ABSTRACT
In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the effects associated with the use of ethnic minorities in advertisements were a popular research topic. Between 1965 and 1979, a total of 19 articles on the topic appeared in the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Advertising, and the Journal of Advertising Research. That research on ethnic minorities, particularly African Americans, in advertising would be widely published during this time period is certainly not surprising. Among the changes arising from the civil rights movement was a growth in ads targeting Black consumers and an increase in the use of Black models in advertisements. For instance, Kassarjian (1969) reported that the number of ethnic minorities appearing in magazine advertisements doubled between 1965 and 1969. Naturally, researchers reacted to this change in marketing practice by testing the effect that the use of racial minorities had on the advertising audience (12 of the 19 articles specifically tested the effect of the use of Black actors in advertisements).
