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Music The African-American legend series highlights the accomplishments of blacks and areas as various politics, sports, aviation, and business. We will explore how African-Americans have succeeded in areas where they had been previously excluded because of segregation, racism, and lack of opportunity. I'm your host, Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. Joining us on today's program is Miss Carolyn Jones, President of Carolyn Jones Advertising, one of the leading African-American
women in business, in our city, in our nation. Carolyn, glad to have you with us today on African-American legends. Thank you. I was about to say, what is the feminine legend in terms of the language, because you really are a legend in terms of your business. How did you get interested in this particular area of business, and how did you develop your career? Well, actually, I was interested in pre-med when I went off to college, and somehow, because I was a scholarship student and also a woman, I was discouraged from staying on and going through the medical school where I was at the University of Michigan, and one day I decided to switch my major, ended up with a double major in English and Science, and looked around to maybe try to get a teaching job until I could decide what else I could do. And in exploring that, I was interviewed by a company called J. Walter Thompson in New York, and took the first and only job I was offered here in New York, became a secretary as all women had to, went through the copy training class as the first black person in the history of the
advertising industry, which was celebrating its hundred years, and ended up liking it very much, and became the black copywriter for a number of businesses. I left Thompson and went to help start a company called Zebra Associates, then I left there and went to Kenya and Eckhart, which is now in Bosell, then I helped Kelvin Wall start a company called the black creative group, and then I left and went to BBDO, where it was a group head and vice president on major business, and then I helped start Mingle Jones advertising, where I was executive vice president and creative director for ten years, and eight years ago started Carolyn Jones advertising. I never thought that I would start my own company, but I'm very happy that I did. Well, I can see from the way in which you give us a litany of experiences, and not only have you talked about this a lot, but also you're very confident about your decisions. And you can see that, both in the way you say it and the way you look when you say it. The question then is you did take the first job that came your way,
but you had to make some decisions, you had to eat a lot of crow, you had to build off of a stereotype because it was not a black woman, white women had the same stereotype in terms of having to start a secretary. And as you were talking, I was wondering, would that happen today? And if it did happen today, what advice would you give to young African-American women who were exposed to that situation? Well, one thing wouldn't happen today, and that would be that you could go into a company, even as a secretary, and then get an opportunity once a year to try out for what they call the copy class. In other words, a training program of some sort was part of having to come in as a secretary. That no longer exists, so people have to do whatever they can to get into the business. So the difference here is that you have to come in with more credentials, then as a secretary, you have to come in with a portfolio, you might have to be recommended by someone, you might try an intern program, and the catch point too, of course, is there not enough
of any of those things for the young people who want to get into the business. In fact, many companies are merging and downsizing, and it's tougher and tougher. However, there is a good side, and that is people are talking about diversity, and there are more opportunities for women, and certainly some opportunities for black people in this business. Well, we have to pressure the advertising industry to change the product that we put out, which is our ads, to be more inclusive of people of color in different cultures, so that when you come into a company, they need you around because what they're producing is something that you may know something about. Because this relates to the changing nature of the market, the consumer market. I think this country is now about 40 percent minorities, blacks, Latinos, Asians, and about 2010 or they're about to be 55 or 60 percent people of color, and the question then is, how do you prepare for this? What are the skills you look at? You've talked about copywriting and clearly advertising
works off of words, but as I'm looking at many of the ads now, some of the ads don't have many words, and they just have some music and some pictures and some movement. How does one, you prepare for this, say your son or your daughter isn't going at the advertising, what would you advise them to do? Let's say going back to elementary school and bringing it right on through. Well, the first thing you have to do is learn that advertising is different from public relations. I very succinctly say, advertising is what you pay for, PR is what you pray for. Advertising means that you are paying for the time and space that you take up to give your message out. So what people have to understand is that ad is supposed to take the place of that old-fashioned door-to-door salesman who went around and stuck his foot in the door through dirt on the floor, sucked it up with that vacuum cleaner and sold it to your mother or grandmother for $5 a week for the rest of her life. But when he went into the house every week to collect that $5, he might look around and see that junior was studying for some tests. And the next time, how did it go? Grandmother, how did that go? So what advertising is supposed to do is look at the consumers who could buy
the products and talk to them one-on-one as close as possible. So that's where the whole science of advertising comes into play. What are we really trying to do? And that's just me trying to talk you into my product telling you why you should buy it. When I'm going to sell it, where I'm going to sell it, what is it going to cost you? Why is it better than the competition? All of those things. And so I have to reach you where you are in your medium on the radio over the transom, under the door, on the subway, wherever you are, I'm supposed to be talking to you. So when it comes down to people of color and culture, you ask the question, how can we prepare? It's really taking a chance learning the skills now before the year 2000 crashes down on us. And you won't have an opportunity, your competition may be able to do it better. So what you have to do now is practice. And that's what I'm sort of critical of the industry about. Is there not practicing enough about how to include people of different colors and cultures in the
