Burrell Seeks Target for Toyota

Tom Burrell said he doubts his agency would ever produce an ad featuring a gold inlay on the tooth of an African American man.

But the CEO of Burrell Communications admits even his shop, one of the oldest African American agencies in the country, is not immune to an occasional misfire in its efforts to attract an ethnic target.

“Appealing to the African American market is a very delicate issue,” Burrell said. “There’s a very fine line between offensiveness and effectiveness.”

Saatchi & Saatchi, the lead agency for Burrell’s newest client, Toyota, was deemed to have crossed that line earlier this summer by Rev.