Edward F. Boyd
Encyclopedia
Edward Francis "Ed" Boyd (June 27, 1914 – April 30, 2007) was an American
business executive who was responsible for the marketing
of products specifically to African American
s in an era when racial discrimination was rampant and blacks had either been ridiculed or systematically ignored in advertising
. His efforts for Pepsi-Cola pioneered the concept of niche market
ing and allowed Pepsi to substantially increase its market share
in the black community at the expense of Coca-Cola
.
. After high school, he trained at a local opera
company and wanted to be a diplomat
. After graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles
in 1938, he enjoyed a short film career, playing minor roles, often as stereotypical singing and dancing roles which he resented. During his time in Hollywood, he escorted Hattie McDaniel
to the 1939 Academy Awards ceremony when she became the first African American performer to win the prestigious award. He later worked for the Screen Actors Guild
, was the first African American to work for the Civil Service Commission
in San Francisco
, and then worked as a housing specialist for the National Urban League
.
When Boyd joined Pepsi in 1947, most U.S. businesses either ignored the African American market or depicted them using ethnic stereotypes such as the "Mammy archetype
". But Walter S. Mack
, president of Pepsi at the time, saw the potential of a vast untapped market. In fact, he had previously established an all-black sales team in 1940, but had to drop it due to the onset of World War II
.
Boyd's idea, revolutionary at the time, was to create advertisements that showed black Americans as normal, middle-class people. One such ad featured a smiling mother holding a six pack
of Pepsi while her son (a young Ron Brown
, who grew up to be Secretary of Commerce
) reaches up for one. Another ad campaign, titled "Leaders in Their Fields", profiled twenty prominent African Americans such as Nobel Peace Prize
winner Ralph Bunche
.
Boyd also led a sales team composed entirely of African Americans around the country to promote Pepsi. Racial segregation
and Jim Crow laws
were still in place throughout much of the U.S. and Boyd's team encountered a great deal of discrimination. Not only did they have to ride on segregated trains and stay in black-only hotels, but they faced insults from Pepsi co-workers and even endured threats from the Ku Klux Klan
. On the other hand, they were able to use racism
as a selling point, attacking Coke's reluctance to hire blacks and the support of segregationist Governor of Georgia Herman Talmadge
by the chairman of Coke. As a result, Pepsi's market share (as compared to Coke's) shot up dramatically. After the sales team visited Chicago
, Pepsi's share in the city overtook that of Coke for the first time.
This focus on the African American market caused some consternation within the company and among its affiliates. They did not want to seem focused on black customers for fear that whites would be pushed away. In a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
, Pepsico president Mack, who favored progressive causes and was the impetus for this marketing push, tried to assuage the 500 bottler
s in attendance by saying, "We don't want it to become known as the nigger
drink." Boyd understood that those were not Mack's sentiments. "I didn't forget it, but I didn't hold it against him either," he told the Wall Street Journal. After Mack left the company in 1950, support for the black sales team faded and Boyd was let go.
Wall Street Journal writer Stephanie Capparell argues in her book The Real Pepsi Challenge that Boyd faced a more difficult challenge than Jackie Robinson
in breaking the color barrier of corporate America. By doing the same work and competing for the same jobs as white people, Boyd's team presented more of a threat to the average white man.
, worked with the Society of Ethical Culture, and helped to pioneer alpaca
farming in the U.S.
Boyd's sister, Helen Boyd Howard, was married to Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a surgeon, entrepreneur, and civil rights leader in Mississippi who was a mentor to Medgar Evers
and Fannie Lou Hamer
.
Boyd died in Los Angeles
due to various complications including a stroke
he had suffered nearly two months earlier.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
business executive who was responsible for the marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
of products specifically to African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s in an era when racial discrimination was rampant and blacks had either been ridiculed or systematically ignored in advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
. His efforts for Pepsi-Cola pioneered the concept of niche market
Niche market
A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing; therefore the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact...
ing and allowed Pepsi to substantially increase its market share
Market share
Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...
in the black community at the expense of Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
.
Early life
Boyd, an African American himself, was born and grew up in Riverside, CaliforniaRiverside, California
Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...
. After high school, he trained at a local opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
company and wanted to be a diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
. After graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
in 1938, he enjoyed a short film career, playing minor roles, often as stereotypical singing and dancing roles which he resented. During his time in Hollywood, he escorted Hattie McDaniel
Hattie McDaniel
Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American actress to win an Academy Award. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind ....
to the 1939 Academy Awards ceremony when she became the first African American performer to win the prestigious award. He later worked for the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
, was the first African American to work for the Civil Service Commission
Civil Service Commission
-Chairmen:*John Houghton MHK, 2004-date*George Waft MLC, 1996-2004*Clare Christian MLC, 1981-1982*Noel Cringle MLC, 1992-1996*Walter Gilbey, years unknown...
in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, and then worked as a housing specialist for the National Urban League
National Urban League
The National Urban League , formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States. It is the oldest and largest...
