During one week last month, Univision dispatched a branded food truck to travel the streets of New York City. It stopped at the offices of 10 top agencies, including OMD, Mediacom and Universal McCann, offering free tacos to employees—as long as they ordered in Spanish. That’s right: No Spanish, no service.
You may think that asking our clients to order in Spanish was extreme, but we did so to prove a point.
The “Spanish Gets You More” taco truck was part of a six-week marketing campaign leading up to Univision’s upfront event on May 13 in New York City. Every part of this campaign was designed to show media buyers and planners that if their clients want their brands to grow, advertising in Spanish-language media will get them more—more sales, more customers, more growth.
Agency employees showed up en masse, and over 3,000 tacos were served in only four days.
“Food trucks are so hot right now, and I had such a laugh watching my colleagues order in Spanish—“tacos de poh-yo!” said Jessica Roman, VP media director at Mediavest. “This was such a fun and engaging way to make a point.”
And making a point was necessary. Last fall, we fielded proprietary research with Advertiser Perception and were surprised to learn that many media buyers and planners believe that they are effectively marketing to U.S. Hispanic consumers through English-language television only. But that’s not the case.
The truth is that 74% of the Univision network primetime audience isn’t watching any of the other top-ten networks. And Nielsen Brand Effect shows that Hispanics recall and like the ads on Univision network better than ads on English-language networks—in fact, they recall ads on Univision 30% more, and like them 20% more. Univision is committed to providing the facts our agency partners need to make the right recommendations to their clients—because Spanish does get you more.
The overall campaign theme, developed with our agencies Troika and DigitasLBi, is “Return on Influence.” Simply put, “Return on Influence” means that by partnering with Univision, advertisers can powerfully affect Hispanic consumers’ thinking and behavior. Leveraging the influence that Univision has with our audience, and the hyper-social nature of the U.S. Hispanic population, advertising on Univision delivers more than just Return on Investment—it delivers Return on Influence.
In addition to the taco truck stunt, media buyers and planners are seeing digital and print executions in Adweek, Mashable, Advertising Age, in-office media including Captivate, as well as in vertical industry trade media such as Automotive News and The Hollywood Reporter.
The creative features research that proves the influential nature of Univision’s audience, the power of the relationship we have with Hispanics and case studies from marketers including Post Foods and Nissan, providing proof that influence provides powerful return.
For example, we know that a headline such as “100% of Post Honey Bunches of Oats sales growth 2009-2013 came from Hispanics” has stopping power. Communicating this message to a marketer who is not targeting Hispanics makes them really think twice about the effectiveness of their plans.
In addition to traditional print and display, we are surrounding our target using social media. For a more casual, but just-as-relevant, conversation with media buyers and planners, the campaign includes bi-weekly promoted tweets and Facebook posts with playful messages.
One of my favorites: “Hispanic America, it’s like Apple. You’ll wish you invested in it a long time ago. #Univision.”
The campaign is also fueling social chatter with two highly sharable sponsored BuzzFeed lists: “14 Reasons We’d Be Lost Without Latin Culture” and “14 Reasons People Watch Spanish TV Even If They Don’t Speak Spanish.”
Our approach on LinkedIn has had a more business-like tone than Twitter and Facebook and includes sponsored content and InMail going to senior agency employees, coming from Keith Turner, Univision Communications’ president of ad sales and marketing. All campaign elements lead media buyers and planners to a site with additional proof that “Return on Influence” is real.
