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The Real Pepsi Challenge: How One Pioneering Company Broke Color Barriers in 194 |  |
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The Real Pepsi Challenge: How One Pioneering Company Broke Color Barriers in 194 | |
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, as Jackie Robinson changed the face of baseball, a group of African-American businessmen -- twelve at its peak -- changed the face of American business by being among the first black Americans to work at professional jobs in Corporate America and to target black consumers as a distinct market.
The corporation was Pepsi-Cola, led by the charismatic and socially progressive Walter Mack, a visionary business leader. Though Mack was a guarded idealist, his consent for a campaign aimed at black consumers was primarily motivated by the pursuit of profits -- and the campaign succeeded, boosting Pepsi's earnings and market share. But America succeeded as well, as longstanding stereotypes were chipped away and African- Americans were recognized as both talented employees and valued customers. It was a significant step in our becoming a more inclusive society.
On one level, The Real Pepsi Challenge, whose author is an editor and writer for The Wall Street Journal, is a straightforward business book about the birth of niche marketing. But, as we quickly learn, it is a truly inspirational story, recalling a time when we as a nation first learned to see the strength of our diversity. It is far more than a history of marketing in America; it is a key chapter in the social history of our nation.
Until these men came along, typical advertisements depicted African-Americans as one-dimensional characters: Aunt Jemimas and Uncle Bens. But thereafter, Pepsi-Cola took a different approach, portraying American blacks for what they were increasingly becoming -- accomplished middle-class citizens. While such portrayals seem commonplace to us today, they were revolutionary in their time, and the men who brought them into existence risked day-to-day professional indignities parallel to those that Jackie Robinson suffered for breaking baseball's color line. As they crossed the country in the course of their jobs, they faced the cruelty of American racial attitudes. Jim Crow laws often limited where they could eat and sleep while on the road, and they faced resistance even within their own company. Yet these men succeeded as businessmen, and all went on to success in other professions as well, including medicine, journalism, education, and international diplomacy.
Happily, six of these pioneers lived to tell their stories to the author. Their voices, full of pride, good humor, and sharp recollection, enrich these pages and give voice to the continuing American saga.
作者简介 Stephanie Capparell is the author of Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer. She has worked at The Wall Street Journal since 1990 and is currently an editor for that paper's Marketplace page. She holds degrees from Boston University and Columbia University. She lives in New York City.
编辑推荐 "The Real Pepsi Challenge is an inspiring story about a small team of pioneers who rose above the prejudice of the times. Their resourcefulness, persistence, and creativity paved the way for the generations that followed."
-- Ken Chenault, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, American Express Company^"A fascinating view of civil rights history from the halls of Corporate America.The ties among popular culture, marketing, and race relations come to life in this inspiring story."
-- Juan Williams, author of Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 and Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary; NPR senior correspondent and Fox News political analyst^"When you go to work anywhere in Corporate America, you'd better understand that this is no longer the white America of the 1950s. You will fail if you approach it that way. And if you open your eyes and address the rest of our multicultural society, you will succeed. This book shows you why you'd better get on your multicultural game as evidenced by the amazing success of African-Americans who breached the color wall at Pepsi and what it meant for them, for Pepsi, and for America. It is an amazing and inspiring story. This is mandatory reading for those about to embark into the corporate world."
-- Jim Cramer, markets commentator, thestreet.com, and host of CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer^"A well-written and well-researched story of unsung pioneers in the struggle for equality in the American workplace. A must-read for all executives looking for new ideas to diversify their organizations by learning from one of the most inspirational stories in business history."
-- Patrick T. Harker, Dean, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania^"A pacesetting book for emerging efforts to give long overdue credit to the historically ignored, the historically neglected, and the historically forgotten in the 1940s and 1950s, who through their sacrifices helped quicken the death of Jim Crow America. It reminds us how far we've come toward building an inclusive society since these pioneers paved such transformative paths -- and how much work is left to do."
-- John H. Stanfield II, author of Philanthropy and Jim Crow in American Social Science
目录
Introduction
1. The High Road to Profit
2. Black,White, and Green
3. How Big Is Your Negro Market?
4. Leaders in Their Fields
5. The Brown Hucksters
6. The Cola Color Wars
7. The View from the Threshold
8. Crossing the Threshold
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index
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文摘
The start of the rivalry between the Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola companies in the 1940s is legend in business. Less known is that a bigger, more important battle was being fought on the front lines of the cola wars at the same time: the struggle ofAfricanAmericans to gain access to white Corporate America. Underdog Pepsi-Cola -- under the direction ofan astute businessman with a keen sense of his role as a leader -- joined forces with a group of striving African-American professionals. Their union made history, and taught American businesses a lesson in the value ofa diverse workforce.
To the ranks of the unsung civil rights pioneers, add Pepsi's first special-markets sales staff. Instead of schoolrooms or lunch counters, their struggles and victories took place in offices, storefronts, and factory floors. You haven't heard the names of these men in the myriad books written about the cola wars over the decades. They were workers whose talents were hidden in plain sight because of their race; their stories played out before the civil rights revolution. Businesses were just awakening to the potential of a diverse work place and untapped markets.
The Pepsi-Cola experiment began in 1940 with the hiring of a single black man, Herman T. Smith, and was followed by the addition of two young business interns -- Allen L. McKellar and Jeanette Maund. Their mandate was to help Pepsi-Cola -- then a struggling upstart -- expand its consumption among African-American customers.
Some seven years before Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby integrated baseball's major leagues, these national sales representatives broke through the corporate color line. In retrospect, the Pepsi salesmen had even more of an uphill battle. Integrating sports meant creating opportunities for a few uniquely talented individuals for the sake of everyone's entertainment. Integrating business, by contrast, was a far more sweeping -- and for some,
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