisture, a brand perceived to be black-owned, where does their allegiance lie? And if what people buy is an expression of their identity, then which brand best reflects black female consumers’ truest sense of self? Our study builds on ...