African American spending power is projected to reach an estimated $965 billion by 2010. With growth in income, an increase in buying power, and greater access to capital by minority markets, companies want to target minority communities. And the recent hire of Southfield Michigan-based advertising agency GlobalHue Inc. by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world’s largest retailer, is part of a new multicultural advertising initiative.

The contract with Wal-Mart is GlobalHue’s third largest behind Chrysler and Verizon Communications.

“We are excited about working with Wal-Mart and its partners to attract and retain a diverse group of customers,” says Donald A. Coleman, chairman and CEO of GlobalHue. “Wal-Mart is a strategic fit for us and we’re mapping out ways to cross brand and cross-promote with other clients to leverage existing relationships.”

Coleman, a former NFL linebacker, worked at big general-market ad agencies in Detroit before creating Don Coleman Advertising, in 1988. By 2002 he combined his firm with Hispanic agency Montemayor y Asociados and Asian agency Innovasia Communications to form GlobalHue.

Now it is the nation’s largest minority-owned full-service multicultural communications agency with 220 employees, $550 million in billings for 2006, and offices in New York and Los Angeles.
 
Anthony Soto, Wal-Mart’s senior manager of Supplier Diversity, who has worked closely with Coleman, says, "We are committed to increasing and promoting the sourcing of goods and services from minority and women owned businesses.”  “To support this effort, we have a dedicated team of associates that serves as advocates for minority and women owned businesses, helping them expand and promote their business with Wal-Mart and Sam's Club.”

The supplier diversity team works with the company’s top 250 suppliers to encourage them to report their spending with minority and women owned businesses, as it relates to the business they do with Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. “The team monitors this information on a regular basis to get an overall picture of what our suppliers are doing and encourages them to continue their efforts,” Soto adds.

Despite negative press in recent years about Wal-Mart’s relations with black communities, the company’s supplier diversity program has grown from $2 million initially spent with minority and women-owned businesses to $1 billion spent in 2001 and more than $4.2 billion in 2006.

In 2005, Wal-Mart established a 2nd Tier program, which encourages its 1st Tier  suppliers to report what they spend with women and minority-owned businesses, as it relates to the business they do with Wal-Mart. In 2006, Wal-Mart’s 2nd Tier spending was more than $931 million, bringing its combined spending with women and minority-owned businesses to more than $5.1 billion.

“Our mission,” says Soto, “is to be a business partner of choice, working closely with diverse suppliers to provide products and services for the varied needs of our customers."

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Wal-Mart's True Colors (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and Global Hue Inc.) is an extract from "A Perfect Match: Black-Owned Companies & the Billion Dollar Roundtable," which first appeared in: USBE&IT Fall 2007 Career and Supplier Diversity http://viewda.com/webpaper/ccg/usbecsd/