Kraft P-O-P Targets Ethnic Markets

A new back-to-school promotion, tested in Atlanta for the African-American market last year, rolled out full-scale in August from Kraft Foods Inc. to include major supermarkets in five U.S. cities. A similar promotion for the Hispanic market also ran during August. Both promotions' goals were to get kids ready for school and increase sales of targeted Kraft products.The two ethnic programs included a variety of posters, cents-off coupons, shelf danglers, recipe booklets, story books and easel back cards, "all tailored to meet the needs and expectations of the targeted consumers, based on our ongoing research into what these consumers want in a promotion," says Gina Gallovich, manager of ethnic communications for Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft.Ethnic marketing is important to Kraft because of the significant buying power ethnic groups wield. Kraft revealed that people of African-American, Hispanic or Asian decent, which encompass almost one-third of the U.S. population, average supermarket purchases of nearly $82 a week. Other shoppers average $65 a week.Kraft has established a centralized and dedicated ethnic marketing and external relations structure. Its ethnic marketing team conducts and manages marketing research to understand ethnic consumer preferences and buying habits. Because of Kraft's strategic alliance with A.C. Nielsen, the company can identify stores with large groups of ethnic shoppers.August's back-to-school promotion for the African-American market targeted high-density African-American stores in Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tenn., and Chicago. Among the promotional elements was a booklet with recipes and cents-off coupons for eight Kraft products. In support of children's literacy, consumers also received a children's book, "Shaina's Garden," when they purchased three of the eight products promoted.The back-to-school promotion for the Hispanic market was conducted in major supermarkets in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and San Antonio. New for this year's program was a small booklet filled with cents-off coupons for various Kraft products, with the number and types of products varying for each of the five markets. When consumers purchased four of the participating Kraft products in any market, they instantly received $3 off their back-to-school supplies.For the Hispanic promotion, 257,000 coupon booklets, 2,900 shelf danglers and 1,800 posters were printed by Printing Master Services of Chicago. The same company printed 118,000 recipe/coupon sheets, 2,000 shelf danglers, 1,100 posters and 400 easel back cards for the African-American program. Cruz/Kravetz: IDEAS of Los Angeles designed the Hispanic pieces and Proctor Communications of Chicago designed the African-American pieces.

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