Xfinity’s target Hispanic audience has skewed Spanish Dominant for much of the company’s existence. But recently there has been a cultural shift in acceptance of biculturalism within America. Today, being bilingual and bicultural is seen as an asset. A person’s ability to connect with and relate to two cultures is now cool because of the expanded breadth of experiences that they have.
As a result of this shift, more and more Hispanics were identifying as bicultural making them the largest and fastest growing segment of Hispanics3. With this information, we shifted Xfinity’s target to Biculturals in order to coincide with the cultural shift in America, but this change presented new challenges.
Being bilingual bicultural is an experience not a feature.
At the start of this project we had a hypothesis; Bicultural Hispanics don’t need Spanish, they want it. When we tested this we found that Bilingual Hispanics relish in their ability to pick and choose when, where and with whom they use each language. That choice is what is most emotionally liberating for bilingual Bicultural Hispanics.
Traditionally there used to be a consensus that Hispanics acculturate in a linear fashion to become “American only.” But today, the market embraces biculturalism and recognizes the added value of a multicultural background. Biculturals have expanded access to twice the number of choices and twice the possibilities because they move seamlessly between two cultures. Yet their reality when interacting with brands rarely reflects this. Most of the time, Biculturals are forced to choose between Hispanic or American, Spanish or English, instead of feeling empowered to switch from one language or culture to another.
Most interesting to us was a saying we heard in our research from many different bilinguals, "Spanish is the language of the heart." We discovered that bilinguals use Spanish often when there is a strong emotional element to the conversation. When Hispanics express their excitement or emotion while watching their entertainment, it is almost always in Spanish, even if surrounded by English speakers. Excitement, love, pride, joy, fear or any palpable emotion they feel will inherently prompt them to speak or think in Spanish.
In what language do you...?
Advertising is most effective when it’s in line with what people already do. Knowing this we needed to reflect bilingual life in an authentic and emotionally engaging way. But every individual is different and his or her choice of language is personal. Therefore, our challenge was how could we make our campaign personal? Well, what do you do when you don’t know the answer? Simple, you ask questions. As a result, we invited our target to participate in the conversation by asking them questions. We empowered them to answer the questions openly, making the campaign personal.
Using our insight that emotionally charged situations tend to trigger a language switch, we developed questions that led viewers through a series of situations of everyday life. In what language do you dream, do you talk trash, do you say I love you, do you do business? These were all meant to get bilinguals to switch back and forth between English and Spanish based on their individual experiences. This not only reflected how bilinguals lived their lives, but also reflected the ease and choice of the X1 Language Choice experience.
This was the most successful campaign in the history of Xfinity/Comcast.
Our primary objective for this campaign was to drive brand familiarity and consideration for TurboTax as the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) tax service that’s there for Hispanics. We knew our communications would have to help deflate their self-doubt of doing their own taxes in order to increase their consideration of TurboTax.
We centered our creative communications on the new SmartLook feature, a live video chat option that allows a person to speak to a TurboTax expert in English or Spanish, right there on their phone, about any questions they may have while filling out their taxes (think of it as a one-way FaceTime feature where you see the expert and he/she sees your screen but doesn’t see you). We attacked self-doubt from two angles: highlighting the simplicity of the software and showcasing SmartLook in a humorous way, but most importantly, letting Hispanics know that doing your own taxes doesn’t mean doing your taxes on your own. The SmartLook feature in Spanish gave Hispanic filers a helping hand to guide them through an anxiety-driven process.
Although our target was predominantly Bicultural, when it comes to their attitudes and knowledge on taxes, they are very influenced by their Latino culture. Our research showed how their Latino heritage and upbringing had a major impact on amplifying their “FUD” (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) around filing their taxes. For them, software lacked the human relationship and support system they found in their current tax prep methods. Coming from such a collective society, this communal and relationship focused culture is ingrained in them; they are used to friends and family always being there to provide support. As a result, Hispanics find DIY taxes overwhelming since they think they would be tackling them alone and failing alone if anything goes wrong.
We also found that many Hispanics still seek out products with Spanish-language support. With a task as critical as filing taxes, in-language support helps to placate their fears. The SmartLook feature was tested and well received by our audience because it helped solidify a relationship with a human (a real-life TurboTax expert), similar to what they have with their CPA, and provided the extra layer of reassurance with in-language help.
Our creative communications not only drove familiarity and consideration amongst our target, they also positioned TurboTax as more of a do-it-with-me tax filing option rather than just do-it-yourself. We were able to drive familiarity and consideration with the total new Hispanic filers over indexing (144) to non-Hispanic new filers. TurboTax stole share from Hispanic tax filers who previously had used a CPA, with 33% of our Hispanic filers this year coming from a CPA. This shows that our communication efforts helped shift their perception of what DIY meant, empowering more Hispanics to file taxes on their own. In addition, our SmartLook messaging resonated well with our audience, with a 41% lift in brand memorability from last year and blew the Spanish Language Database Norm out of the water. Our campaign was also much more effective at driving top box consideration (“much more likely to use”) versus last year’s campaign.
Valvoline Motor Oil (VMO) faced two key challenges:
Research had indicated that Hispanics were the one segment that remained the most enthusiastic DIYers and data showed it was a growing segment. However, VMO had no empirical data to confirm how they were performing with this group versus competitors or what the potential ROI of investment targeting this group would deliver. Further, they weren’t confident that their historical approach to geographic-targeting of Hispanics (DMAs with Hispanic density of 35%+) would provide them with the reach required to capitalize on this growth segment.
