The world's largest retailer Wal-Mart yesterday said it was to launch a Spanish language US marketing campaign related to this summer's World Cup football. This is the first time Wal-Mart has ever made use of a major sporting event for marketing purposes.

During a conference call with investors Stephen Quinn, senior vice-president for marketing, compared the World Cup with "six weeks of Superbowl" for Hispanic customers. "We intend to fully take advantage of the fact that there is a massive passion for soccer among those customers," he said.

Wal-Mart is also increasingly focusing its marketing activities on specific demographic and ethnic groups, as is demonstrated by this campaign. "We are very aware of the fact that the population is changing overall...and that the non-white population is now 30 percent of all America and its growing faster than the average overall," said Quinn.

Under leadership of John Fleming, Wal-Mart has updated its marketing strategy with more targeted marketing and development of its brand image, reports the FT. Later this year, the retailer will also launch its first marketing campaign linked to an animated movie, Over the Hedge by DreamWorks.