Minority Marketing: Then and Now

American marketing traditionally has been mass marketing where majorities in the market place are involved in the "exchange" or the "need-satisfaction" process. It seems neither the literature nor the political entities acknowledged the existence of certain minorities, particularly the underprivileged. Andreasen (1976) maintained that even though there have been earlier articles and books on blacks and the poor, Caplovitz (1963) was the bench mark study of a new era of awareness. In his book,

The Poor Pav More

, he posed the problems of minority markets. However, even then race and ethnicity were not acknowledged. The general thinking was as follows: “Studies suggest that the market system works to the disadvantage of the poor simply because they are poor not because of their race or ethnicity” (Sturdivant 1968).