ads that they put out? And that's going to be the challenge for the coming years. And I think that if you start now to hone those skills, you can make some mistakes, but you'll be ready. Hopefully now you've talked about those skills and you talked about copywriting, but video and photography and so on. What kind of skills? Let's say you were to try to make me an advertising specialist. What kind of skills would you want to emphasize first with regard to me? Well, advertising is put together by a team of people. There's a creative team, a copywriter and an art director. There is the marketing team using account person who studies marketing, you know, that's a distribution in the pricing and the packaging and the competition and the numbers and the numbers of people where they live. Then there's a media. What kind of media reaches people? What is it cost? Then how can you use it? Then comes a market research and they go out and talk to consumers about do you like these ads or don't you or do you like this concept, this name, this package? So you put all these people together and that's a team, a marketing team and then you create an ad
and then you sell it to your client, then you might go out and get a photographer, you might send it out to a type shop or do it on the some sort of computer in the office, then you'll pick your models, then you might, if it's radio, you might pick actors, you audition for that talent, you go into a studio, you might use music. So there's a number of people, many, many more, outside of the advertising agency that get to work in the advertising industry. Now, many of these skills are generic, being able to use the language, being able to relate to people. So the point that you made earlier about opportunity and experience, like internships, trainee programs seem to be important. Are there many trainee programs in the advertising industry? Unfortunately, they're almost none. And the reason is that the advertising industry is what I call underground. Very few people can name maybe 10 agencies, but you like what we put out, you like those ads. So people are trying to get into the business. And so for every one job,
there may be 300 applicants. And there are a lot of people who've been in the business a long time, so the sons and daughters and aunts and nephews are always there for those few jobs. So it's a very interesting, but tough to get into business. Then once you get in, you have to learn the business. So that's why the training may happen once you get into an account, because everybody has to learn about the product and the category and and what the competition is. So the clients will help you understand his or her business, and the agency then can back you up with the training. So once you get into the business, you might get to training easier than if you're on the outside trying to train and get in. On the other hand, I don't know whether there are the intern programs that exist are really working, because once you get trained, you have to find that job. And of course, that's always a tough part. So you do whatever works to get that job. I've been involved in school work transition, and when I was president of Bronx Community College, we had literally dozens of programs to
help educate and train people for various industries. And the one thing that I was always told, we always told, is that the specific training for a specific job should be left to the organization business agency that is hiring the person and what colleges and high schools ought to be doing is getting people job ready and working with their attitudes, working with their ability to take directions, working with their ability to assume leadership. As I hear you talking about the advertising industry, it seems like that's even more important than the advertising industry. Absolutely, because so many times, what you're doing is really presenting yourself and your ideas to a client. So you really have to learn the skills of being able to present with a smile, take a lot of criticism, because it's such a subjective industry. Once you have an idea and you put it on paper, you say it out loud. Everybody can say, oh, I like it or I don't like it, and you're constantly trying to fine tune your ideas. And you have to be realized that people can
criticize your ideas without criticizing you. And it's important for a minority person who's been criticized unfairly for so many other things to try to walk a fine line between getting constructive criticism in this industry to get better and not take it personally. So that's also something that we have as an extra burden. And a lot of people can't do it. And they don't do it well easily. And that's where the bigger word attitude comes in and really hurts them in the long run. Now, in the field of advertising, there are some agencies that are hit by women not many. And some agencies like yours that have been created by the energy and the drive of a woman, what have been some of the impediments or hurdles that you had to go through as a woman, an African-American woman in the advertising business? Well, you said, had to go through, I think I'm still going through it. And I'm sure you're. But one of the biggest hurdles is that
you're not one of the old boys and whether black or white. And I find it just as big a problem being a woman in a black world as it is being a woman in a white world. But one of the good things about being a woman is when you walk into the room, chances are you'll be noticed, especially if you're a black woman. So try to use that as an advantage point as opposed to being a negative. And you can always make an impact. So you have to be aware of that. What is it? You never get a second chance to make a first impression. So you use that to your benefit. But you do have to recognize your weaknesses. And that is sometimes you just have to bring a man along or send a man instead. You have to take your ego out of it and try to do business as a person and recognizing that because this is a people business, personalities do count. And you can be great on paper. But if people don't like you in person, you can still not get the business. And it's very interesting. And it's frustrating at the same time that it's challenging.