.
Career at Pepsi
Mammy archetype
The mammy archetype is perhaps one of the best-known archetypes of African American women. She is often portrayed within a narrative framework or other imagery as a domestic servant of African descent, generally good-natured, often overweight, very dark skinned, middle aged, and loud...
". But Walter S. Mack
Walter Staunton Mack Jr.
Walter Staunton Mack Jr was a U.S. drink businessman and financier. He was president of Pepsi-Cola Company from 1938 until 1951 after taking over from Charles Guth...
, president of Pepsi at the time, saw the potential of a vast untapped market. In fact, he had previously established an all-black sales team in 1940, but had to drop it due to the onset of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Boyd's idea, revolutionary at the time, was to create advertisements that showed black Americans as normal, middle-class people. One such ad featured a smiling mother holding a six pack
Six pack
A six pack is a type of multi-pack made of six canned or bottled drinks, typically a soft drink or beer, which are sold as a single unit. Cans are usually connected with plastic six pack rings, HDPE Can Carriers, shrink film, or paperboard....
of Pepsi while her son (a young Ron Brown
Ron Brown (U.S. politician)
Ronald Harmon "Ron" Brown was the United States Secretary of Commerce, serving during the first term of President Bill Clinton. He was the first African American to hold this position...
, who grew up to be Secretary of Commerce
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
) reaches up for one. Another ad campaign, titled "Leaders in Their Fields", profiled twenty prominent African Americans such as Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
winner Ralph Bunche
Ralph Bunche
Ralph Johnson Bunche or 1904December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Palestine. He was the first person of color to be so honored in the history of the Prize...
.
Boyd also led a sales team composed entirely of African Americans around the country to promote Pepsi. Racial segregation
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
and Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
were still in place throughout much of the U.S. and Boyd's team encountered a great deal of discrimination. Not only did they have to ride on segregated trains and stay in black-only hotels, but they faced insults from Pepsi co-workers and even endured threats from the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
. On the other hand, they were able to use racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
as a selling point, attacking Coke's reluctance to hire blacks and the support of segregationist Governor of Georgia Herman Talmadge
Herman Talmadge
Herman Eugene Talmadge was an American politician from the U.S. state of Georgia. He served as governor of Georgia briefly in 1947 and again from 1948 to 1955. His term was marked by his segregationist policies. After leaving office Talmadge was elected to the U.S...
by the chairman of Coke. As a result, Pepsi's market share (as compared to Coke's) shot up dramatically. After the sales team visited Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Pepsi's share in the city overtook that of Coke for the first time.
This focus on the African American market caused some consternation within the company and among its affiliates. They did not want to seem focused on black customers for fear that whites would be pushed away. In a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
, Pepsico president Mack, who favored progressive causes and was the impetus for this marketing push, tried to assuage the 500 bottler
Bottler
Bottler may refer to:*Bottling company, a company which mixes drink ingredients and fills up cans and bottles with the drink.*"Bottler" also a name used to describe truck bodies with roll-up side doors specifically designed to carry soda and/or beer bottles, and even propane tanks.*"Bottler" is...
s in attendance by saying, "We don't want it to become known as the nigger
Nigger
Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
drink." Boyd understood that those were not Mack's sentiments. "I didn't forget it, but I didn't hold it against him either," he told the Wall Street Journal. After Mack left the company in 1950, support for the black sales team faded and Boyd was let go.
Wall Street Journal writer Stephanie Capparell argues in her book The Real Pepsi Challenge that Boyd faced a more difficult challenge than Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...
in breaking the color barrier of corporate America. By doing the same work and competing for the same jobs as white people, Boyd's team presented more of a threat to the average white man.
Later life
There were few opportunities for a black man as a business executive at that time, but Boyd's career continued over a variety of public and private sector jobs. He was a mission chief for CARECARE (relief)
CARE is a broad-spectrum secular relief, humanitarian, and development non-governmental organization fighting global poverty. It is non-political, non-sectarian and operates annually in more than 70 countries across the globe.One of the organization’s primary focuses in its fight to eradicate...
, worked with the Society of Ethical Culture, and helped to pioneer alpaca
Alpaca
An alpaca is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in appearance.Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of southern Peru, northern Bolivia, Ecuador, and northern Chile at an altitude of to above sea level, throughout the year...
farming in the U.S.
Boyd's sister, Helen Boyd Howard, was married to Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a surgeon, entrepreneur, and civil rights leader in Mississippi who was a mentor to Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
and Fannie Lou Hamer
Fannie Lou Hamer
Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader....
.
Boyd died in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
due to various complications including a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
he had suffered nearly two months earlier.