Tobacco Documents Online

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I Mr. 0. P. McConsaa - Mr. Joseph Cu1lnan III' Isr. H. Y'. Chesleyy Jr. l9r. Ray Jones }fr. Robert Iaaisin Mr. Roger 8reen. fierbert Wrlght - Mr. 'r. R. N. DnPuis. Dr. I..,Deckinger George Weisscsan SUBJRCTt Progress Report on tIegro ELm Roper organffsation t'o: undiertake a long range stndT of this area to ?find on~G the reasons for_onr successful operation so that we msy maintain ~i'andi poseibly extend our positioninthis, fieLd,, as well as poss3bly findi ' out factors whicri can be trans,iated to other special areas. fl The attached is b; no means a report on thisnarket, as smch as it iis a ~ preliiminary discussion nndiposaiblie indication of severai pat'hs of e,cplora,Uon to be taken. }[arltet Study In view of the large share of' the Negro market we enjoy, we have asked the George We~lssman i (

PROGRESS REPORT ON NEGRO h1ARKET' STL1DY Prepared for PHILIP MORRIS & CO. LTD,. , INC. September 1954 ELMO: R'DPER Study Director - B'urnis W. Roper `

TABLF, OF CC=rPTS' Pages DISCUSSIbN AND RECbMNIENDATIO'NS I-V SPECIAL TABULATI©NS' OF BENCHMARK STUDY 1-10 DEPTHINTEPtVIEWS WITH TOBACCO RRETAILEFtS'. 11-3© DEPTH I'=FiVTEWS WITH.' HIGH ECONOMIC LEVEL rEGRO coNSUMERS' 31-48

I DISCUSSION ANID RECnMMEENDATIONS C Among Negro cigarette smokers, Philip Morris is led only by Camels-- and that by a narrow margin. As indicated in our first benchmark study, this means t11at more than 30 per cent of Philip Morris' customers are Negroes,, and more than 25 per cent of all Philip Morris cigarettes sold are purchased by Negroes (the peTcentage of customers being higher than the percentage of con- sumption because Negroes are relatively light smokers). Thusy,sales to the Negro masket represent an important segment of Philip Morris' total business, a segment valuable to have and large enough so that its los&Would have considerable effect on Philip Morris' over-all standing. While our original study showed this fact, it did not point to any particular factor or difference in attitude which wotiLl.d account for Philip Morris' leadership in this field. We knew that Philip Morris had been an early leadierin the Negro market, in te~rms, of both; promotion and huma.~n rela- tions, but we did'.not have evidence as to,wha.t part these factors, what part the package, and what part the cigarette itself played in gaining,this large share of the Negro market. Our first step, in a special investigation of this market was tol make further comparisons and tabul:ati ons of the Negro group with i,he white group, using the :.,aterial airailabJ e in the original study. These tabulations are included'in this report imnediately following this section, They show no essential difference in the attitude of'Negroes toward Philip Morris from .the rest of the market. Negroes like Philip!M.orris for the same reasons as whites do. They characterize it in the same way. Hence, these tabulations showed no special reasons for Phili'piMorris'' particularly good standing among Negroes. Our next step was to conduct some depth interwiews withitobacco

II IC C , retailers in Negro residential districts. We felt that these people might have both special knowledge of consumer preferences, and' also special knowledge of the company andiits policies. These interviews were made by two members of our office staff, one Negro and one white> While they were successful in that they uncovered some information about advertising effectiveness,,etc.., they did not produce information relevant to the purpose of'this study. We discovered in- stead that these retailers neither knew nor cared why their customers purchased a particul-ar brand. - Perhaps this was best illustrated by one retailer who said,• - "Brother, I got no idea in this world why people buy the brands " they db--people don"t say why, and I don't ask. That ain't m3' ,jpb." And as another store owner expressedi it: "They dbn't tell me why they smoke a brandl--that's not ar,y business--my business is just that 25 cents." However, a number of'these interviews have beenlincluded in a sub- sequent section of this report, because the:r serve to show the type of infor- mation we diid get as well as the type of information we were seeking but did' not get. We next went to a groupiof high economic level Negro cigarette smokers--lawyers, doctors, Civil Service employees, teachers, their wivesy etc.. ~ This particul3r group was selected with several things in m.indi: (1)' This group would be presumably the most observant and articulate group. If we could get no specific infor- mation from this group, it would be fair tolassume that we could not do so withithose in the lower economic and educational levels. (2) These people would be style and thought leaders in the Negro community. (3) Because this group could be expected to be more sophisticated

