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It was before Rosa Parks. It was before Brown Vs. Board of Education. It was before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in Major League Baseball.

It was the 1940s and the Pepsi-Cola Co. was fighting the cola wars against rival Coca-Cola. Pepsi was based in the North. Coke was in the South. Pepsi offered a 12-ounce bottle for the same price as Coke's 6-ounce bottle — which attracted black consumers. Coke's leadership was linked to segregationist views.

To put Pepsi ahead of Coke, Pepsi president Walter S. Mack decided to hire a team of black salesman and utilize multicultural marketing before there was such a term.

To learn more about current best practices in multicultural marketing from the leaders in The 2006 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®, attend our webinar on Jan. 22, featuring presentations by Wells Fargo, No. 17 on the Top 50, and Lexus, part of Toyota Motor North America, No. 29.

What was PepsiCo's mission way back when? "To become intertwined in the community so they [black consumers] would look at you favorably and buy [Pepsi]," said Jean F. Emmons, 82, and one of the members of Pepsi's black sales team.

Emmons and five of his Pepsi colleagues, who still are alive, Julian C. Nicholas, 85, William R. Simms, 92, Allen L. McKellar, 87, Charles E. Wilson, 80, and Edward F. Boyd, 92, the director of the black sales team, gathered together at New York City's Michelangelo Hotel last night to celebrate the release of "The Real Pepsi Challenge" a book that details Pepsi's struggle with race and the team's trials and tribulations in defining the black consumer market.

"Much of the foundation that exists with the African-American market they established," said Maurice Cox, vice president corporate development and diversity at PepsiCo, No. 18 on The 2006 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity® list.

PepsiCo, starting with this framework, went on to become one of the first companies to be a national diversity leader, a position it has retained even as diversity management evolves. The Coca-Cola Co. came later to the game and faced serious challenges, including the largest racial-discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history. Coke's transformation into a diversity leader, No. 3 on the 2006 Top 50, is chronicled in the January/February issue of DiversityInc magazine, available shortly.

How PepsiCo Did It First

"Boyd and them came up with the idea of breaking down market sets and ... established how to segment the market — that's still important," said Cox, who is black and a 25-year PepsiCo veteran.

Mack initially tried to court black consumers with three salesman but stopped that effort when the company faced sugar rationing during World War II. In 1947, he hired Boyd, a onetime singer and actor working then for the National Urban League in New York, to create the new sales and marketing division.

Boyd through his connections at the National Urban League assembled his black sales team. The team traversed the nation, which was extremely difficult because in most cities blacks could not stay in hotels, bringing Pepsi to black community organizations, such as Shriners and Links. They visited black churches, schools and college campuses, YMCAs, insurance conventions, and teacher's and doctor's conferences.

They also developed multicultural print marketing that featured black Americans as middle-class consumers. Boyd's print advertisements countered the negative black stereotypes that companies — ironically including Pepsi — aired on television, radio and featured in print at the time.

'Normal Americans'

"We'd been caricatured and stereotyped," said Boyd. "The advertisements represented us as normal Americans."

Boyd's print advertisements were published in black magazines and newspapers and featured about 20 "Leaders in their fields." The campaign began in April 1948 with United Nations diplomat Ralph Bunche. Also featured was acclaimed and celebrated black photographer Gordon Parks. In total Boyd launched three major press campaigns from 1948 to 1951.

"The 'Leaders' ads were for the press," said Boyd. "We wanted to make [black] leaders known — normal people making contributions in normal ways — so we got people who could be role models."

Next Boyd created a point-of-sale advertising campaign that featured a successful black family. The mother was played by Sylvia Fitt and the son was Ron Brown, whose father managed a hotel in Harlem. Brown grew up to become Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration.

So is this a feel-good story? Not entirely. The team was disbanded after Mack left the company to be replaced by former Coca-Cola executive Alfred N. Steele, who was more interested in global expansion than domestic multicultural marketing. The decision to market to black consumers was left to local white managers so Boyd's team was dispersed throughout the company. Most quit soon after.

Today diversity is about casting a wider net and seeking talent in non-traditional arenas to get the best and brightest of all people. Their story demonstrates the success of that effort.

"There's a responsibility with business to cater to its best interests and that is to cast the net wide and ensure equality," said Cox. "These men are our version of the Tuskegee Airman."

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