Madison Avenue and the Color Line by Jason Chambers is a serious chronicle of Blacks in the U.S. advertising industry. How serious? Well, the book’s introduction alone runs a whopping 19 pages in length.
Chambers does a thorough job of setting the table, presenting contemporary anecdotes, referencing scholars like Marilyn Kern-Foxworth and Anthony Cortese, detailing early pioneering efforts and more.
The author also makes straightforward, provocative observations like, “Yes, advertisements are entertaining and their creators design them to grab and keep our attention, but their first job is to persuade us to take an action, to buy a product. But because of the ubiquity of advertisements, we sometimes fail to recognize the role advertisements have in persuading us about things beyond the particular product or idea they sell.”
As previously stated, this book is not an easy read—at least for those of us accustomed to zipping through slim perspectives by authors like Seth Godin and Ken Blanchard. Chambers has painstakingly compiled a ton of facts and data covering roughly 100 years of history. The introduction probably contains more information and about Blacks in advertising than the average adperson—especially the average White adperson—currently comprehends.
As diversity continues to be an issue on Madison Avenue, commanding a working knowledge of the situation becomes imperative. For that reason, all agency leaders—regardless of your race or ethnicity—need to check out this book and gain enlightenment. You should minimally pick up a copy and peruse the 19-page introduction (remember, it’s probably shelved in your local bookstore’s African-American Studies section).
Or if you’re a really lazy cheapskate, the publisher has posted the introduction online.
This is the third installment of MultiCultClassics’ running review of Madison Avenue and the Color Line by Jason Chambers. See the previous posts here and here.
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