Dr. Sabrina Kizzie Speaks On The Undeniable Black Millennial Consumer Power

Dr. Sabrina Kizzie, an award-winning social media lecturer within the Department of Communication Studies at CUNY Baruch College in NYC, devoted over seven years to conducting research that she believes cannot deny the power of the Black millennial trend to spend.

After presenting her doctoral dissertation, Kizzie kicked off the new year on primetime television. She appeared on CBS-TV in an exclusive segment featuring her groundbreaking research titled, New Study Explores Black Millennials Spending Power.

“There is a critical need for research that explicitly examines Black millennials‘ advertising perspective due to differences in their cultural and lived experiences compared to other racial groups of millennials,” Dr. Kizzie tells BLACK ENTERPRISE.

Kizzie’s research was conducted as part of her dissertation, The Effects of Black Millennials’ Perceptions on the Acceptance of Mobile Advertising, while attending California Southern University. She surveyed 158 Black millennial participants in the United States from January 2022 to the end of February 2022.

The online data gathered anonymous demographic information such as education, region, and work industry, revealing current findings on Black millennials’ acceptance of mobile advertising and its impact on their buying of products and services.

“More academic market research like this study is needed to add information about the perceptions of a consumer segment, Black/African American millennials, that has not been addressed in any prior research,” Kizzie says.

“Future studies are needed on this generational cohort—increasing awareness of this topic through conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and professional business publications.”

According to a 2019 Nielsen Media Research study, Black consumers were expected to spend at an annual rate of 1.54 trillion in 2022. This massive buying power is projected to reach $1.8T by 2024 as Black millennials lead the way with the highest average time spent on cell phones (2.47 hours/minutes) over all other ethnic groups in smartphone usage. They also spend nearly half an hour more per day than the total U.S. population.

One of many findings from Kizzie’s research revealed that Black millennials are more likely to spend due to their interest in entertaining mobile ad messaging.

“It is essential that marketers and advertisers recognize how millennials use mobile devices as they have matured to a point in life where they embody a large portion of the workforce and therefore represent a consumer segment with the type of wealth that translates into buyer power,” says Kizzie.

Highly educated, high-spending consumer groups such as Black/African American millennials are early adopters of technology. They offer a valuable opportunity for businesses amid high mobile device usage rates, high acceptance rates of smartphone advertising, and how they drive and influence trends. However, they are marginalized and often overlooked.

“Many marketers are taking a one size fits all approach in marketing to millennials, not realizing that Black millennials have different needs than their other millennial counterparts, Dr. Kizzie tells BLACK ENTERPRISE.

“This valuable consumer segment should be noticed. Businesses need to know how to drive sales, develop trust, build brand loyalty, and tap into their immense spending power. Advertising dollars need to be focused on Black millennials.”

In today’s landscape, diversity in digital media is critical to building trust with consumers, Kizzie says. Consumers, especially millennials, want to “buy from brands that share their values and represent them in their ads and commercials.”

“Brands that have taken the time to examine market research and speak directly to this cohort to determine what matters to them and what influenced their purchasing decisions will ultimately benefit from their strong buying power,” Kizzie says.

Kizzie will bring her speaking and networking prowess to BLACK ENTERPRISE’s Women of Power Summit on March 9–11 in Las Vegas.