Autumn Moon Festival Sponsors Market to Asian Community
September 4, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO — To outreach to the Asian American community, companies like Safeway, Western Union and New York Life Insurance Company are sponsoring the 18th annual Autumn Moon Festival.
For these sponsors, the free event — which will take place Sept. 6-7 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. along Grant St. between California and Broadway Streets — gives them a chance to give back and familiarize the community with their logo placed on the festival website and posters promoting the event and booth and banner presence.
“The Autumn Moon Festival is one of the biggest Chinese community events in the Bay Area, attracting thousands of people each year,” said Benjamin Li, assistant vice president of New York Life Insurance Company. “This event is a great chance to market to the Asian American community and gives us an opportunity to interact with the public and introduce our product to consumers.”
For Safeway, who has been a major sponsor of the event for over 8 years, the festival enables the company to give back to the community. They have 6 booth spaces on Pacific St. and are a crowd favorite, drawing hundreds who patiently line up to spin the prize wheel or shoot a basketball to win tasty treats or other goodies.
As eating healthy is very important to the Chinese and Asian communities, Safeway will also give away their private-label fruit bars and juice drinks, according to Maria Schabbing, owner of Epicentro Marketing, which handles the grassroots events for Safeway.
“Participating in street fairs allows us to let the community know that we recognize and value them and want them to continue shopping at our stores,” said Schabbing.
Candise Cheung of Air Supply Communications, which manages Western Union’s event marketing, said this event is good for gaining brand awareness. Western Union typically decorates their booth with bright yellow and black logo-emblazoned balloons and distributes logo-branded goodies. Attendees will have a chance to play a slot game and win either memo pads, tote bags, pens or even 30-minute phone cards. She said everyone — and especially Asians — love free gifts and that this is a great way to promote their product.
Though Western Union is an American financial services company, it is used by many new immigrants from Asia. Furthermore, participating in this fair helps the company to give back to the Asian community, said Cheung.
Presented by the Chinatown Merchants Association, the Autumn Moon Festival is also sponsored by PG&E, California Lottery, Nestle USA, United Commercial Bank, Portsmouth Square Plaza Corporation, Bank of the Orient and the California Transplant Donor Network.
“Without their support, it would be difficult to produce a successful, high quality Autumn Moon Festival,” said Eva Lee, the festival’s coordinator.
Autumn Moon Festival
Sept. 6 and 7
11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Grant St. from California to Broadway
San Francisco Chinatown
moonfestival.org
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