Oct 1, 2007 6:06 AM, PROMO Xtra, By Brian Quinton
Brian.Quinton@penton.com

Brand marketers looking to win customers in Hispanic markets in the U.S. must take account not only of the usual market data of purchase and consumption, but also softer factors such as length of U.S. residence, preference for speaking only Spanish and cultural reactions to products.

That was the gist of the presentation given by Liz and Becky Arreaga, founders and principals of Latino marketing agency Mercury Mambo, at the In-Store Marketing Expo in Chicago last week.

The pair outlined the basic elements of a yearlong promotional effort on behalf of Dr. Pepper to build share within the U.S. Hispanic community as an example of what marketers need to know to approach those consumers.

Essentially, the agency decided that it needed to formulate different approaches based on whether specific Hispanic metro markets were predominantly acculturated or not, Liz Arreaga said.

Acculturated regions had a high proportion of bilingual families who had been in the U.S. for generations and were familiar with the brand; these were cities such as San Antonio, TX, Austin, Laredo, TX, and Tucson, AZ. Unacculturated markets were those where most Hispanic consumers were recent immigrants, preferred to speak Spanish only and were new to the Dr. Pepper brand; they included Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

By Mercury Mambo’s analysis, the soft drink faced different marketing challenges with those two groups.

Unacculturated Hispanic shoppers tended to expect a brown, fizzy drink to taste like a cola and thus often reacted poorly to tasting Dr. Pepper, often for the first time. Research showed that if they tasted the drink five times, they would tend to respond to its fuller flavor compared to cola. Therefore the job among these newcomer consumers was to build frequency. Among the acculturated group, the job was more conventional: to build penetration.

To reach the unacculturated, Mercury Mambo launched a campaign that built on one of its most universal traits: the wide popularity of the Spanish-language TV soap operas called telenovelas. A campaign launched last fall in the markets classified unacculturated began by giving away a free calendar of telenovela star portraits with the purchase of every 12-pack of Dr. Pepper from retail partners, mostly small neighborhood grocery stores. The calendars built on the fact that Dr. Pepper claims to be a blend of 23 flavors by including, on the 23rd of every month, a reminder to buy more Dr. Pepper.

In the second phase of the same promotion, the brand offered a free CD of popular themes from the telenovelas with every purchase of two 12-packs of soda. The giveaway was supported with street team visits and radio remotes.

Finally, during the third stage, Mercury Mambo worked with specific retailers in these markets to hold parking-lot events known as the “Festival de las Estrellas,” or Festival of the Stars. These gave purchasers of three or more 12-packs of Dr. Pepper the chance to meet and greet two of the most popular telenovela stars. In many cases, Becky Arreaga said, consumers who’d marshaled their whole families to have their pictures taken with the performers said it was the first family portrait they’d ever had shot.

This third stage of the promotion involved working with large retailers, since only they had enough parking to accommodate the crowds who turned out.

The result was a triple-digit increase in Dr. Pepper sales at the stores running the promotions, after each phase of the campaign, Liz Arreaga said.

A separate Dr. Pepper campaign, launched last July and just concluded, was aimed at Hispanic consumers in the cities Mercury mambo deems acculturated. Most buyers in these cities had grown up drinking Dr. Pepper, and might have been induced to drink more with the same tactics a brand would use to build penetration anywhere in the U.S.

But Mercury Mambo decided the brand’s message would get a better response placed alongside some “cultural cues” that let Hispanic shoppers know the campaign was targeted specifically at them. So the firm launched “Unmistakable Ride,” a sweepstakes giveaway of a classic 1980 Pontiac Cutlass tricked out with mag rims and a ballistic sound system. Consumers were asked to stop into participating stores and buy three 12-packs of Dr. Pepper to get a CD of Latino hip-hop music. A ticket in the CD case might be redeemable for a car key; if that key started the Pontiac, it was theirs.

“Unmistakable Ride” was promoted through radio stations and appearances at car shows around those acculturated Hispanic cities.

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