Word: bantu
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...years, the subjugated Bantu blacks of South Africa have served Afrikaners as house servants, field hands, laborers and mineworkers. Nobody knew how they spent their wages, and nobody seemed to care-until South African companies searching for new consumer markets discovered an impressive fact: Bantus make up a market of 11,000,000 people with an annual purchasing power of $1.26 billion. Staggered by the potential of this "new" market, South African businessmen are now scrambling to beam their goods and advertising at the Bantu. One of the most important men on the beam is himself a Bantu, a Natal...
Mkele was South Africa's first African account executive in an advertising firm (J. Walter Thompson), but left to devote his full time to gathering the valuable data for an assault on the Bantu market. He and his teams roam the country, interviewing Bantu shoppers on city streets, in stores and in homes. By speaking Bantu (few whites do) and penetrating into areas long a mystery to white merchants, they have uncovered many of the fascinating needs, prejudices and preferences of the Bantus. "No longer must the African be regarded as an appendage of the white market," says Mkele...
...preferences are becoming more sophisticated. Bantus refuse to read or speak Afrikaans, react quickest to English-language advertising. British habits are widely copied: 80% of all hats sold in South Africa are bought by Bantus, who consider a hat the hallmark of English gentility, and three out of four Bantu homes prefer tea to coffee...
American Accent. Lately, however, "New from America" has become the advertising catch phrase. Commercials for Lexington cigarettes, the biggest Bantu seller, are delivered in a broad American accent, and Bantus who move up from bicycles (English, of course) to cars insist on American models. Bantus are fanatically loyal to brands; one Bantu wife in five sews on a Singer sewing machine (price: $72.80), and the Japanese failed miserably when they tried to introduce a competitor priced...
Never Again. Uganda's constitution sensibly provides a large measure of local autonomy to Buganda and the three other Bantu kingdoms, and to the ten regional districts, which are equally jealous of their separate identity. Although per capita income averages only $65 a year, Uganda has enjoyed a favorable balance of trade for the past 25 years. But falling world prices for its principal exports-coffee and cotton-have eaten up the accumulated reserves and this year caused a budget deficit of $10 million...