The importance of marketing to a diverse demographic is becoming increasingly important for many brewers as the youthful African American and Hispanic populations come of drinking age. What this means is less ads and marketing materials touting the traditional white, frat boy image and more spots featuring a crossover appeal.  According to Paul Chibe, Anheuser-Bush InBev’s Vice President of U.S Marketing, “Ethnic marketing is now the mainstream”.

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This trend, however, should not be confused with segmentation, as many brands have found better success with more inclusive general marketing. Brands that are adopting this approach, such as Bud Light, Miller Lite and Coors Light, are often reaping the rewards and receiving higher perception scores among millennial African Americans and Hispanic youth. Coors Light, a brand which has generally under performed in minority markets, saw all of last year’s growth powered by ethnic markets, and is doing more testing with general-market ads within African American and Hispanic communities “to make sure they see themselves in the work just as much as the overall market does,” said Al Patel, VP-multi-cultural marketing for Miller Coors. However, it’s not just a trend of multi-racial inclusion that we’re seeing in beer marketing and advertising, it’s a blurring of the lines as well. Take, for example, a Coors Light advertisement which features hip-hop artist Ice Cube arguing with a Coors Light about who is, in fact, colder. While the advertisement was originally conceived as an African American-targeted campaign, it stole the show when it debuted at a distributors meeting in front of an overwhelmingly white crowd of wholesalers, and has gone on to be well received by viewers of all ethnic backgrounds. With the rapidly changing demographics of the United States, these marketers and advertisers are smart to get on board with inclusive marketing sooner rather than later.

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