The TL is in disarray so I’m gonna share some awesome commercials starring Black folk. Advertising that catered to Bllk ppl was rarely seen before the 60s &70s. But there was an explosion in the 1970s following the signing of the Civil Rights Act & formation of the Black Pantherspic.twitter.com/5RIqds6R4G
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“Beautiful products for a beautiful people.” Afrosheen really had the Black empowerment advertising on lock. (I’m sure y’all recognize where a certain GIF comes from)pic.twitter.com/EQ9UBM0NZK
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Another Afrosheen advert that shows the versatility of Black hairpic.twitter.com/8zOnC7GNVJ
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Here’s Gladys Knight and the Pips endorsing Coca Cola.(Them and McDonald’s would have some of the most memorable commercials of all time.)pic.twitter.com/5w2s0eNFuK
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Going into the 80s we have more adverts around relaxers...pic.twitter.com/wtTh21I7Yq
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Here’s Debbie Allen showing off her beautiful dancing skills for Dark and Lovely.pic.twitter.com/hY7B2nVBDA
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And Black women weren’t the only ones who had hair adverts targeting them. This product called “Players” is so 80’s I can’t stand it



. It came with a cassette tape for the instructions 

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Here’s another one. Apparently in the 80s hair companies thought that the “Ladies Man” approach was best in order to Getz Black men to buy their products. I am HOLLERING at how cheesy this is



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Here’s Auntie ‘Retha shouting the great deals we can get from Pizza Hut in the 80s(she knew that The Hut was superior to Domnoes even then)pic.twitter.com/7rKEIVgwvi
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And here’s her bringing her talent to Amoco(I haven’t seen an Amoco in years). “Come on, what’s the Queen of Soul know about gasoline!?!?!” “Baby, Nothing...”



Rest In Peace Auntie ‘Retha.pic.twitter.com/St4TkMtHdyShow this thread -
Here’s a couple of Iconic commercials featuring Michael Jordan. This is one of the first Air Jordan adverts.pic.twitter.com/0mgbr8XPVs
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Here’s a “Be Like Mike” advert. I didn’t know this slogan came from Gatorade, I’d assumed it was coined by Nike.pic.twitter.com/YYS9DFPXQV
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Going back into the hair adverts here’s a PCJ commercial aimed at mothers. (The 80s is where many of our mothers started setting us up for failure with these relaxers)pic.twitter.com/J2lVwQpbSU
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Going into the early 90s a rival kiddie relaxer came out swinging with this extremely cute commercial(that I still know by heart). This advert also stars a future member of one of the most successful girl groups of all time.pic.twitter.com/JNtADn2Yze
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Similar to the UNCF advert upthread we would get more serious commercials like this Black History Minute with a certain Harvard Law graduatepic.twitter.com/OQzOFmSPQu
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Here’s an interesting one from the mid 90s. Soft & Beautiful decided to utilize the working woman aesthetic to drag Optimum and Dark & Lovely.pic.twitter.com/Nl8Yg0TFYb
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Here’s Soft and Beautiful’s sister line Botanicals using the Ladies night theme. “Girl this Botanical oil is da bomb...”(


I will still use “the bomb” once and awhile)pic.twitter.com/pu6R3tN93nShow this thread -
I’ve never even heard of this relaxer, I just though it was interesting how they were attempting to sell it as “all natural” AND how the were selling it online. (You can tell this is one of those adverts they had on late nights along with infomercials because it’s pretty long)pic.twitter.com/6Rg8ApwFwd
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Still staying in infomercial territory but moving away from hair for a bit, here’s our favorite psychic, Miss Cleo. Miss Cleo really dragged this woman while jumping in and out of a Jamaican accent, I CAN’T




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One popular tactic in advertising is having multiple commercials be connected and tell a story. One of the popular sets of connected commercials is McDonald’s “Calvin” seriespic.twitter.com/HoTl3tK1XC
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“CALVIN?!?!?!? CALVIN THAT USED TO HANG OUT ON THE CORNER?!?!”pic.twitter.com/BOfb4C27Mh
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I’m gonna go ahead and end off this thread(for now) With Coca Cola’s own interconnected commercials from the early to mid 90s. These weren’t necessarily story driven like “Calvin’s Story” but just tangentially related.pic.twitter.com/RuztxGVtTJ
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And this last one(at least for now) introduced us to a damn good(but later on problematic) R&B singer in Tyrese. He would go on to recreate this commercial in his video “One Sweet Lady”pic.twitter.com/KXpCY1JOmC
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Just one more that I found from early 90s era Coca Cola is Selena singing her tail off. It doesn’t match the rest of the thread but I thought it was really cool.pic.twitter.com/At4TOE9JJs
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End of conversation
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