Example Of Targeting Hispanics Essay

According the authors of the article, “Targeting Hispanics,” there has been a controversial campaign that aims to segment the Hispanic community on the cigarette and alcohol market. The fundamental claim of this article is that the tobacco and alcohol companies have introducing advertising campaigns that aim to increase the alcohol and tobacco consumption among the Hispanics. The authors argue that subsequent of the “marketing ‘savvy’ of the alcohol and tobacco companies” there has been an increase of smoking and drinking among the Hispanic community (Maxwell and Michael 98). Mainly, the segmented alcohol and tobacco campaign targets the two most vulnerable groups in the Hispanic community, i.e. women and young people. These two groups have been known of customary having low rates of smoking and drinking.
However, the alcohol and tobacco companies have refuted the argument that they are a discriminatory advertising campaign and ethnic segmentation in relation to their products. The companies view these issues as an allegation against them to try recruiting the Hispanics to engage in smoking and drinking behaviors. They suggest that they are attempting to penetrate the Hispanic market after conducting a typical market research and realize that Hispanics and Blacks enjoy smoking. The author argues that the companies have realized that “there’s a large percentage of smokers in these groups, so let’s get out message to them” (Maxwell and Michael 98). However, the authors doubt whether the companies’ main aim is to maintain their market share and their market competition from other brands. The authors suggest that these companies have tarnished their reputation in their existing market and are now looking for new customer base for survival.
Additionally, the authors have produced substantial evidences that the show the connection of the alcohol and tobacco companies and targeting the Hispanic. For instance, the authors have established claim that among the six top advertisers, three of them were cigarettes and alcohol companies promoting diseases. These companies included Philip Morris, Anheuser-Busch, and Adolph Coors. In addition, various slogan such as “The Decade of the Hispanic” and “Lady and the Tiger” that have been associated with the alcohol and tobacco adverts. Certainly, this shows that the companies have a connection between their “disease-promoting” advertisements and the target for Hispanic communities (Maxwell and Michael 98).
According to Aguirre-Molina, the alcohol and tobacco companies know about the ethnic culture more than the health service provider do. She suggested “many of the alcohol ads focus on aspects of the Hispanic Culture. The companies have gathered sufficient information that has helped them to understand the cultural themes and hence use them to “legitimize the use of alcohol” among Hispanics (Maxwell and Michael 101). For instance, the “Lady and the Tiger” slogan was featured on billboards that were “strategically placed in ethnic neighborhoods” (Maxwell and Michael 100). Similarly, on the media such themes have been running in all major ethnic markets. This implies that the alcohol companies have strongly and strategically developed advertising campaign that targets on some ethnic groups. In addition, such companies aim to spread the message showing that that heavy drinking is associated with sexual conquest. According to the authors, “G. Heileman Brewing Co. announced it was rolling out a dry malt brew called Colt 45 Dry, which it planned to aim at Hispanic and Black Drinkers” in 1989 (Maxwell and Michael 101).
However, despite the evidence provided to implicate alcohol and cigarette companies with smoking and drinking among Hispanic, the authors failed to show the validity of the argument. First, the article does not show direct effects of alcohol and smoking ads to the Hispanic community. In addition, the authors assumed that the Hispanic community did not have the intellect to decide on their own about drinking and smoking. Significantly, the authors failed to consider the fact that the alcohol and cigarette are prohibited to less than 18 years old children. Therefore, apart from alcohol and cigarette ads, there have been various factors that could have resulted in drinking and smoking. Significantly, there has been no enough evidence to show that only Hispanic has been discriminated by these campaigns.

Works Cited

Maxwell, Bruce, and Michael F. Jacobson. "Targeting Hispanics." Marketing Disease to Hispanics: The Selling of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Junk Foods. Washington: Center for Science in the Public Interest, 1989. 98-104. Print.