Black Newspaper Readership Study.

A dramatic profile of a consumer group that most marketers have traditionally overlooked or ignored was released today by Amalgamated Publishers, Inc. The API Black Newspaper Readership Study clearly and unequivocally substantiates that readers of Black newspapers are prime consumers who demand the best and spend freely to get want they want. Designed and executed by CNW Marketing Research, Inc., this study is the largest and most comprehensive examination ever undertaken of readers of Black newspapers. Lengthy interviews were completed with 121,692 randomly selected, pre-qualified respondents across the country.

The study encompassed not only the collection of detailed demographic and psychographic data but also an in-depth examination of the effect that Black newspapers have on their readers’ product perceptions and purchase patterns. A broad range of specific product categories were covered as well as selected individual companies within each product category.

A key element of the study was to chart the Purchase Path of the Black newspaper reader and compare it to the Purchase Paths of Hispanic consumers, Caucasian consumers and total consumers. The Purchase Path is an exclusive, groundbreaking research technique developed by CNW Marketing Research, Inc. seven years ago for Time Warner, Inc. This technique tracks the influence that various forms of media have on a consumer from the time a decision to purchase is made to the time of its actual purchase. A seven-year history has shown that the same general pattern holds true whether the item is a car, a kitchen appliance, a pair of shoes or a new house.

“The results of this study will now document beyond question the value of the Black consumer and the best vehicle to reach them that we have been trying to tell advertisers for so long,” said Dorothy Leavell, Chairman of API. “We are the only company that has focused exclusively on effectively reaching and motivating the African American consumer through Black newspapers.

“For over 40 years we have represented Black newspapers across the country. We know these papers and the African American consumer better than anyone else in the business. Now we have irrefutable evidence of what our papers can do for an advertiser,” she said.

“I have been in the research business many years and there is very little that really surprises me,” said Act Spinella, President of CNW, “but I was truly amazed at some of the findings to come out of this study. Readers of Black newspapers represent 73 percent of the total $645 billion African American consumer buying power yet 87.6 percent of regular Black newspaper readers do not regularly read general market daily newspapers. This means that an advertiser who thinks he is reaching this consumer through the daily paper is wrong.

“When you look at these findings,” he continued, “you see a market with average income of $64,615; average net worth of $391,290; average age 42 years old; 85.2% home ownership; 83% having at least some college; 69% being a manager, professional or owning a business; and spending 71.7% of disposable income on enhancements and embellishments (i.e. non-essentials). This is truly a niche market of prime consumers that has been overlooked, undervalued and, for the most part generally ignored by most major advertisers.”

“This study has collected over one million bits of data,” Spinella said. “We can sort this data in an infinite number of ways to give information never before available. For example we can determine the mortgage default rate for African Americans versus Hispanics versus Caucasians versus the overall market in every major city. We can index services and product usage in over 30 categories by ethnicity for both volume and price. We can identify number of visits made, average check, total dollars spent in 2003 and expected to be spent in 2004 for key fast food and family style restaurants. The ability to compile data by category for readers of Black newspaper is virtually limitless.”

“We intend to make this data selectively available for our regular advertisers,” said Ms. Leavell. “This is data that many companies do not have and would have to pay thousands of dollars to develop. Offering it to them is just one of the many ‘added values’ that Amalgamated Publishers provides. It will also enable us to produce customized, highly compelling and persuasive presentations to secure new clients.”

“We now have the most comprehensive data base on readers of Black newspapers in existence anywhere,” added Spinella.