Cosmetics Aimed at Ethnic Groups
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It is commonplace of business-management thought that effective marketing is a vital component of organization success. Internal organizational creativity, pressures of external competitive forces, and the ongoing need to gauge and respond to customer needs and preferences are essential tests of marketing effectiveness, and by extension profitability and company viability. But what companies are selling (say, fast-acting widgets, a tangible good) and what customers are buying (say, an opportunity to save time, an intangible value) may be different. The evolution of modern marketing theory over the course of the 20th century was marked as much by attention to the psychology and sociology of consumers' value judgments and priorities as by attention to mere purchasing power vis-à-vis goods and services. To put it another way, marketing (and the purchasing that may flow therefrom) is as much a social as a financial phenomenon.Social, psychological, and cultural dynamics of the connection between customers and the objects and services they buy are in the background of this research, which examines the marketing of hair-care products to African Americans in the early and mid-20th century. The research will set forth the social and historical context in which demographic-specific cosmetics were targeted at specialized ethnic groups in the US and then discuss how the phenomenon of marketing hair-care products to African Americans prefigured contemporary niche-marketin
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ould not wash their hair more than once a month. Thus a combination of urban poverty, poor nutrition, absence of indoor plumbing, and poor hygiene appears to have been responsible for the fact that Walker's hair, like that of other rural migrants, began to fall out. When Walker began to market a hair-care product that was said to restore hair growth, she declared that God had sent the formula to her in a dream. Some of the ingredients (said she) came from Africa, though it is more likely they were sourced and mixed in St. Louis. Equally, better nutrition and hygiene may have been as beneficial to Walker's hair-care clients as the hair-growth product itself.
Controversy surrounded the development and marketing of Walker's proprietary products, according to Bundles. The controversy was not solely due to so-called hair politics that have been a feature of African American culture but rather to more mundane industrial concerns. A St. Louis hair "culturist," Annie Pope-Turnbo, elsewhere called Annie Turnbo Pope Malone's Poro Co., was marketing a hair-restorer product to blacks at the time Walker was in St. Louis. Walker worked as a direct-sales agent for Pope-Turnbo in both St. Louis and Denver, where she moved with salesman and th
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Some common words found in the essay are:
African Americans, Body Marketing, Rights Movement, African American, Madame Walker, Stewart Joyner, , Davis Jr, Booker Washington, Rayford Logan, african americans, black women, hair-care products, cj walker, products african, madam cj, madam cj walker, products african americans, african american, st louis, marketing hair-care products, marketing hair-care, black women's, hair-care products african, care products african,
Approximate Word count = 3140
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)
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