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Auto Dealer Co-Sponsors Black History Month Advertising Program

28 January 1999

Detroit's Oldest Auto Dealer Co-Sponsors Black History Month Outdoor Advertising Program; Snethkamp Chrysler Plymouth Jeep Helps Sponsor 200 Informational Metro Detroit Boards in February

    DETROIT, Jan. 28 -- With 73 years of automotive retailing
experience, there is not much that Snethkamp Chrysler Plymouth Jeep has not
done, but its latest outdoor advertising program is a "first."
    Snethkamp, with locations on Woodward Avenue in Highland Park and at
Telegraph and Plymouth Roads in Redford, is a sponsor of a 200-board outdoor
advertising program to promote Black History Month in metropolitan Detroit in
February.  Snethkamp is the only automotive retailer to participate in the
program.
    "This advertising program is not designed to sell cars," said Mark
Snethkamp, who represents the third generation of his family in the auto
business in Detroit.  "It is designed to remind everyone that the month of
February is a month to learn more about African American contributions to the
American way of life."
    The Snethkamp name will be sponsoring two poster board messages: one, "the
term 'the real McCoy' refers to inventor Elijah McCoy," and two, "Matthew
Henson was the first American to the North Pole."  The messages are
accompanied by portraits of the men being recognized.
    McCoy was a Detroiter, and one of his many inventions, a machine
lubricator, was copied so much by competitors that it attracted the term, "the
real McCoy."  Henson accompanied Admiral Robert E. Peary on man's first
recorded trip to the North Pole on April 6, 1909.