Question

A few years ago, Anheuser-Busch Inc. created a new division dedicated to marketing to Hispanics and announced it would boost its ad spending in Hispanic media by two-thirds to more than $60 million, while Miller Brewing Co. signed a $100 million, three-year ad package with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision. But Hispanic activists immediately raised public health concerns about the beer ad blitz on the grounds that it targets a population that skews young and is disproportionately likely to abuse alcohol. Surveys of Hispanic youth show that they are much more likely to drink alcohol, get drunk, and engage in binge drinking than their white or black peers. A senior executive at Anheuser-Busch responded, “We would disagree with anyone who suggests beer billboards increase abuse among Latino or other minority communities. It would be poor business for us in today’s world to ignore what is the fastest-growing segment of our population.” Manufacturers of alcohol and tobacco products have been criticized for targeting unwholesome products to certain segments of the market—the aged, ethnic minorities, the disabled, and others.

1) Do you view this as a problem?

2) Should a firm use different criteria in targeting such groups?

3) Should the government oversee and control such marketing activities?

Answer 1

1) In my opinion, targeting a specific community with a blitz with the purpose of increasing business, without considering facts about the community, is an unfair initiative. This is bound to raise health concerns in the community and as a part of the society, it becomes the responsibility of every businessman dealing with unwholesome products to be conscious of the ill effects of their products on the consumers and must perform some market research before they take decisions on any new marketing strategy. I think, the reaction of the senior executive of Anheuser-Busch Inc. to health concerns raised by the community is also a problem. It indicates that the company is only looking at the younger generation as a money making tool and is not considering a different approach to their marketing strategies.

2) Yes, there are many other ways of targeting such groups, which could just bring the product to their notice but at least will not lead to an abuse of the same. Instead of biilboards, the firm could use the social media like Facebook, Twitter etc. The Hispanic group seems to be more populated with younger generation and the younger generation these days are very active on many social networking sites. Thus, the reach to the target group will be much wider through this channel. But care should be taken that this is also done with an appropriate strategy for eg. using a pareto principle approach. This is an approach that uses the 80/20 rule. How can this be applied here? Well, the social content about the product must be 20 percent promotional while the remaining 80 percent should be about the customers - engaging with them and sharing relevant content that they will find valuable, including the ill effects of the unwholesome product. By this, the firm would still be acting responsible in terms of emphasizing the value (ill-effects) to customers while promoting their product.

3) Would agree here that the government should oversee such socially irresponsible and selfish marketing activities and should try to control them. The government should exercise control by way of setting a requirment in the companies act for such firms to seek approval from government for every new marketing strategy, which should provide details of the target group, reasons for the same, the channel of marketing, amount that will be invested for this and to produce a document on market research done. Considering that the unwholesome products brings no nutritional value to the consumers, the government should also levy higher taxes for manufacturing such products which will eventually make these products more expensive and thus less affordable, especially for the aged or minority groups of the society, who are probably the most vulnerable groups.