themarketingmonitor

Ford and Hispanic Federation Team Up to Fight Hunger in the NYC Latino Community

Ford Motor Company Fund and the Hispanic Federation launched a hunger relief initiative, Partners on the Go, today through the donation of 15,000 meals to the Southside United Housing Development Fund Corp’s (Los Sures) food pantry. The main goal of this anti-hunger effort is to raise awareness of food insecurity within Latino communities and implement a grassroots hunger relief action plan to help alleviate it.

A central component of the initiative is Ford’s donation of a Transit Connect van to the Hispanic Federation. This small cargo van, ideal for urban settings like New York City, will provide the Federation with greater mobility and support for food pantries throughout the five boroughs and to serve the growing needs of its nearly 100 member agencies.

“Ford is helping the Hispanic Federation fulfill a key need in the New York Latino community through the Partners on the Go initiative,” said Lillian Rodriguez-Lopez, President of the Hispanic Federation. “Food insecurity is a growing problem in our community. The Transit Connect will enable us to provide additional resources to our member agencies’ anti-hunger programs.”

According to the Food Bank NYC, two out of five (43 percent) Hispanic residents experienced difficulty affording necessary food in 2010. A recent USDA survey found that rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average (14.7 percent) for Hispanic households, with 26.9 percent reporting food insecurity.

“At Ford we support programs that help improve communities,” said Jim Vella, President of the Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services. “Through our partnership with the Hispanic Federation we are proud to help New York City families get access to essential food needs.”

Following the announcement, more than 50 families received food made possible by a monetary donation from Ford Fund. Los Sures Food Pantry provides year-round support to some of the most vulnerable families in New York City.

“We are so grateful for Ford’s food donation, which will allow us to provide much needed meals to the more than 450 families who rely on our food pantry monthly,” said Robin Sirota Bassin, Social Service Director, Los Sures. “This donation is particularly important because our pantry shelves are literally almost bare during these tough economic times when funding is not secure.”

Through the Partners on the Go initiative, Ford and the Hispanic Federation will organize a food drive at the Hispanic Federation’s Get Up Get Moving Health Fair in August and a series of food collection activities leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. The Transit Connect Van will travel to different locations in the five New York City Boroughs to collect food for the Hispanic Federation member agencies who manage food pantries.

The Hispanic Federation member agencies who will receive the food donations are the Coalition for Hispanic Family Services; Comunilife, Inc.; Community Association of Progressive Dominicans (A.C.D.P.); Davidson Community Center; Institute for Puerto Rican/Hispanic Elderly; Puerto Rican Family Institute; Los Sures; and Spanish Speaking Elderly Council (R.A.I.C.E.S.)

Ford has a long history of supporting initiatives that help fight hunger. An ongoing relationship with Feeding America and Newman’s Own to support the Partnership for Hunger Relief has delivered more than 78 million meals to people in hard-to-reach communities. Ford also launched the Ford Mobile Pantries program to help social service organizations pick up and distribute food to those in need. Ford Transit Connect Vans are now used in South Florida, Atlanta, Detroit, San Antonio, Phoenix, and Nashville and for Red Cross deliveries in Nashville and San Diego.

For more information on “Partners on the Go” and the Hispanic Federation’s hunger efforts, please visit http://www.hispanicfederation.org.

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/hispanicprwire/2011/7/20/ford_and_hispanic_federation_team_up.htm

Soccer scores by reaching Latinos

Visit the webpage for ESPN Deportes, a 24-hour Spanish-language sports network, and “Fútbol” (soccer) is listed prominently as the first tab, with subheadings dedicated to soccer leagues around the world.1 This is not the case for the general ESPN homepage, which has soccer listed as the last of a number of individual sports.2 The difference in focus shows the popularity of soccer among Latinos.

Another testament to the growing soccer market is the network GolTV, which launched in 2003 as the first television network in the U.S. dedicated fully to soccer programming. The bilingual network, headquartered in Florida, uses the slogan “Tu fútbol, tu canal” (Your football, your channel). Each year GolTV broadcasts over 1,500 games that viewers can opt to watch in either English or Spanish.

Soccer leagues both in and outside of the country are marketing to U.S. Latinos. Advertisers are taking advantage of the array of marketing opportunities that the sport provides and using it to reach Latino consumers.
Major League Soccer embraces Latino community

Virtually all professional sports leagues are courting Latinos, but soccer has a leg up because 85% of Latinos living in the U.S. have roots in countries where soccer clearly dominates as the most popular sport. Don Garber, commissioner of Major League Soccer (MLS), says that the Latino market is “part of the league’s DNA,” referring to the fact that the league’s efforts to reach this group are “ingrained in its core.”

The MLS, a professional soccer league based in the U.S., has been successful with this market– Latinos made up 40% of the fans attending MLS games in the past year. Latinos make up 33% of the MLS fan base, far ahead of the NBA (16%), NFL (13%) and baseball (12.9%). The league’s popularity hasn’t come just because many Latinos already like soccer; it is also a result of the MLS’ continuing outreach to the Latino community.

