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Reebok Seeks to Promote New Spanglish Site
November 15, 2005
By Cara Marcano
Marketers at Reebok International Ltd. are planning an advertising campaign to promote the company's new Spanglish Web site, barriorbk.com, which has drawn more than 5,000 unique visitors since it was launched Oct. 13, according to Matias Perel, CEO of LATINTHRE3, the Hollywood, Fla.-based interactive agency that designed the site.
While details about the campaign are still in the works, Reebok is intent on targeting Hispanic boys and young men ages 12 to 24 who have taken a liking to the company's sneakers and sports apparel, in part because of Reebok's sponsorship involvement with popular Mexican soccer team Chivas.
The site is marked with Spanish and English tag lines as well as Spanglish tags directing visitors to "Volver A Home" or "Return to the Home Page." It also uses the tag line "I am What I Am," accompanied by words in Spanish.
Reebok also has partnered with Sony Connect to enable visitors to download some 200 free songs focused on reggaeton and other Latin artists.
Chivas goalie Oswaldo Sanchez is prominently featured on many of the site's channels, and visitors to the Radio Rbk section of the site can also see listings of the "Enganchez" or favorite songs of Sanchez, which they can then listen to for free, after registering their information on the site. Reebok is busy building a database of the site's users and is tracking their musical preferences for upcoming advertising and other marketing and promotions work, according to Perel.
Visitors can also download wallpaper and screen icons from the site, and can also browse product offerings such as the Pump Wrapshear Running Shoe and the latest products from the Chivas' teams new line, which are tracking very popular with Hispanics, according to Perel, who worked with Reebok's Global Director of Advertising and Integrated Marketing Mark Fireman to design and launch the site.
In addition, the site also features cutting edge musical mixing technology, which allows visitors to mix their own music and share it with other visitors, says Perel. Reebok, in turn, has built a sweepstakes around asking visitors to the site to vote on which of these songs they like best.
Barriorbk.com, which is accessible from the English-language rbk.com site for Reebok, also contains a videogame that allows visitors to move certain characters in different styles of Reebok shoes to different popular songs.
"We know what type of music they like, and we are also gathering additional information about this from this program. It's about building a community," Perel says.
The Web site investment marks Canton, Mass.-based Reebok's first foray into Hispanic marketing. The company has not spent any ad dollars on traditional television or print media buys for the U.S. Hispanic market, according to TNS Media Intelligence. The company spent $44 million on media buys for television and print in 2004 and $31 million through June of this year, according to TNS.
According to sources, the company will be opening a review to seek an agency to produce additional Hispanic work, but exact details of a possible review have not yet been finalized.
Officials from Reebok did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
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