In our day and age, products reign supreme. If you need something, chances are you can walk into a store and buy it. If it's not in a store, you can go on Amazon and buy it. If it's not on Amazon, then it probably doesn't exist. We live in a world of products. According to the definition, there is more to marketing than just products. Products are one of the four "P's" of marketing, along with price, promotion, and place. Since marketing is so commonplace it is easy to become desensitized to it. For this blog post, I give a few examples of the four P's that might be relevant.
If you've ever been to college (which is a product), you'll know that it is a time for experimenting. "Experimenting with what?", you might ask. Well, for one, mind-altering substances like alcohol. College students love altering their mind states, and they aren't the only ones. Alcoholic drinks date back to 8,000 BC and have been used ever since.
Even though modern day studies have shed light on some of the health risks of drinking, people still do it, and it doesn't seem like a thing that people are going to stop doing. Alcohol is a product. There is a consumer need for it, and, lucky enough for alcohol companies, there will always be consumer demand.
1) Products
An example I will give for an alcohol product is the infamous 40 oz of Malt Liquor. You may have drank one in your heyday, or they might be your drink of choice to this day. You'd be hard pressed to find a college student who hasn't heard of an Old English, a Colt 45, or simply a "40". If you're above the age of 80 then I will describe them for you. a "40" is 40 fluid ounces of "malt liquor". A forty of Malt Liquor is similar to beer and brewed with malted barley, and it usually has a higher alcohol content and comes in a big bottle. They are notoriously cheap, and get you notoriously drunk.
2) Price
You know how I said 40's are notoriously cheap? When they began heavily promoting them in the 1980's, in some places they were as cheap as $1.50. Now a days, they cost anywhere from $2.50 to $5, depending on where you buy them and what brand you buy. Talk about bang for your buck. The price goes hand-in-hand with the promotional strategy, which I will go over next.
3) Promotion
The promotional strategy of the 40oz has been controversial since it began in the 1980's. The product is alcohol, something that is popular with all income-levels. The 40, however, is cheap and strong. Naturally, this appeals to those who like to get more alcohol for less money; lower-income individuals. This is evidently clear with their marketing campaign.
This is an early Schlitz Malt Liquor ad that clearly targets the black demographic. This is one of the many malt liquor ads at the time that were defining their target demographic as inner-city African-Americans. Article: Marketing of Malt Liquor Fuels Debate
Throughout the eighties and nineties malt liquor companies began narrowing their target market, specifically to the hip-hop culture. If you weren't aware of hip-hop culture in the US, hip-hop started as early as the 1970's in inner-cities, but exploded into the mainstream in the 1980's. Hip-hop is rooted in the culture of black (and Latino) urban youth, expressing themselves in a way that defied the American mainstream of the time. Today, it is the mainstream. In the eighties and nineties, however, it was more exclusively black than it is today.
Check out some of the TV commercials for the malt liquor brand St. Ides, also known as the "Crooked I".
Notorious B.I.G.
Snoop Dogg
Wu-Tang Clan
These ads ran through the 90's and gained St. Ides a lot of attention. They even released a tape of all the songs that played in their commercials. Talk about defining a target market. But, by setting their target market so strictly, St. Ides and other malt liquor companies were isolating themselves from the market segment that doesn't like hip-hop culture. They gave their product a reputation, and that reputation appealed to urban youth. They chose to target a segment that wasn't the mainstream at the time. This was a bold advertising move, along with the fact that many people complained that the ads were promoting underage drinking. In the end, however, they made the right choice. Malt liquor was wildly successful, especially within the inner-city. It's not hard to hear evidence of this; there are hundreds of 90's "gangster rap" songs that mention malt-liquor. Whether it's the Dainey (St. Ides, according to Mobb Deep), or the Beastie Boy's Brass Monkey (a 40 mixed with Orange Juice), the 40 has been engrained in our culture as a "ghetto" drink.
4) Place
Place goes along with price and promotion with the fact that it's usually sold wherever liquor is sold, although there used to be promotional deals in inner-cities. I don't know where you would find 2Pac's promotional "Thug Passion" flavored Crooked I, but I know its not in the Simon's in Colchester (shucks).
The promotional campaigns for malt liquor in the 80's and 90's were definitely controversial, and they were definitely successful. The marketing campaign did exactly what is was supposed to do; turn inner-city youth onto drinking cheap malt-liquor. It achieved it's goal by ingraining itself into hip-hop culture. Since then, the 40 has been associated with urban culture, a reputation that's destined to stick with it for a long time. So the next time you're looking for some cheap beer, remember that the 40 became one of the most popular drink choices by using an effective marketing campaign.
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