Nnpa Chairman Confronts Gm and Ford for Lack of Ads

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"Clearly there is a discrepancy in how GM allocated marketing dollars to target Black consumers," said Ken Smikle, president of Target Market News. "One has to wonder why one of the top five advertisers in the world would not invest more in reaching a segment of customers that represents desperately needed growth. The imbalance between patronage and marketing budgets is especially puzzling in a recession when companies need to be competitive and strategic with every dollar they spend."

"This is not only unfair, it is unjust, it is malignant, and borders on just being criminal that they're just taking this money out of our community and not having any kind of respect. They wouldn't do this to any other consumer," said [Danny Bakewell] in a telephone interview. "These are the people who trust us to steer them to the right product. If these people are taking our people for granted; then we're going to steer them to other products. I am declaring that this is not something that we are going to idly sit by and let happen to our community."

"He spoke from the audience about, 'What are you going to do for the bottom liner?'" recalls Glenda Gill, executive director of RainbowPUSH's Automotive Project. The two panelists questioned by Bakewell were vice president of Global Procurement for General Motors, Bob Sousha and vice president of Global Procurement for Ford Motor Co. Thomas Brown. Neither could be reached for comment this week.

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Nnpa Chairman Confronts Gm and Ford for Lack of Ads

WASHINGTON (NNPA)-It is estimated by the Chicago-based research firm, Target Market News, that African-American consumers will have spent $2.8 billion on new General Motors cars in this year alone.

According to industry statistics, GM's models,...

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