African-American-owned newspapers nationwide will try to get Kohl's Department Stores to include minority media in their advertising budgets.
According to Kimber-Kimber & Associates, a Fresno, Calif., based Black Ad Agency that solicits national advertisers for many in the black press, the
company spends over a half million dollars with majority-owned newspapers and next to nothing with the black papers. Late Last year,, several
black-owned weekly newspapers, ran full-page ads urging black consumers to boycott; Kohl's as part of a nationwide effort organized by Kimber. At
that time, Kimber claimed the campaign was successful when Kohl's reported lower profits; however, that no longer appears to be the case.
www.jsonline.com
After getting Home Depot to advertise in African-American newspapers, and pressuring Office Depot and T-Mobile Wireless to do likewise, black
newspapers have a new target: Kohl's Department Stores.
Kohl's is the target of a boycott orchestrated by Kimber, Kimber & Associates, a Fresno, Calif., advocacy-advertising agency that represents 250
black-owned newspapers across the country.
The purported offense: Kohl's practice of excluding black newspapers from its print media buys. The Menomonee Falls-based retail chain channels its
print advertising buys mostly to mainstream media that enable it to reach the largest audiences.
A group of black publishers now calls this practice discriminatory and demands that Kohl's do like other companies that have been targeted and cough
up millions of dollars in print ad buys.
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
When I first read this story yesterday I thought that Kohl’s was based only in Wisconsin, however, a search of Kohl’s website shows they are all
over the US, so I figured it might be an interesting read for others. I am always interested in seeing what others have to say on issues like this.
The only reason they are doing this is to extort advertising dollars by playing the race card and that I feel is wrong.
Business have a limited amount of advertising dollars, they have to decide where they will get the best impact for their money. They decide to
advertise in the large market papers where they have the greatest reach. This is the choice they have made for their company, I am sure there are many
advertisers in the black owned papers that do not advertise in the “white” mainstream press outlets.
I hope Kohl’s does not knuckle under to these people, if they cannot compete honestly, they should not get away with the thug tactics used by the
likes of Jessie Jackson. Jackson has spent the last 20 years doing this same sort of thing.
Go read the full article, it’s really good.
[edit on 3/10/2005 by shots]