But to say, as I was listening to that, if I were a young person, I'd say, but it's a hard business. Well, it's a hard business, you're right. But it's a fun business. It is certainly if the creative part of it is fun, etc. But actually getting into it to suggest that as a woman or as an African-American, that you can not allow your basic personality to emerge. You have to submerge some aspects of your personality, particularly that I'll call anger that many African-Americans have because of the fact that they've not had opportunities. How do you counsel people to get over that? Well, I try to use humor. My goodness. You can't be serious all the time, but you can take yourself seriously. But you have to sometimes just use flat-out humor to get around things that are just will knock you on your behind because they come out of nowhere. People will make comments like, I'm afraid to use humor with black people because they may take offense. And yet, we almost make up the whole comedy, the new face of comedy, and yet many advertisers are afraid
when it comes to using humor. Or they may say, well, what makes us add black? They're very fact that black people are speaking it is not enough for some people. They're looking for those little stereotype cues to let them know, oh, yeah, this is for black people because you said right on three times and whole and yo and no kinds of things. And that's frustrating. But you do have to smile through it sometimes and just go on to the next challenge. Well, let's talk about one of the things you have to smile through. And that is the way in which the advertising industry appeals to the black consumer. Sometimes they totally know the black consumer, and sometimes I think they're patronizing the way in which they deal with the black consumer. Could you talk about that a little bit? Well, all of that is true because, again, if they have been resistant to include more black consumers in advertising, then they make a lot of mistakes. Even black professionals make mistakes because very few have been trained in the industry as a professional. Many people who happen to be black came out of maybe sales or the media,
and they thought, well, gee, nobody's addressing this issue. I can do it. But then they don't get the same kind of professional skills that some of us who came through the ranks of the advertising industry got. The best thing to do is to know how the big picture looks. And so when you're in a smaller company or your own company, you know where you can cut corners, but still come out with a quality product. Some people get carried away is I've got to make this black, but they forget that they're signing it with the company name. And that's where the patronizing comes in. You may not think it's patronizing if it's done by Rosie's beauty shop, but if it's done by Revlon, you may think, take a fence because Revlon is talking down to a person. Well, Rosie, you know that she's doing the best she can, but she is one of the people. So it's different when you're trying to create advertising for national brand name and creating it for yourself or somebody local. And the consumers are willing to forgive the local guy who makes some mistakes,
but they take a fence. When you've got money, you put it on television or you put it on a radio and you sign it with one of these brand names that quote, ought to know better. The truth is, they often don't know better. They're not going out and getting professional help. They're not necessarily requiring their white agencies to hire black people. Some of the black people who work with corporations are not comfortable saying we want a black commercial. So we're always up against somebody not wanting to recognize that we are different in different colors and come from a different culture. But there are instances where in the total market African Americans account for 40% of the sales and some automobile, some beverage product, etc. It would seem logical that at least not 40%, it was a significant portion of advertising. It should show black people should relate to the black community, their culture, etc. Yet that doesn't happen. And the argument that some of the white agencies use is they're buying it anyway. How do you refute that argument?
