Liquor Industry Courts Blacks : <i> Ad Campaigns Aimed at Community Draw Fire of Critics </i>

The black consumer has provided something of a silver lining to the clouds that have gathered over the liquor industry in the 1980s.

Over the last decade, annual liquor sales have dropped 8.5% to $55 billion nationally as heightened concerns about health and drunken driving have persuaded many consumers to give up spirits for low-alcohol or non-alcoholic beverages. Industry experts say, however, that black drinkers have defied the trend.

“Everyone now is moderating their drinking habits, but not the black market,” said David Durden, Southern California manager for Schieffelin & Co., a major importer and marketer of alcoholic beverages.

That phenomenon is raising serious social issues. As the alcoholic beverage industry increasingly seeks to woo black consumers through aggressive ad campaigns often featuring black models and celebrities, critics charge that it is perpetuating alcoholism and alcohol-related diseases--ills identified by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as “the No. 1 health problem in the black community.”

In fact, the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest in May cited the institute’s findings as the basis for advocating increased government regulation of liquor advertising.

Studies show that blacks, who make up 12.1% of the U.S. population, drink less per capita than the national norm. But among some premium liquor brands, black consumers account for up to 50% of U.S. sales. Consequently, the industry is paying more attention to black consumers, devoting an increasing share of its $1.2-billion annual advertising budget to reach them.

Among the first to recognize the black consumer’s importance were a handful of Cognac producers who found years ago that blacks were buying a large amount of the premium French brandy brought into the United States.

Hennessy, for example, began courting the black consumer in the 1950s, said Manfred Neuss, a retired businessman who spent 22 years importing and marketing the Cognac brand for Schieffelin & Co. But, Neuss said, blacks found the brand before any particular marketing effort was made to reach them.

Today, blacks account for at least half of the more than 2.3 million cases of Cognac sold in the United States, according to Market Watch, a trade publication. Hennessy is the market leader among blacks, followed by Courvoisier, Martell and Remy Martin, according to distributors.

Also faring well in the black market are Bacardi rum, Smirnoff vodka, VO Canadian whiskey and Canadian Mist, Market Watch reported.

Richard Evans, editor of black-owned Beverage Beacon, a Los Angeles-based national trade journal, sees no mystery in the Cognac sales. Cognac represents an accessible luxury, he said. If the symbols of prestige and success are the “richly decorated rooms, impressive cars, diamonds and Cognac” so common in ads, he said, Cognac is surely the most affordable--even if it does retail at more than $20 a fifth.

But the black market is far from monolithic, observed Tom Pirko, president of BevMark, a Los Angeles beverage research and consulting firm that published a national survey of black consumers last month.

While being highly selective shoppers at the high end of the market, blacks also buy large amounts of cheap, high-alcohol wines favored by many problem drinkers, Pirko said. These fortified wines are not widely advertised, he added.

For example, New York State’s Canandaigua Wine Co. claims that up to 75% of its inexpensive Wild Irish Rose is sold in black-dominated inner-city markets such as South Central Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, where Thunderbird, a strong competitor produced by E&J; Gallo, also is popular.

Critics of the way in which liquor is marketed to blacks maintain that advertising can only exacerbate a variety of public health problems in addition to drug and alcohol abuse.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest cites research by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism showing that blacks--despite their below-average per-capita alcohol consumption--suffer a higher incidence of liver failure and other diseases linked to chronic alcoholism (The institute cautions, however, that such social and economic factors as lack of access to quality health care may contribute to the anomaly.)

The center’s newly released report on the issue, “Marketing Booze to Blacks,” concludes that advertising alcoholic beverages to blacks can only make a bad situation worse.

“It’s tough to change attitudes about alcohol use in communities that are immersed in seductive, pro-alcohol messages,” said Peter Bell, executive director of the Minnesota Institute on Black Chemical Abuse, which participated in the center’s report. “Blacks must begin to discuss what role, if any, alcohol advertising should play in their neighborhoods.”

The center would, among other things, require broadcasters and billboard advertisers to provide more warnings on the health risks associated with alcohol, limit alcohol content in malt beverages to 5%, require warning labels on beverage containers and sharply boost federal excise taxes on alcoholic beverages.

Stung by the charges in the center report, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a Washington lobby for the industry, replied there is no scientific evidence showing that ads increase alcohol consumption. In fact, the council noted, liquor consumption declined by more than 11% in the last 14 years despite increased advertising.

“Advertising makes consumers aware of brands; it does not change behavior,” said Janet F. Flynn, a council spokeswoman. “Neither alcoholism nor alcohol abuse are caused by advertising; nor will they be cured by the elimination of advertising.”

Apart from health worries, however, community leaders also say they are offended by the sheer volume of liquor advertising in black neighborhoods, particularly in the form of billboards.

Mildred Snipes, an official of the South Central Organizing Committee, a community-action group, said she hardly can turn around without seeing billboards featuring black models or celebrities promoting an alcoholic beverage. “We’ve got more than 1,200 liquor outlets in this area--that’s advertising enough!” she said.

Among those being criticized are black-owned ad agencies and publications that do business with liquor companies. Snipes cited the finding by the Center for Science in the Public Interest that 40% of the advertising in Ebony, Jet, Black Enterprise, Modern Black Man and Dollars & Sense came from cosmetics, liquor and cigarette ads.

Evans of Beverage Beacon readily acknowledged the “dependence” of black publications on “sin advertising,” meaning liquor and tobacco ads. “But,” he added, “without it, the black press would be out of business.”

A black advertising executive whose agency declines liquor ads (but not beer and wine accounts) said she can’t fault her colleagues. “It’s unfair to expect them to be the bearer of a social conscience to the detriment of their business,” said Barbara Proctor of Proctor & Gardner Advertising in Chicago. “We’d enjoy having the same options as other agencies.”

Moreover, some black community leaders and businessmen resent what they feel is the condescending suggestion by critics such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest that blacks are more susceptible to the blandishments of ads than other segments of society.

“Everyone’s so worried about us poor damned ignorant black people!” Evans exclaimed.

The fundamental problems in black communities stem from poverty, Evans said, and he faulted the liquor industry and others supported by black consumers for not providing more economic help. What is needed, he said, is for more companies to follow the example of Coors Brewing Co.

In 1984, after a four-month boycott by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, Coors signed an agreement to buy up to 10% of its goods and services from black-owned businesses and to bring more blacks into management.

In that sense, the hiring of black models and celebrities for ads might be taken to indicate a step forward--but not to the marketing critics. The Center for Science in the Public Interest would ban the use of black celebrities in ads to promote drinking or otherwise link drinking with “professional, social, athletic, sexual or economic success.”

Economics is sure to dictate continued advertising to black consumers, but there is some indication that the ads are becoming more sophisticated. According to Market Watch, advertisers appear to be adopting “a serious, upscale approach that avoids the standard come-ons to black consumers--parties, sex and fashion.”

If so, the result may be more effective advertising. Pirko said the new BevMark survey revealed that many marketing campaigns are based on black stereotypes that turn off, rather than attract, buyers.

The survey, “Selling Beverages to Black Consumers in U.S. Metro Markets,” found that many marketers approach black consumers ineptly because they misunderstand their audience. “There is a lot of misinformation,” Pirko said.

For one thing, he explained, black consumers constitute “a combination of market segments” that, in some cases, differ more from one another than from the general population.

“A lot of marketers have fallen prey to interpreting data in terms of stereotypes of broken families and problems,” Pirko said.

“Advertisers are overplaying sex and the black male macho themes,” he added. “There are a lot more productive keys that they could be using.”