Bottom-of-the-Barrel Promotion

Looming over Vineyard Avenue near Central just north of Oxnard, the billboard greets kids each morning as they roll in their school buses from the El Rio neighborhood to another day at Rio Mesa High School. Its message is colorful, tempting and in Spanish:

“Compra la cerveza, llevate los premios.”

Buy the beer, take the prizes.

Or, as the ad campaign for Budweiser puts it in English, “Buy the beer, get the gear.”

Vicky Gonzales wants to nip that sort of advertising in the you-know-what. Leader of the Coalition for Community Development in Oxnard, she is one of several Ventura County activists who have battled the controversial campaign all summer.

“I went into my neighborhood liquor store, saw the promotion and I just freaked out,” she said. “We were all outraged.”

Bad enough that the campaign appears to encourage drinking by offering cool prizes like hats, shirts, dartboards and beer mugs in return for points collected by buying Bud. (All the way up to a pool table--if you can down 27,000 beers by the end of this month.)

Bad enough that the campaign violates California law, as parent company Anheuser-Busch was reminded a month before its May kickoff and re-reminded in a July ruling by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, though the judge allowed the promotion to continue until Nov. 1.

What really upset Gonzales and representatives of other community and anti-drunk-driving groups was the apparent targeting of youths and Latinos. Colorful catalogs showing young models enjoying the “gear” were produced in English and Spanish, with the Spanish version featuring Latino-looking models and such variations as soccer jerseys and a T-shirt in the colors of the Mexican flag.

Jay Stroh, director of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, called the campaign “an irresponsible and unlawful marketing scheme that encourages consumers, particularly young people, to drink as much beer as possible.”

Gonzales notes that her Oxnard neighborhood alone saw 33 arrests last year for possession of alcohol by minors. She would like Anheuser-Busch to be a better corporate citizen and scrap any plans for future promotions aimed at young people, especially young Latinos. We agree.