Consumer baptism by beer
12
April
The Wall Street Journal reports on the beer industry’s attempts to target the Latino market, specifically the youth market, by bombarding them with ads and via donations to Latino non-profits dedicated to education. Overall ad spending in Latino advertising is increasing as well:
Last year, Anheuser-Busch Inc., the St. Louis brewer of Budweiser and Bud Light, created a new division dedicated to marketing to Hispanics and announced it would boost its 2006 ad spending in Hispanic media by two-thirds, to more than $60 million. SABMiller PLC’s Miller Brewing Co. signed a $100 million, three-year ad package with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications Inc.
Beer’s relationship with Latino youth– the industry’s “community based marketing” efforts — sponsoring a young Latino’s education via a Latino non-profit is nothing new. Google the words “Anheuser” and “Hispanic Scholarship Fund”, for example, and you’ll find a evidence of a long-time relationship between this non-profit and the beermaker.
Is this ethical? Or is it the equivalent of placing cigarettes at a child’s eye-level so that the product is assimilated, “mamado” as they say in Spanish, at an early age?
In the WSJ article, AB counters:
“When it comes to preventing underage drinking, we should focus on restricting access, not censoring advertising,” Ms. Coulis says. Brewers say they finance ads promoting designated drivers and discouraging underage drinking. Anheuser is one of the largest corporate contributors to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and a major donor to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, an advocacy group.
That’s a PR person response if I’ve ever heard one. What do you think? Is it ethical for companies — alcohol-related or not — to market to Latinos through “weak points” in the community, like lack of funds to support one’s education, for example?
Take into consideration that, like it or not, beer money is paying for the education of a lot of people.
Leave your comments and let’s debate.
Full disclosure: in a “previous life” I was employed as a part of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s Communications department. To its credit, HSF funds thousands of Latino high school, community college and university students each year — some who, without its help, would not be able to further their education.
Via The Post-Gazette
Technorati Tags: latino marketing, beer, cerveza, alcohol, hispanic marketing, youth, anheuser busch, hispanic advertising
1. perroazul | April 13th, 2006 at 8:28 am
In my mind the only problem here is that A-B, or any other corporate contributor to an organization like the HSF or MALDEF is that despite the size of Hispanic’s contribution to their bottom line, what these large corporations (ttl sls $17 billion) donate is a mere pittance (2005 donation to HSF $650K), but then they feel that gives them the right to throw around PR answers like the one above. Let them make a significant contribution, then I’ll believe them.
2. Emilia | April 13th, 2006 at 10:26 am
$650 million isn’t significant? I challenge you to find other companies who give more back to the Latino community. AB’s contributions go beyond what they give to HSF. Do some research.
3. Emilia | April 13th, 2006 at 10:28 am
Excuse me, I meant 650 THOUSAND.
4. Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | April 13th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Actually, Emilia, the Lilly Endowment (of pharmaceutical company Lilly) gave HSF a 50 million dollar grant back in ‘99, if I remember correctly, and was not at all interested in garnering publicity for it. They just granted them something like 12 million again. That’s significant.
5. perroazul | April 13th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Ok then, flipping the ethics tortilla, if AB, or any other large corporation didn’t think their $650K would ultimately generate consumption of their brands by Hispanics, would they still contribute to HSF? who determines these donations determined by the marketing/pr group or the corporate citizenship group?
Would this large corporation use their $650K to feed starving African/Latin American children? do they?
eso es ayuda desinteresada…
6. Jennifer Woodard Maderazo | April 13th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Exactly, let’s be honest, the real motivation is to make an impact on a community (or a “market”, depending on how you see it) by drumming up sympathy in that community for the company that’s sponsoring the initiative and their brands, in this case beer. The motivation is clear.
As perroazul points out, a lot of businesses are making contributions, but they are being strategic in who they contribute to with regard to how that will ultimately — even if it’s many years down the road — impact their bottom line.
The other night I caught part of a re-run of Oprah which featured Bill Gates and his wife Melinda (their foundation is also an HSF donor) talking about their concern over the American school system and the money they are investing to “help save it”. If there wasn’t ultimately a PR and marketing angle to this, would they appear on Oprah?
It’s helping, yes, but it’s also marketing, and very effective marketing at that.
7. Tania | April 13th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
What’s wrong with a little PR? The money is going to a good cause and the company gets something out of it as well? It’s good business.