AB CASE STUDIES: Using Black Slang For Sales
An analysis of how Black vernacular went from symbolizing poor grammar to becoming the new 'cool' among millennial-centric brands
The dialect spoken by African Americans was called Black Vernacular English by sociolinguists in the '70s and '80s, but has more recently been given the name African American Vernacular English (AAVE) (e.g., Baugh 1991, Smitherman 1991). Vernacular refers to dialects that incorporate nonstandard language forms.
It has been estimated that approximately 80% of African Americans use AAVE to some extent (e.g., Dillard 1972 in Williams & Qualls 1989).
Many years ago, people believed AAVE was nothing more than distorted Standard English, spoken by unintelligent or uneducated people. But sociolinguistic research has shown that AAVE is a complex, highly consistent dialect that follows grammatical rules to the same extent as do the more socially accepted forms of English
(Wolfram 1991).
AAVE is truly a dialect of English, not just slang. And these days, its clout seems to be off the charts among the mainstream culture - causing major contention among its creators and the people who profit from using it.
Black slang, also known as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), is nothing new. But what IS new is mainstream culture’s unfiltered access into how these terms and phrases come about thanks to social media — and of course, Black Twitter specifically.
During the social media era, what was once considered a sign of a lack of education, culture, or class became the ultimate signals of cools. So as to be expected, it didn’t take long for it to be sharecropped by mainstream brands.
While AAVE terms popularized on social media are often associated with millennials and the ‘cool kids,’ they are, in reality, slang terms that were created by Black youth — then spread and circulated on social media before mainstream brands get a hold of them — and use them in their marketing to appear ‘cool’ and ‘edgy’ to their millennial target audience.
Brands like Taco Bell have gone as far as to introduce the ”Millennial Word of the Week” into their marketing tactics, in which a group of 20-something employees curates a list of words and phrases used by youth and distributes it throughout the company via email to then be used in their marketing language.
“While the recent embracing of AAVE is largely down to the influence of Black Twitter, using black culture and people to sell products is not new at all. In fact, it has a very problematic history, where brands used very racist stereotypes of black people — blackface, minstrelsy, the mammy figure, etc. — to sell their wares, from household goods, appliances, and groceries to toys, restaurants, and even tobacco. And this pernicious legacy persists to this day, as the recent decisions to re-brand Aunt Jemima Syrup and Uncle Ben’s Rice will attest."
Many argue that black culture today is portrayed in a positive light, worlds away from Jim Crow-era advertising. On the surface, perhaps. What we see now may point to an appreciation of black culture, but this appreciation and celebration of ‘cool black people’ still relies on stereotypes, even if benevolent.”
Sources: The Association of Consumer Research, Patrick Marché, Medium