Media Credit: Shaun Stewart

With hip-hop music blaring through the speakers, the dance floor is crowded on a typical Thursday night at Midnight Rodeo. Amidst the signature cowboy hats worn by patrons, two young women are dressed in referee outfits with whistles around their necks. The young women are friendly and outgoing, laughing and talking to the crowd. While socializing, the young women take orders and bring beer to the clientele.

"I see marketing techniques like that all the time," said Josh Marentette, a radio-television-film senior who regularly witnesses such scenes on the job at downtown Austin's Six Lounge bar.

During his weekend shifts, Marentette said promotional girls come to his bar frequently.

"They're basically hot girls hired to give free drinks and merchandise," he said.

In the past several years, alcohol companies have increasingly chosen to market their products directly to consumers. This unconventional marketing tool, which includes word-of-mouth information and promotional girls, is often referred to as "buzz marketing."

Buzz marketing is anything that can be done to a brand to increase recognition and awareness in the market place. For alcohol companies, this can range from advertising to viral marketing, said Gary Wilcox, an advertising professor at UT. Due to the wide array of TV channels and Web sites, locating a target group is much more difficult these days, and now companies must use new methods to reach specific consumer groups.

Wilcox said new techniques also include companies hiring "plants" at bars to talk positively about their product and then buy drinks for everyone. This subtle approach works because consumers are unaware that they are being advertised to.

"You don't put your defense up when Matthew McConaughey drinks a specific brand in a movie. This is the same thing," Wilcox said.

Wilcox said alcohol companies target college students because many brand preferences are developed at this age. Now is when brands try to make a lasting impression, he said. Students have left their household and are thinking on their own and making their own brand decisions. Alcohol companies want to affect students' preferences because beer consumption is highest from ages 21 to 34, according to the Scarborough Research, a market research firm in New York City. Wilcox also said students are important because they will become the major consuming population in a few years.


College students demographic

Terry Fagan, brand developer at Centex Beverage, Inc., agrees that getting customers young is an investment toward the future. Fagan's job is to find creative ways of selling alcohol for over 17 brands including Miller, Heineken and Guinness. Centex Beverage promotes on Sixth Street in bars, restaurants and at special events mainly frequented by college students.

Centex Beverage prides itself on its unique marketing strategies.

"Unlike other companies, our girls aren't just hired from modeling agencies," Fagan said. "They are very knowledgeable and can hold conversations to educate consumers."

Centex promotional girls often go to bars with hand-held computers containing information on competitors' drinks. During the sports season, the girls often dress like referees and throw penalty red flags at drinkers of another brand.

Fagan said that many college juniors and seniors are hired because they look like the targeted demographic. Alcohol companies have campus recruiters that look for students in various groups and with many connections. As a result, Fagan said that buzz marketing coincides with a rise in beer sales in the last two-and-a-half years.

Julie Donadeo, owner of Talent Squad, a promotional staffing agency, attributes this industry boost to the power of interactive marketing.

"Unlike ads, bar promotions allow clients to interact with the brand, ask questions and learn more," she said.

Donadeo often uses Internet sites such as Craigslist.com to hire staff. Generally liquor companies look for outgoing and energetic individuals. Donadeo said that lots of college students apply because the job gives them freedom to make their own schedule and to make extra money at night.

Charlene has worked as a Miller promotion girl for more than six months. She preferred not to publish her last name because she's worried about prospective employers.

"The salary is very, very good," Charlene said. "I've waitressed in a good restaurant before, and including those tips, I am making more than double now in promotions."

Charlene said that her overall experience has been positive. Sales representatives accompany the girls to the venues to ensure a safe environment, and she said generally men don't harass the promotional women.

"I feel comfortable working in bars," Charlene said. "Plus, we're dressed less revealing [than] most girls there."

Guys at the bars sometimes do flirt, Charlene said. But that's normal, she added. "The same would happen if you went to Sixth Street alone."

The job entails more than just handing out free beer. Charlene and the other promotional girls are taught how to interact with customers in conversation. Centex regularly trains the girls to learn catch phrases and tests them on the brand they promote. They must learn the product history, facts, calories and compare it with competition.

"You learn how to build rapport with the customer so that they make educated decisions," Charlene said.

UT senior Josh Marentette sympathizes with the promotional girls because they work in the same kind of nightlife environment he does.

"People spilling drinks over you, a noisy environment and drunks hitting on you," he said. "They're just doing their job."


Always young, vibrant and sexy

Alcohol promoting is highly regulated by the commission, said Carolyn Beck, spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. Though some ads on Craigslist.com look specifically for TABC-certified promotional workers, it is not required by law, Beck said.

Beck added that the TABC imposes strict rules on alcohol marketing companies and the agency could revoke their licenses if those rules are violated. Such regulations make it illegal to pre-announce a promotional event or to distribute free merchandise with a value greater than $1.

"The over-service of alcohol is a huge concern to us," Beck said.

Fagan, Centex brand developer, agreed that free merchandise and cheap alcohol are the best ways to reach college students. However, Fagan emphasized that alcohol companies are not trying to encourage more or new drinking - they simply want drinkers to convert to their brand.

"Companies just say that to be politically correct," said Chuck Roper, Alcohol and Drug Education Coordinator at the University Health Services.

Roper said that 100 percent of students he has talked to say that alcohol advertising does not influence them. However, studies show the opposite and Roper believes that alcohol marketing has a subconscious effect on students.

"Alcohol advertisements target youth," Roper said. "You never see old, fat, ugly people. It is always the young, vibrant and sexy portrayed. These are characteristics associated with college students."

Textiles and apparel sophomore Allison Bloom believes using college women as marketers is degrading. She said even Mr. Clean was used as a sex symbol to attract women in the 1950s. Bloom is a member of Alliance for a Feminist Option, a student organization that works closely with the Women's Resource Center.

"Objectifying a woman in that way is saying that she is nothing more than a pretty face," she said.

Though alcohol marketing bothers Bloom, other students aren't fazed.

"If they're giving away stuff for free, then I love it," said Chris Hydak, a business senior and weekly bar-goer. "When I say stuff, I mean drinks. I don't want a key chain or a koozie."

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