Ricardo Aspiazu is the Senior Vice President Creative & Brand Design at Verizon. He will be speaking at the ANA Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference, November 18-20 in Las Vegas. ANA Senior Vice President Brand & Media, Julie Weitzner, recently sat down with Ricardo for a pre-conference interview in which they discussed why multicultural marketing IS mainstream marketing, and how that strategic approach is a business driver for Verizon.
You’ll be speaking at the upcoming ANA Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference. What advice would you give to other brands looking to authentically engage with multicultural audiences?
Success with multicultural audiences needs to be treated as a business priority, not just part of a media plan.
Traditionally, many companies have viewed multicultural audiences as segments of a media buy, that they must then backfill with relevant creative work. Checking the box is not a strategy. Authentically engaging with these audiences through cultural insights first can be a business driver for your entire company that changes the mindset of the entire organization.
We’ve done a lot over the years, particularly with the Latino community, and have found that when we have dedicated strategies and bespoke creative, we’re able to really move the needle not just for the segment, but for the entire business.
Can you share specific examples of successful campaigns that have resonated with the Latino community and driven significant business growth for Verizon?
This past year, Verizon has really doubled down on our strategy to engage with the Latino community.
We kicked off the year with an integrated campaign for Super Bowl LVIII, the first Super Bowl to be featured on Spanish-language broadcast TV, reaching more Latinos than ever before. While the General Market Super Bowl spot featured Beyonce, the Spanish-language spot featured global icon J. Balvin. To amplify our campaign, we released J. Balvin’s ACTUAL phone number on our Super Bowl commercial, and prompted fans to call, text and WhatsApp him. To create engagement with his fans, we trained a “J Balvin AI” to think and respond just like J. Balvin would, across English, Spanish and Spanglish. The result: no matter how many people called and texted J. Balvin, they couldn’t break the Verizon network. This immediately prompted an increase in sales with the Latino segment in February, with continued month over month growth YTD.
While Super Bowl is huge, we know that for most Latinos, soccer is everything. Which is why we created a fútbol platform for superfans, starting with Copa America. We know what it’s like to be a “fanático de fútbol “in Latin America, so we brought fanáticos every Copa match through a partnership with Univision streaming platform ViX Premium. In addition to a full 360 campaign that spanned broadcast elements, creators and even integrations within the Univision broadcasts, we sent four lucky fanáticos to the Copa America final in Miami. Not only did we see the most interactions to date on a post on our Latino social channels, we turned around the typically light summer sales period and ended up increasing sales within the segment more than 15% year over year.
How does Verizon ensure that its marketing messages authentically reflect the diverse cultural backgrounds of the Latino community?
At Verizon, we know that the Latino segment is not a monolithic audience that we can engage by translating our communications in a Spanish-language media buy. While language and certain insights tie all of us together, there are key differences and nuances that brands must understand if they want to truly connect with the audience.
Part of our recent brand refresh is telling stories around how we power and empower people’s lives, and that looks different for each individual. A product or feature that appeals to a Mexican American in El Paso may not be the same solution that a Cuban American needs in Miami. We’re constantly mining for insights across Latino-dense markets to ensure that we’re staying ahead of the needs of the customer, engaging them in a culturally relevant way, and that they can see themselves reflected in our creative work.
In addition to product development and marketing, we know how important a seamless in-store retail experience is for the Latino segment. We work hard to hire store reps that not only speak their language, but also understand the nuances of their home country.
What advice would you give to other companies looking to prioritize multicultural marketing in their strategies?
We all know the tremendous buying power of the multicultural majority, with Latinos at the tip of the spear. Multicultural marketing is mainstream marketing, and if a brand is not engaging with cultural nuance they will be left behind. This is not just a marketing strategy. It must be a business strategy.
Getting alignment starts at the top. Leadership can’t ignore the business opportunity if your organization were to convert a percentage of the 63M Latinos in the US. Leverage this potential revenue to galvanize the efforts of your organization to focus on the segment as a business priority - from the CEO and CMO down to the working teams.
Once you’ve established that you’re going to lean in as an organization, you must do the necessary research and work to build credibility with the community. That doesn’t come from translated promos, it’s earned through genuine community investment. And that takes time. But it’s time well spent.
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