One year ago, the Mexican beer brand “Indio” launched a campaign called “Proudly Indio” which caused severe reactions among national consumers. The purpose of this campaign was to fight discrimination and racism in Mexico. The brand name Indio is also a word that has very offensive connotations in Mexico and it is used do denigrate someone. It makes reference to indigenous communities and original cultures who were, and still are, marginalized in Mexican society. Calling someone Indio is very offensive but it also reflects the discrimination and prejudice that still persist in Mexican society and which is also a very sensitive issue for Mexican society.
The brand tried to change that by creating a campaign that was intended to use the word in a positive way. The idea was simple: take pictures of people wearing white t-shirts that have the words “Proudly Indio”. On one hand, the copy makes reference to the brand and it could express the proudness of drinking Indio beer. On the other hand, it expresses indifference to the negative connotations of the word indio and thus it is implied that the people wearing the t-shirt are totally fine if someone calls them indio.
The brand said that the campaign had the objective to fight discrimination and portray a more positive view about the word Indio. However, the brand used white skin and good-looking models which created negative reactions specially in social media.
From the critical perspective of branding we can see that the firm maybe had an urgency to link the corporate brand with a more positive cause. The alcoholic drinks industry is very criticized, and it is very complex to find positive social impacts of producing beer considering addictions and car accidents mainly related to the consumption of alcohol.
The brand thought it has finally found a cause “linked” to the brand, in this case discrimination, but it does not have anything to do with its core business: beer. Then, the campaign did not create value in the market world and it also decreased the value of the brand in the world of famous. Needless to say, the value in the civic world was contested (Bertilsson and Rennstam, 2018).
The beer brand did not pay attention to social context and historical issues in Mexico related to class, racism and social inequalities. Public perceived hypocrisy because the company has very little connection to the organization’s actual activities (Bertilsson and Rennstam, 2018). Apart from that, it is possible that the team of marketers that designed the campaign belong to an upper social class and portray “beautiful people” similar to them. There are studies that show that there is a correlation between the color of your skin and access to resources in Mexico so, it is unlikely that someone with indigenous background works in the advertising agency in charge of this campaign or in the company’s marketing team who could see racial implications on the ad.
Therefore, the campaign is an evidence of who still owns the power, the status and the access to resources in Mexico.
