The Chronicle of the Brown Hucksters: The Beginnings of Black Professionals in the Advertising Industry
On the heels of countless instances of brands being “canceled” due to racially insensitive ads and months of overwhelming civil unrest sparked by the murders of many Black and brown people in the hands of the police, agencies and brands are scrambling to diversify their ads. Despite these efforts, the mad dash to get more diverse representation in ads is not being matched with diverse representation in the agencies and brands themselves. A 2020 survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers revealed that representation in senior roles was found to be as low as 5% for African Americans, and 8% for Asian and Hispanic Americans. It’s extremely evident that progress is a slow process, but it’s important to learn just how much diversity in the advertising industry hasn’t grown and the story of the “brown hucksters” is the perfect point of departure.
By the 1940s in America, there was already a long history of using depictions of Black people in advertisements. The problem, however, was that these images were often stereotypical and offensive. The familiar face of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are the least worrisome compared to ads such as this one for Nigger Head Tobacco.
While Black representation in the ads themselves was becoming more and more prevalent by the ‘30s and ‘40s, there was still a massive void of Black voices on the marketing teams for major corporations and agencies. This began to change, however, with America coming out of the Great Depression and into WWII. In need for more money and manpower, companies wanted to tap into the “negro market” so they could fold the Black dollar into their bottom line. One way of achieving this was by hiring what Ebony magazine called “the brown hucksters.”
Named after the 1947 film, The Hucksters, that stars Clark Gable as a budding advertising executive, the brown hucksters were Ebony’s take on a group of Black men taking the advertising and sales world by storm. The 1948 Ebony article notes, “The ‘brown hucksters’ have grown into a field force of some 40 public relations and sales representatives who flit about the nation promoting their products in colored communities.” Hired specifically to tap into the “negro market,” brown hucksters were tasked with conducting market research and ultimately gaining the trust of the Black community so they’d be more willing to purchase their products.
Amongst the most notable brown hucksters were James Albert “Billboard” Jackson, marketing specialist for Standard Oil, William Graham, marketing specialist for Pabst Beer, and Edward F. Boyd, marketing specialist for Pepsi-Cola. These men got their start in the 1920s and ‘30s, but were in full stride by the late ‘40s into the ‘50s, effectively shifting how corporations viewed the purchasing power of the Black community in the U.S.
One of the first Black marketing firm owners, David J. Sullivan, actually published many articles about the “do’s” and “don’ts” of reaching the Black consumer. Some of his advice, as documented in Jason Chambers book, Madison Avenue and the Color Line: African Americans in Advertising Industry, includes: “Avoid Negro minstrels,” “don’t picture colored women as buxom, broad-faced, grinning mammies and Aunt Jemimas,” and “avoid incorrect English usage, grammar, and dialect.” Sullivan was positioned as an expert on the topic and his advice, coupled with the authentic perspectives of the other brown hucksters, laid the foundation for how the Black point of view in the boardroom and positive representations of Black people in the ads themselves would eventually be taken more seriously. They broadened the horizons of niche marketing and opened a whole new world for brands.
Even though many of the brown hucksters went on to start their own agencies and also help with initiatives that didn’t specifically target the Black consumer, the unfortunate truth is that the contributions of Black media and marketing professionals are still often reduced to being the sole representative and liaison for the entire Black community. Despite the seemingly major strides, the faux diversity within corporations and agencies feels never-ending as evidenced by present-day statistics. In the end, the history of the brown hucksters and their role in advertising demonstrates a lack of true progress from the 1930s to now.