Looking to up its credibility with Latino football fans, Golden-based Coors Brewing Co. has introduced a new bilingual Super Bowl promotion.
The commemorative Coors Light packaging features the Super Bowl XLI tagline “One Game. One Dream” in both English and Spanish.
According to the National Football League, 77 percent of bilingual Hispanic men ages 21 to 34 are football fans.
“Bilingual packaging … adds Spanish to what had been English-only packages, so it makes (them) more relevant to Hispanic consumers,” said Coors spokeswoman Kabira Hatland.
While Coors Light is the NFL’s official beer sponsor, the brewer is barred from advertising during the Feb. 4 game by a “category exclusivity” deal between CBS and Anheuser-Busch, maker of the Budweiser and Bud Light brands.
Coors is one of many companies increasing its efforts as the group’s spending clout skyrockets. Hispanic buying power is projected to reach $863.1 billion this year, up from $686 billion in 2004, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia.
Latinos are the country’s largest minority, with 42.7 million people as of July 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“The Hispanic market is so big and it’s growing so fast, you’re going to see more and more new attempts to reach that community effectively,” said Fran Kelly, president of Boston agency Arnold Worldwide and co-author of The Breakaway Brand.
Spanish-language marketing was forecast to grow by 12.9 percent last year, compared with 4.9 percent for all U.S. marketing, said TNS Media Intelligence.
But overall, Hispanic marketing still only accounts for about 5 percent of corporate America’s total ad budget, according to Sonja Rubalcava, director of strategic planning for Phoenix- based Arvizu Advertising & Promotions. Denver-based Qwest is one of its clients.
“It’s still really, really low, but it’s getting better,” said Rubalcava. “These are exciting times because there is a lot of room for growth.”
Although Coors has placed Spanish-focused ads for 20 years, industry insiders have long viewed it as lagging behind its two main competitors – Anheuser-Busch and SABMiller – in reaching Latinos.
“Coors has historically been weakest of the three,” said Harry Schuhmacher, editor and publisher of Beer Business Daily. “But they’ve really come a long way in the past two years.”
The bilingual Coors Light cans are on shelves now in Texas and California, two states with large Hispanic populations, but they will not be introduced in Colorado, the brewer said.
Last year, Toyota Motor Corp. was the first company to launch a bilingual Super Bowl TV ad. It featured a Hispanic father and son speaking in both English and Spanish while discussing the automaker’s new hybrid Camry.
“I thought Toyota was bold to step out and try to target them on the Super Bowl,” said Kelly. “It’s very smart of Coors to do a bilingual effort.”
Staff writer Julie Dunn can be reached at 303-954-1592 or jdunn@denverpost.com.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it misstated the nature of an Anheuser-Busch deal to advertise during the Super Bowl. The deal is with CBS, not the National Football League.