III about race differences, by directing their attention to our specific problemlin an informal open-end interview, we might get information which would enable us to construct a questionnaire which could be used with Negro smokers in all economic levels. We therefore made eleven test interviews in a high economic level Negro apartment house in New York City, using a questionnaire designed mainly as an outline of the considerations on which we wanted the respondents to ex- press their opinions. A copy of this questionnaire-recordiing,form precedes the sample interviews in the section of this report entitled "Interviews with High Economic Level Negroes." As a result of these test interviews, we feel that this technique is definitely worth further development. This is not because every interview was productive. Only about half of the interviews offered useful material. (Answers from the five productive interviews are included'later in thiss report.) We feel, however, that these interviews are interesting and that more of them might produce a pattern of' results that wouldl not N ~ C N ~ ~ only be "inter- ~ esting," but possibly "conclusive'". There were, for exa:nrple,, several mentions of the importance of integration of whites and Negroes in cigarette promotion, one respondent recommending it as a next step and another giving nrtht:r Godfrey credit for the way he handled the situation on his programs. I!n a number of cases, the advantages of'leadership in hiring Negroes was mentionedi, jithispe- cific examples of products and compa.nies that lost business because of poor race relations. Still another respondent mentioned the appeal of the Philip Morris package desigu. He thought Negroes might like to use it to demonstrate their sophisticatediand discriminatory gpoditaste. There areYhoweverysome problems about this technique andithe. material it produces which,we feel should be evaluated before doing more inter- views. For example, when respondents tell us what motivates other Negroes, or Ln 11

IV ( why Philip Morris appeals to others, are they actually telling us about them- selves, or are they telling,us how they think other people feel? And, if they are telli'ng us how others feel, are they right or wrong'?' In add.ition, are we exploring all the hypotheses we should explore? We would therefore specifi'cally reconmiend tlzat: (1) The interviews already made be examined by trained psychol- ogists who would make some evalias.tion of the nature of the information we are getting and be able to make suggestions - for possible improvements in the technique. We would also ` wa:nt these psychologists to advance additional theories for us to explore in sqbsequent interviewsa Without further exploration, we are not sure who would make ideal consult- ants, but we have two possible candid'ates in mindo Dr. Bayton, who was one of the members of your Negro Ylarket Seminar, andl Re:nato T+agiuri of Harvard, who while probably less well informed about this specific market beirngwhite himself, might give us a: more objective view because he wa& not himself'a part of that market. --(2)' Once we had this evaluation and had decided on any revisions in technique and questionnaire, we would" do thirty to fifty more interviFws, some more around' here, and some in the South. (As indicated by one of the respondents to the test interviews, we might well get a very different picture fromi Southern Negroes. In any event, we do not feel that we would be getting a~bal:anced picture just by talking to Negroes in and around New York. ) We would pl.ano to use the same Negroa staff'member who dlid these test interviews to do the rest of' the interviews.

(3) We woula then call on one or both of the consulting psychol- ogists to assist us in our evaluation of these additional interviews, and either contribute to our ansLysis or perhaps present a separate analysis of their owni. When we finished all this, we should have: A better., if not conclusive,, picture of this market and~hotir it operates. A decision as to whether and how a general cross section of the Negro market could be further explored to produce vrorth-while results. ( N C C N ~- N N ` ~

SPECIAL TABULATIOrTSOF BENCHhtA~ STUDY ~