American businesses are realizing that World Cup coverage is opening new doors to them with new advertising opportunities.
With American interest in soccer at its peak, businesses are quite literally cashing in on opportunities to market to demographics they usually don’t.
The Latino market is the one market to which more and more American businesses are starting to reach out.
While some of the American soccer audience has dwindled after the United States’ loss to Ghana, the Latino-American audience is still deeply invested into the World Cup, something businesses are thrilled about. Companies like Dunkin’ Donuts, Powerade and Anheuser-Busch are among those American companies launching ad campaigns geared toward the Latino population.
It makes sense that these companies would start to launch ad campaigns towards the Latino market, with it being the fastest growing demographic in terms of buying power in the United States.
“Most organizations are convinced at this point that it would be foolish of them not to grab a piece of that audience,” Greg Almeida said on WGBH’s The Callie Crossley Show (fast-forward to the 15-minute mark). Almeida is an ethnic media consultant and the president of Global View Communications.
ESPN.com’s Maria Burns Ortiz speculated that the Latino market presents a marketing opportunity of upward of $1 trillion every year, citing the broad range of people that the market reaches.
“You’re really pulling in a lot more people than you normally would,” she said of the Latino market. “And with the World Cup, you’re guaranteeing that virtually — and I don’t even think this is over-stretching it — that the majority of Latinos are going to be watching those games. You have such a huge market out there to be tapping.”
American businesses certainly have tried to do so during the World Cup. Dunkin’ Donuts is running Spanish ad campaigns in four of their larger markets, as are Powerade and Anheuiser-Busch.
While gearing ad campaigns towards the Latino market has its potential economic benefits for these companies, they must do so without looking like they are just temporarily cashing in on a marketing opportunity.
“I think it’s a good idea, but I question what the long-term commitment to Latino marketing is, beyond the World Cup, and how they’re interacting with the Latino community more deeply or on a more grassroots level,” Almeida said.
John Gilbert, the vice president of marketing for Dunkin’ Donuts, agrees with Almeida, saying that his company is employing a “genuine authentic attempt to be inclusive rather than a lesser-quality approach of voice-overs in another spot.”
“There is a real value in the Latino community that deserves an ongoing, intelligent, respectful interactions with this group,” Almeida said in reply to Gilbert’s statement but Almeida was quick to add “Hopefully it’s more of a value-driven proposition as opposed to a reactive, ‘Lets stay out of trouble, let’s CYA, let’s check off the box’ type of strategy.”
