TheLoop21.com

By: Roland Laird | TheLoop21 (Add to your loop)
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 00:00

Mary J. Blige becomes a part of the major marketing move with the Carol's Daughter Brand

The July 31 release of Mary J. Blige’s “My Life” fragrance to be sold exclusively on HSN, under the Carol’s Daughter brand, is more than just a major marketing move for Carol’s Daughter. By having a high-profile face like Blige’s hawking products for a black-owned company, it also represents a promising step forward for black-owned companies serving the black community.

Back in the mid 1980s my sister and I invested in a black-owned toy company called the Olmec Corporation. Olmec produced an action figure called Sun Man. Sun Man had a degree of popularity and Olmec made it easy for regular old folk to become sales people--selling Sun Man, both wholesale and retail. Though this grassroots approach had some success, it occurred at a time when Run-DMC’s “My Addidas” pushed Addidas sales through the roof, and Michael Jordan and Mars Blackmon (aka Spike Lee) helped do the same for Nike. Given the success that these young black celebrities created for white-owned companies, I often wondered why Olmec never aggressively approached the up-and-coming young black celebrities of the day to do the same for Sun Man? Granted I was young and didn’t understand business practices as I do now, but it seemed like a valid question.

In hindsight, the answer was simple: Timing. Though there were available black product pitchers for Olmec, the entrepreneurial mentality of young celebrities of the day hadn’t begun to crest in the way that it did for Lisa Price when she founded Carol’s Daughter in her kitchen in the early 1990s. So as Price began growing her business, first through mail order, and then by establishing a retail store in Brooklyn, there were successful business-minded black executives and celebrities like Steve Stoute and Jay-Z to invest heavily in her company and help it grow quickly.

Even before 2006, when Blige came on board as a spokesperson and investor in Carol’s Daughter, Price had established a business model that made heavy use of black star power. What makes the upcoming product launch with Blige so special, however, is that Blige is the first Carol’s Daughter supporter with a built-in black female customer base. Granted Jada Pinkett Smith became a spokesperson a year earlier than Blige and currently has a product line called Jada’s Dynamic Duo; but Smith doesn’t have the cachet with black women that Blige does.

Read more:

• Mary J. Blige Gets GED, Set To Attend Howard University
• Hip-Hop’s contribution to black poverty
• Blacks missing out on a financial rebound

Even at 39, Blige still appeals to the young, urban black women that could take Carol’s Daughter to new heights. What’s so exciting about this pairing is not just the potential for more revenue for Carol’s Daughter, but that revenue could be transformative.

Despite Carol’s Daughter’s healthy bottom line, it is still a niche within a niche and far from a household name among black women. Take a walk through any inner city neighborhood in the country, you see that the retail market for black women’s beauty products is dominated by Koreans, and most of these products run counter to the organic, natural image of Carol’s Daughter.