League-wide initiatives, such as youth tournaments and club partnerships with local soccer leagues, “illustrate the league’s commitment to serving the Hispanic market.” A central part of promoting the MLS is increasing its visibility in the community. Individual clubs help do this by sponsoring community events. For instance, the D.C. United club holds an annual Latin American Festival to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and also runs several free soccer clinics for kids as part of a community soccer series.4

The MLS has made it a priority to integrate Latinos into every level of their business operations, with the goal of making their personnel reflective of the fans they are trying to attract. Forty-percent of employees in the league office are bilingual. The league has three national Spanish-TV broadcast partners, more than any other league. In addition, half of the clubs have a person who is specifically designated to deal with Spanish-language media. “MLS clubs are doing some unique things to try to reach [Latinos]…On a league-wide level they really recognize the spending power of the Hispanic community and their affinity for soccer,” explains Marisabel Muñoz, director of international communications for MLS and Soccer United Marketing.4
International soccer marketable across the border

Leagues and teams based outside of the U.S. are also making a big impact in the Latino market. One great example is the Mexican National Team, known as “El Tri,” which has “built a profitable export business north of its borders,” primarily with an annual U.S. tour that attracts large audiences and millions of multi-generational Latino viewers. Among the team’s impressive list of sponsors: Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, AT&T, Visa, Chase, Home Depot, Allstate, Adidas and Jose Cuervo. One of the focal points of these advertisers is the annual five-game U.S. tour, which provides an invaluable opportunity to reach passionate audiences.

Out of the 45 million Latinos living in the U.S., roughly 65% are of Mexican origin, which helps explain how the Mexican National team has built such a large fan base outside of its home country. “There are two national [soccer] teams in the United States. One with red, white and blue, and one with red, white and green,” says Doug Quinn, president of Soccer United Marketing, a company held jointly by the owners of MLS. Major League Soccer, with 15 teams and a full league schedule, is still the highest-grossing property for Soccer United Marketing. However, the Mexican national team ranks second and brings in nearly equal revenue to the U.S. national team.

Mexican soccer in general, not just the Mexican national team, has drawn large U.S. audiences. On the Spanish-language network Telemundo, 12 of the 15 top-rated sporting events in the last year featured the Mexican national team, with the other three top-rated games from the Mexican league.5 On the competing network Univision, 34 of the 35 top-rated sporting events featured teams from the Mexican league, with audiences ranging from 750,000 to 3.3 million. The other top-rated sporting event on Univision was the February 2009 game between Mexico and the U.S., which attracted an audience of 5.9 million, more viewers than any other sporting event in the history of Spanish-language television.

Soccer sells itself
In the most recent ESPN Deportes Sports Poll, which surveys fans in both Spanish and English, the four properties attracting the largest number of U.S. Latino fans are all from the soccer world: World Cup (34% of Latinos say they are avid fans), Mexican league (25%), CONCACAF Gold Cup (19%) and Copa Libertadores (19%). The CONCACAF Gold Cup and Copa Liberatores are soccer tournaments featuring teams from Central and South America. Although they are not very well-known in the mainstream sports world, Latino fans rank them even with boxing (19%) and ahead of MLB (18%), the Summer Olympics (17%) and the NBA (17%).

The amount of money that networks are willing to pay for the rights to air big-time soccer games shows the value of this market. This was the case with the negotiations for rights to the next two World Cups from FIFA. Univision paid $325 million for the Spanish-language rights to air World Cup games in the U.S. and ESPN paid $100 million to air the games in English.

As of June 2009, Univision was already reporting that it had sold 65% of its coverage of the 2010 World Cup, numbers that network executives said were on pace to beat sales for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. Univision started selling the World Cup back in fall 2008. The network will offer 370 hours of World Cup programming across Univision, Telefutura and Galavision. Univision’s pitch to potential buyers included the fact that the network attracted 50 million viewers for the 2006 World Cup and expects 60 million viewers for the 2010 World Cup, according to Peter Lazarus, Univision’s executive vice president of network sales.

Soccer’s impressive audience numbers demonstrate the success of the sport and the potential marketing opportunities available. Latinos are tuned into soccer– from the U.S.-based MLS to the Mexican league to tournaments featuring teams from all over Latin America. Soccer teams and leagues are reaching out to the Latino community in hopes of strengthening their fan bases, and advertisers are using soccer’s widespread popularity as a vehicle to reach this market.

http://www.latinomarketingpro.com/articles/soccer-scores-by-reaching-latinos.html

Diageo launches new Qream spirits brand with Pharrell Williams

Diageo has looked to replicate the success of its hip-hop vodka Ciroc by launching a new spirits brand in conjunction with Pharrell Williams, the US music star.

Diageo has looked to replicate the success of its hip-hop vodka Ciroc by launching a new spirits brands in conjunction with Pharrell Williams, the US music star.
Diageo said Pharrell – who is widely known by his first name – had helped the company conceive the taste and bottle design for Qream, a cream liqeur which comes in two flavours, strawberry and peach.

The global drinks company launched Qream, an ‘ultra-premium cream liqueur’, at a party in Los Angeles last night.

The launch represents an effort to woo female drinkers and replicate the success of Ciroc, launched in collaboration with hip-hop star Sean “P. Diddy” Combs in 2007.

P.Diddy has a profit-share agreement with Diageo over Ciroc and the brand has seen sales rocket since launch. Figures released in February showed sales volumes had more than doubled year-on-year with 600,000 cases sold in the first half of Diageo’s financial year.

Diageo said Pharrell – who is widely known by his first name – had helped the company conceive the taste and bottle design for Qream, a cream liqueur which comes in two flavours, strawberry and peach.

The company said it was trying to attract female drinkers in the US and pointed to figures showing that one in three drinks sold today are consumed by women. Diageo said women were also responsible for two-thirds of all alcohol purchases in shops and supermarkets.

“Women make up half the population and Qream is about celebrating that power,” said Pharrell. “To work with Diageo in bringing something original like Qream and the notion of delicious living to market has been a thrill”.

Pharrell was named ‘Producer of the Decade’ by America’s Billboard magazine last year and has sold over 100m records. He is part of the production duo The Neptunes and a rock trio N.E.R.D. Like P.Diddy, Pharrell also has his own clothing lines and deals with Louis Vuitton and designers Domeau & Peres.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/8639616/Diageo-launches-new-Qream-spirits-brand-with-Pharrell-Williams.html