Well, first of all, we are often buying things because we don't have many choices. We are all looking for food clothing and shelter. So we'll buy those things. But when it comes down to things that are discretionary, like a brand of car versus another brand of car, then we do try to look for those that are saying welcome and thank you. The trouble is, too often in a category, nobody's asking for my business or your business. And so you still select from the few that you feel are not as bad as the others. Now, the trouble with the consumer is that if you don't like something, you should write. If you like something, you should write. You'd be surprised at how much would change if we wrote more letters. And all we have to do is write chairman, leader brothers. And he'll get the letter. And that letter will trickle down all the way to the people in the advertising agency who are responsible for being more reflective of who can buy those products. The other thing is, you may see black ads, but unless you're watching a black show,
you may not see those on network. And again, it's sort of hiding the fact that they are trying to talk to black consumers. There is still, unfortunately, a lot of racism in America, and people are not advocates for things that are different, especially if there's any negative applied to it. And unfortunately, black consumers are still something that people either whisper about or not completely open about. And that does not bode well for being included. That's why people can overlook us, because they don't feel that comfortable in the first place, and we don't make them uncomfortable enough. But yet, rap music is part of the genre of the general music business, although it started with African Americans. And you see, many ads even devoted to the quite consumer than using rap music and images, et cetera. And I believe that they're very few African Americans involved in creating those ads. It's though someone else took our culture and is using it or modifying it. And someone will say, well, this is political correctness. Well,
I don't know if there's anything political correctness. There is a awareness of the fact that they are African Americans who created this genre and shouldn't they be involved in helping you to sell your product? Well, absolutely. But see, there are two things that are going on. You pointed out one. One is that people are taking what I call the quick fix. If you can say you're talking black people by doing a rap song and nobody out there complains about it, you got away with that. So they'll try it again and try it in some place where it makes absolutely no sense. But people are trying the very least they can do to satisfy those of us that are looking for something that's a little more progressive. On the other hand, people are not just taking the black consumer for granted. They're keeping the money. The bottom line is white agencies are keeping the money, coming up with what I call an execution. A black ad once is just an execution is not a campaign. It's not really talking to the consumer consistently over time, showing them the different kinds of black people that there are. And usually it's a stereotype. Because they're all they
want to do is do an ad that helps them keep the business and keep the client quiet. On the other hand, those of us who are prepared. Quiet or happy. Quiet is more than happy because of many times clients are not that happy. But they don't know what to do because they're their general agency are saying, well, you don't have to do anything. We've got this ad and that'll solve the problem. But marketing, the ad is the last piece of the marketing plan along the way as promotion and research and talk to consumers. What I see advertising is it's a job. It's a job for an actor, an actress, an illustrator, a photographer. It's a job for musicians, a salespeople. The people in the office, the people at point of sale. So there's a lot of money in advertising and it retranslates into jobs. And yes, we should take more time to look at it because we spend billions of dollars. Well, do with consumer boycotts work. I mean, if the African American said, look, you don't have any African Americans in these ad agencies that African America. We're not going to buy the products that your agency is promoting. Does that really work today?
Well, I don't know because I don't know who's going to organize it. I think that certain tactics worked worked in the past tense. What we have to do now is easier to make it work by simply writing to somebody saying, I don't like that. You can get more done with the letter today than you can by threatening. And the trouble is a threat is just that. There's nothing more than that. And it was a matter of fact. Very few people are going to spend the time nowadays looking for keeping their families together. They worry about brand A over brand B. The times have changed. Times are harder for black consumers now and they are less inclined to do things that are a little more frivolous like boycott a brand because they don't include us in their advertising. So I think that that time has changed. What advice would you give to some of the young people who may be watching this program in terms of how they can prepare themselves for entrance into this business? Well, I think that the first thing you do is you go to the library. You do your homework
