Further proof that the secret to success is complaining. Tom Joyner, host of a popular, nationally syndicated morning radio show with a predominantly black audience, and Tavis Smiley, a host on the cable network Black Entertainment Television, recently took aim at computer superstore CompUSA. The two charged that CompUSA -- get this -- didn't spend enough money advertising to blacks (perhaps on BET and Joyner's show?). Over the course of 10 weeks Joyner and Smiley used their shows to hammer at CompUSA, calling the company's top executive James Halpin "ebonically challenged" and complaining that CompUSA had an all-white executive board -- it didn't.
After weeks of public pounding, Halpin the other day did what any corporate honcho would do these days -- he groveled for two hours with Joyner and Smiley in the law offices of Dallas mayor Ron Kirk. Halpin then went on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, said that CompUSA had unwittingly discriminated against blacks, and then promised to hire a black ad agency. But that's not all. Though no one alleged that consumers had been discriminated against on the basis of race, CompUSA agreed to start discriminating: Black customers who had written to Joyner and Smiley will now receive a 10 percent discount on their next purchase (isn't differential price based on race illegal?). At the end of Halpin's radio appearance, Joyner told his listeners, "CompUSA is a good company now."