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Mainstream Advertising With Tacos and Guacamole
Using Latino insights can help Hispanic shops produce spots that appeal to everyone
January 01, 2005
By Mariana Lemann
Sometimes, latino influences get into the core of a general-market advertising strategy. At least that was the route chosen by Coca-Cola in its global campaign "Real." Based on previous experience with cross-over advertising, the soft drink giant chose to include Latino flavor with appeal across the board.
The result was "Hollywood Restaurant," a spot in which actress Salma Hayek sneaks away from a dinner meeting at a swanky Hollywood restaurant to have tacos and an ice-cold Coca-Cola with the Mexican staff.
Since its conception, the main idea behind the campaign was to show the "real side" of Hispanic celebrities well known to the mainstream market. Coca-Cola and its Hispanic advertising agency, Chicago-based Lápiz, put together an extensive list of Latino celebrities that would fit into the script. Hayek was chosen as the one with the most appeal.
The creative team at Lápiz knew beforehand that the spot was going to appeal to a wider audience. "The script was not written especially for [Salma] but for any Hispanic celebrity that could show his or her real side in a commercial," explains Laurence Klinger, senior vice president and chief creative officer at Lápiz. "And Salma is absolutely capable of doing what she does in that TV commercial."
The phenomenon is interesting since it indicates that Hispanic culture is being rapidly absorbed by the general market, and it shows how marketers can exploit this to crossover with their brands.
Lápiz — which is owned by Publicis — says that it usually produces a same TV commercial in both Spanish and English, because while they might not have the intention of creating a general-market ad, it could very well transcend Hispanic audiences.
This approach has paid off. Kellogg's, another Lápiz client, ended up running a TV spot for its Corn Flakes Banana Crunch cereal in its general-market ad rotation that was developed for the Hispanic market.
Initially, the company says, it was intended to be used only for the Hispanic market, but right before launching the product, marketing executives concluded the commercial would work in the general market and a voiceover was recorded both in Spanish and English.
A different version of crossover came about in an earlier stage of the marketing cycle at PepsiCo's Frito-Lay. The chip-maker developed a product based on the popularity of guacamole and decided to promote and advertise its guacamole-flavored chips among Mexicans in the Southwest. But a positive response to the product by the general market prompted the company to expand distribution and advertising beyond the region. The same TV spots — "Napkin" and "Dipping" — developed and produced by Dallas-based Dieste Harmel & Partners were given an English-language voiceover to run in the general-market.
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