because we have a lot of trade publications that are just like reading a novel, certainly a soap opera. Because the advertising age, ad week, brand week, market week, media week, all those publications talk about the industry. They talk about what's happening in products. Talk about what the corporations are doing and what brands are coming out with, what ads put promotions. And if you get a feeling about what we're doing out there in the world, then you're better prepared to go ask for a job in some specific area than to just try to walk and say, you know, I want to work. So if you do your homework and you learn who's doing the kinds of ads that you like, who's working on the kind of products that you like, then go after those and you'll be able, I think, a little better off than just saying, I want a job somewhere. Well, that is a lesson to school libraries and others that they ought to subscribe to some of these publications because it'll make it possible for young people to come in and see them and find out what's actually happening in the industry. What is your opinion about using black celebrities to promote
products? Do you call that African-American-oriented promotion or is that general societal promotion? Michael Jordan made $30 million last year and said, most of it came from advertising. And I think people identified with him because he was a great basketball player and he used to be black basketball player. Would you call that black oriented advertising or general advertising and how would an agency like yours fit into that? Well, first of all, I applaud anybody who could make money doing advertising because when you're hot, you're hot and when you're not, you're not. So make this much money as you can while you can. Do those kinds of ads for the brands that you really do respect and more power to you. It's up to the advertiser and the agency to make sure you are the right celebrity for that brand. So the celebrity is lucky to get chosen for that because there are a lot of people who say no and it's difficult to get a selected
as a black spokesperson for anybody's brand. So if you know behind the scenes how close somebody came to not getting that ad, you deployed them for getting it on the first place. I see it as money in their pockets and hopefully they'll translate that to scholarships and money in somebody else's pocket. I see it as advertising. Again, you're supposed to be the door-to-door salesman and if Michael Jordan can sell you a pair of shoes faster than somebody else, then you're going to buy those shoes from Michael Jordan. And I think it's smart on the part of an advertiser that uses a black celebrity in a positive way. And I hope that all the celebrities make as much money doing that is possible because there is a lot of money in it. If you're responsible for sales at the bottom line, they will use you. The minute you're not helping them, they're going to take it away. So here today, go on tomorrow. Well, from what you've been saying, it's very apparent that there's a clear role for black advertising agencies in this larger market. Question I'm going to ask now, $64,000. Another question if we can call it that is why don't black agencies get more
work? Because white agencies want to keep the money. There's money in it and they don't want to give it up. They'll go to a client and say, wait a minute, you want a black, we can do that. Oh, why didn't you tell us you wanted a black campaign? We can do that. Well, the client doesn't say, well, how many black people do you have working at your agency? How long have you been black? Or how long have you done black things? But they give us that kind of scrutiny. We have to come forward and prove we're black and how long we've done it. We've had a success at it and we have people working on our staff. So our scrutiny is even more intense because there's some white agencies looking over the shoulder of the client trying to keep that money for themselves. The problem is the pot is only so big. They want it all and they don't want to share it. And then you have black agencies getting advertising and then along comes somebody who says, gee, there's Hispanic people here. So the money all of a sudden becomes what I call either or money, not more, but either or. Either it's going to be black or it's going to be Hispanic,
but there's not going to be much more because the truth is behind the scenes. There's a white agency saying, I'm not giving up any of mine. Carolyn Jones of President Korea's director of Carolyn Jones advertising has really told us about the business and we now understand why you are a legend in your business and there are a lot of challenges ahead and good luck in confronting those challenges and I hope I've used no much more about the advertising business.
Series
African American Legends
Episode
Caroline Jones Advertising
Contributing Organization
CUNY TV (New York, New York)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/522-rj48p5wg2m
NOLA Code
AAL 094017
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Description
Series Description
African-American Legends profiles prominent African-Americans in the arts, in politics, the social sciences, sports, community service, and business. The program is hosted by Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., Director of the Center for Urban Education Policy at the CUNY Graduate Center, and a former President of Bronx Community College.
Description
In this edition, Caroline Jones talks about how she got stated in her career and the path she took to start her own company and the barriers she had to overcome. Taped December 12, 1994.
Description
Taped December 12, 1994
Created Date
1994-12-12
Asset type
Episode
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:28:21
Embed Code
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Credits
AAPB Contributor Holdings
CUNY TV
Identifier: 15774 (li_serial)
Duration: 00:28:35:23
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Citations
Chicago: “African American Legends; Caroline Jones Advertising,” 1994-12-12, CUNY TV, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-522-rj48p5wg2m.
MLA: “African American Legends; Caroline Jones Advertising.” 1994-12-12. CUNY TV, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-522-rj48p5wg2m>.
APA: African American Legends; Caroline Jones Advertising. Boston, MA: CUNY TV, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-522-rj48p5wg2m