Hispanic Advertising

I attended the Hispanic advertising presentation featuring speaker Ruby Rizo, a Texas State graduate and current employee at Bromley Communications. Bromley Communications is the country's largest Hispanic advertising agency. Bromley has it's headquarters in San Antonio, but offices in Los Angeles, New York and Miami as well. Some of Rizo's duties at Bromley are account planning and research, and during the presentation she was able to give a little insight as to what exactly that entails.

Rizo began by explaining what exactly Bromley Communications and other advertising agencies in general do. According to Rizo, the single most important duty of an agency is to provide their clients with insights about their consumers. She went on to explain that insights are not facts, and shouldn’t be taken as such, they are simply understandings of the thoughts and behaviors of someone’s actions. In this sense, an agencies job is to shed light on the character of a client’s consumer, and in this way better reach and relate to them on a personal level. She explained that the agencies job was to get to know consumers and through doing so, “make consumers fall in lover with our brands.”

Rizo went on to discuss some of the challenges associated with her job. One of the biggest she said was learning to “divorce yourself from who you are, to understand your consumers’ wants and needs.” I had never realized how much research goes into the making of a single billboard or TV/radio commercial. Rizo explained the different factors an agency considers when doing any type of advertising. The three she emphasized were segmentation, media vehicles and relative insight.

Segmentation she explained as being aware of what segment of the Hispanic community they are trying to reach. The bi-cultural Hispanic, English dominated Hispanic, etc. When doing spot marketing, the advertising will cater to a specific segment, and with national campaigns, the advertisements must be made relevant to all Hispanics. Another important factor she explained was determining the best media vehicle to reach a target audience. She said one of the biggest misconceptions about Hispanics, is that they are not online.

I had previously thought all that needed to be done to translate a brands marketing to a different culture was actual translation of the language. This is another misconception. As Rizo explained, for a brand to be successful, they cannot simply do a Spanish voice over an already existing TV commercial, “the ad needs to resonate and connect with your consumer.” She went on to say that if someone doesn’t relate or connect to an advertisement, they won’t remember it or the brand, thus defeating the purpose.

During the presentation Rizo showed to TV commercials and ads she had worked on for Honey Nut Cheerios, Nestle Nesquik and Yoplait. Both were very well done and being Hispanic, I felt they had hit the nail directly on the head. Apparently their general audience agreed, Rizo explained that after beginning their Hispanic aimed advertisements, Nestle Nesquik sales increased by 77%

Some of Bromley’s other clients include General Mills, Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, Yoplait, Burger King and Coors Light. Here are links to some TV commercials done by Bromley.