8847: Not Drinking The Kool-Aid.

The New York Times reported that Kraft is seriously targeting Latinos with Kool-Aid. In fact, Kool-Aid is becoming the first Kraft brand to allocate the majority of its marketing budget to Latino-focused initiatives.

Ordinarily, this might seem like progressive news worth celebrating. But there are at least two points of controversy with the move.

First, according to The New York Times story, Latinos comprise almost 20 percent of Kool-Aid drinkers. However, Blacks account for over 20 percent of the brand’s customers. So why aren’t most of the marketing dollars going towards Black advertising? Hey, if Kool-Aid introduced a malt liquor flavor, sales would skyrocket. Kraft could even recruit Snoop Dogg as a spokesman.

Second, the agency heading the Kool-Aid Latino charge is Ogilvy Rojo. ¿quién es ese? Pardon MultiCultClassics’ shaky Spanish translation, but who the hell is Ogilvy Rojo? A Google search shows nothing on the top page results, save references to The New York Times story and an Advertising Age piece that called the enterprise “a fledgling Hispanic practice” backed by Ogilvy. Of course, Ogilvy is the lead agency for Kool-Aid. So it’s no surprise that the White ad guys have created an in-house Latino division to ultimately maintain control of the billings. Heaven forbid Kraft would hand the reins to, say, a Latino agency with a track record. Guess the food manufacturer’s commitment to supplier diversity is bullshit too. As the Kool-Aid pitcher character would say, “Oh, Yeaahh!”

(MultiCultClassics could be jumping to erroneous conclusions here—and it would actually be great to learn the conclusions were false. Anyone with more official information is encouraged to leave a comment.)