....Hip-hop delivers a potent demographic. Last year hip-hop accounted for 21 percent of $5.4 billion in music sales in urban areas, according to Soundscan, a system that tracks the sales of music and music video products in the United States.
Advertisers have also begun to focus on 18- to 34-year-olds, the age group that mainly listens to hip-hop. In the last five years, advertisers have increased their spending to $40.3 million from $28.7 million, according to research by Wilkofsky Gruen Associates, an economic consultants group in New York City.
David Mays, the founder and chief executive officer of The Source, the hip-hop magazine, said that in just one year, he has seen a difference in the way advertisers approach his business. Last year, The Source ran three pages of car advertisements, he said. This year, he projects that the publication will have 35 pages of car ads by the end of the year.
"Once our audience takes to a particular product, their influence is tremendous on the rest of the population," Mr. Mays said. "For years, automakers designed and marketed their products to the baby boom generation. But what they all have found in the past couple of years is that in order to go forward, they have to appeal to the new generation."
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