From a data analysis perspective, we Ingested 3 years of sales records from their retail customers (Autozone, etc.) into our data store to identify Hispanic customers. We were then able to compare their 25 DMAs historically-identified as “Hispanic markets” and analyzed them against potential other opportunity DMAs. From this we developed and piloted 4 different growth scenario strategies and the potential revenue uplift to guide investment moving forward.
From a consumer insight perspective we conducted a series of in-depth-interviews to understand what really drove these Hispanic DIYers to work on their vehicles themselves - and what influenced their choice of parts, and materials, including oil.
From our data analysis, we identified 6 new DMA’s with better potential to replace 16 of their current targeted DMAs. We defined which growth strategy was most appropriate for each DMA and devised the most cost-effective media investments/mix for each market.
From a qualitative perspective two key insights emerged over others. 1. These weren’t just DIYers - they were Do-It-Righters. 2. This wasn’t just a solo activity for most. It was often a shared interest and activity - one between a father and son or between friends.
Based on the analysis, two key opportunities were identified. Firstly, it was determined that broadcast TV was not as influential or cost-efficient at reaching this segment as VMO had previously thought. Many in this segment were turning to enthusiast videos on YouTube and automotive magazines to find their inspiration. Interestingly, however, there was a void of media in Spanish language to serve their needs.
To leverage this opportunity we developed an online video series for VMO called “Under the Hood” and created a bilingual automotive enthusiasts magazine (GarageMaster) as a joint venture between VMO and Autozone.
The woes of brick-and-mortar department stores are well documented. At the time of this assignment, JCPenney (JCP) needed a quick turnaround of a declining sales trend that would see them miss their quarterly projections. With sales data having proved Latinas to be their most loyal and responsive customers, JCP turned to Gallegos United. We knew to achieve the level of results being asked for in such a condensed time frame, we would need a big stage to make a big impact.
As fate would have it, there was a big media stage available at the time; the Men’s FIFA World Cup. Traditionally, this is an event saturated with machismo-laden advertising for trucks, beers and numerous other manly-goods. Not exactly the obvious platform of choice for promoting women’s apparel. But necessity is the Mother of invention. And on closer analysis we discovered some interesting facts; more Hispanic women watched the previous World Cup than non- Hispanic men and of those Latina fans, 55% considered themselves true “Fanatics”. And when they support their teams, they dress for success.
The combination of this learning and the irony of advertising to Latinas in a male- dominated environment became the genesis for our campaign strategy: “Soccer is for Girls.” Using the color palettes from JCP’s merchandise to link to the colors of her country’s team, we were able to develop an empowering message for not just Latinas, but all women and girls. Along with an anthemic TV spot - that ended up running in both Spanish and English language media - a strong social-play that invited engagement, with tactics including competitive brackets featuring team colors via JCPenney apparel, our campaign became both a standout in a sea of manliness – and one of JCP’s most successful efforts in recent history.
While sales for retailers like JCP continue to face significant headwinds, for this assignment at least, our mission was accomplished. Bucking a declining trend prior to the campaign, sales saw an increase of 7% versus YAG and a massive 35% increase in purchase intent. The role of our “Soccer is for Girls” campaign in achieving this was validated via both research that showed the campaign had strong standout power (80% salience) with 77% of respondents finding it appealing/engaging. Further validating the campaign’s contribution was a JCP analysis of SKUs that showed a significant skew towards color-lines of World Cup national teams. On social media, the campaign generated 17 million impressions, grew JCP fans by 46% and pushed it to become Facebook’s 5th most liked Hispanic page.
Although milk sales have continued to decline for the better part of the last decade, it is not a case of everyone moving away from dairy in favor of plant based alternatives. In fact, dairy milk is still in 95% of refrigerators around the U.S. However, the sheer number of competitors - from vitamin infused waters, to Kombucha to a growing array of ‘alts’ including soy, almond, coconut and oat milk - has certainly begun to chip away at milk’s dominance. And although it’s still in most fridges, people simply aren’t drinking as much of it as they used to, and that has resulted in the slow, steady decline of sales year after year. On top of that, as a leader in plant-based diets and non-dairy friendly trends, California has been declining at an even faster rate than the rest of the U.S. The challenge was, how could we begin to reverse that trend in CA?
Our approach was far from taking the well laid path that had been set by “got milk?” over the past couple of decades. We decided to try something that had never been done before to our knowledge - to create a loyalty program for an entire food/beverage category across all brands, all sized containers, all types of dairy milk, and all retailers (online/offline) across the state of California. In doing so, we hoped to ‘fish where the fish are’ and engage our loyal milk drinkers in the program so as to encourage them to buy just a bit more and change the trend as our numbers showed that getting just one more glass per household per week could shift the trend back to positive growth for milk.
Thus, the Moo Money loyalty program by gotmilk? was born. This was to be a short term promotion (Jan 28 - Apr 28, 2019) to prove out potential to the California Milk Processor Board. The way it worked is when people purchased any dairy milk in CA, all they needed to do was snap a photo of their receipt (after registering via mobile site) and they would receive 100 points for every dollar spent. Once they earned 2,500 points (equivalent of about 5-7 gallons) they would receive a $5 e-gift card that they could redeem. The key elements of this campaign included POS at retail across the state (grocery, convenience, dollar, Walmart), targeted online videos and paid social/digital/search, mass radio at launch, and a CRM campaign to engage with members.
While the number of members into the program did not meet our goals, from a sales perspective, the program exceeded forecast by nearly 2% in dollar sales and liquid volume. It also had a positive impact on closing the “gap” between CA and total U.S. by nearly 3MM gallons during the course of the promotion (source: IRI consumption data, 2019). In addition, those engaged with the program viewed it very positively, with a whopping 90% saying that they’d participate in it again (source: Moo Money Member email survey, n=638).
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