Introduction
Great ideas are the essence of the best in advertising. And outstanding ideas make TV commercials memorable. Production plays an important part in bringing an idea to life, but without a strong idea, even the highest production values will go nowhere. The U.S. Hispanic market has steadfastly adopted this mind-set to keep pace with a dynamic and ever-changing audience. As it turns out, most of Marketing y Medios' Best Spots of 2005 are based on universal insights that appeal as much to Hispanics as to everyone else.
Marketing y Medios editors viewed 215 submissions from 44 companies to determine the best spots. Most were submitted by Hispanic advertising agencies, but production companies and TV networks also submitted their share of entries. Participants paid an entry fee per submission, and only ads aimed at Latinos that aired for the first time in 2005 were eligible.
For this year's selection process we were joined by guest critic Lalolópez, director of independent shop Oveja Negra, who flew in from Mexico City to review the spots and provide his feedback. (See column, page 40) There were times, of course, when editors and Lalolópez did not necessarily agree, sparking heated debates that eventually were amicably settled with a vote. In the end, though, we all agreed on one thing: Spots had to be original, creative and deliver a relevant message.
Two new categories are introduced in this year's contest: best campaign and best pro bono spot. Virgin Mobile's "No Seas Normal" was named best campaign. Developed by Miami- and Buenos Aires-based la comunidad, it appeals to an atypical sense of humor and makes use of strong visual effects. Best pro bono spot was awarded to "Reality," a 30-second spot crafted by Dallas-based Dieste Harmel & Partners to raise awareness about eating disorders.
While some clients still demand to see Hispanic insights, ad shops in general have done a good job in pushing brands beyond stereotypes such as salsa dancing, close-knit families around the kitchen and abuelitas.
However, among this year's best spots, there are great examples of Hispanic insights that are more pertinent to the central idea. "Immigration," by Conill Los Angeles for the Latinbeat Film Festival, shows a young man standing in an immigration line to get into the United States. An ill-humored immigration official asks, in heavy-accented Spanish, what is the purpose of the traveler's trip. "Turismo," he replies candidly, walking away with a victorious, yet controlled smile. The tagline: "Más de las mejores actuaciones Latinas" (More of the great Latino acting).
Continental Airlines, with a spot created by San Antonio-based Bromley, sets up a situation familiar to people with family and friends who travel between the U.S. and Latin America. In "Encargos," several people are shown asking their families to bring back all types of goods, from facial moisturizer to "vatapá," a dish from northern Brazil.
But the Hispanic insights that made the spots stand out are universal human themes that resonate with viewers regardless of language or culture. In fact, there were some spots with very little Spanish, or sometimes with no spoken language at all, such as "Fiber Cycle" for Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats, developed by Chicago-based Lápiz. The spot conveys a simple idea: Cereal helps clean your body. And it does so by depicting a bowl of cereal as a washing machine, sound included. Its simplicity spoke to wider audiences last year when "Fiber Cycle" was awarded a Silver Lion at the Cannes International Festival.
Another Silver Lion winner last year was Long Beach, Calif-based Grupo Gallegos, which faced the challenge of measuring up to its previous acclaimed spot, "Mano Japonesa." The result was "Beard," in which a man carries an electric razor with him at all times because his beard grows by the minute.
As the line between the Hispanic and general market blurs, Hispanic shops are producing more and more work for the general market. As such, two spots developed by Dieste Harmel & Partners for Budweiser - "Mini-mouth" and "Pinky Finger" - were indeed creative and worthy of best spots, but were not selected simply because they were part of a general-market campaign and did not meet the criteria.
Best Campaign
Virgin Mobile No Seas Normal la comunidad
Virgin Mobile USA wasted no time in pitching its "wireless without a plan" service to Hispanics. Within a year of landing in the United States in 2002, the irreverent British brand hired Miami- and Buenos Aires-based la comunidad to develop creative work targeting Latinos.
"No Seas Normal" (Don't Be Normal), the company's first major campaign aimed at Hispanics, was chosen as the Best Campaign of 2005.
"La comunidad came up with ["No Seas Normal"] as a way to say to Latinos, 'It's OK not to sign up for a long-term [wireless] contract,' " says Bob Stoher, vice president of brand and communications for Virgin Mobile USA. "We are a challenger brand, and we didn't change who we are for this campaign. La comunidad just made it more relevant."
Using its motto as a way of encouraging customers to move away from long-term wireless phone contracts, the campaign uses TV and radio spots, Internet and out-of-home executions.
Shot in Mexico City by Canadian firm The Perlorian Brothers, the campaign launched last May and ran for six months with three 30-second spots in rotation.
In "Gym," a man with large breasts (yes, that's right) jogs on a treadmill and confides to a friend that he doesn't feel normal. His friend points out that, like everyone else, the large-breasted man is asked for credit history and security deposits when trying to sign up for a wireless plan. The argument convinces him that he isn't different from anyone else, because in the mobile phone market the norm is to make it difficult for people to sign up for a plan.
In "Convertible Car," a young man with long, flapping dog ears tells his girlfriend he feels weird. But as she reminds him that all wireless phone plans require a lot of information from every customer, he appears to regain trust that he is just normal. A woman with a teeny head is another surreal character in "Office," which revolves around the same idea of standing out from the crowd.
"What I love about the campaign is it positioned us very well, [and] it didn't rely on all the cultural cues companies tend to default to. So many times you see bright colors, soccer balls, close-knit families that general-market advertisers create for the Hispanic market," Stoher says.
Another virtue of the campaign is the clarity of its core message. "The campaign has a lot of the brief," says Jos? Mollá, la comunidad's creative director. "It is not easy to include the brief in the spots without making them boring."
As a result, Virgin Mobile says it experienced an increase among new Spanish-speaking customers while the campaign was on the air and the number of long-distance calls to Mexico doubled during that period.
Best Pro Bono Spot
Dallas-based Dieste Harmel & Partners embraced the fight against eating disorders with the pro bono 30-second spot "Reality." It depicts the uneasy truth behind anorexia, as seen through the eyes of an overweight woman while she eats, exercises and gets dressed. When she gazes at herself in a mirror, the image projected is of a very different person: an emaciated version of herself, bones protruding from her body. What makes the disturbing image more real is both women in the spot are battling eating disorders.
"They had never appeared in a commercial before," says Aldo Quevedo, Dieste creative director. "The spot is real because the people in the cast are true sufferers of the disorders."
The spot was inspired by a few employees at Dieste who had personal knowledge about eating disorders.
Produced by La Banda Films in Los Angeles and shot in Mexico City, "Reality" is being used by Ed Bosques Clinic in Mexico and Forma Vital Weight Control Clinic in Dallas.
Guest Critic
Lalolópez is founder and creative director of Oveja Negra, a Mexico City-based independent advertising agency
"WHAT'S HISPANIC ABOUT IT?"
Some of my friends who work as creatives in the U.S. Hispanic arena have told me (or rather, have bitterly complained) how difficult it is to come up with good creative work in the market. As if finding a good idea wasn't difficult enough, you must then go out there and find the damn "Hispanic insight," or whatever you want to call it, in order to justify the very existence of that idea.
While I have always thought that this situation is what makes this market very complex, my fellow creatives shouldn't be surprised. After all, the quest for a Hispanic insight was the very argument that sparked the creation of Hispanic advertising agencies.
Maybe I'm being superficial here, but I guess the sales pitch to create the first Hispanic advertising campaign in the United States went something like this: "Hispanics have a completely different culture and do not understand these anglo ads, that are not even relevant to them. Thus, we have to create a campaign that speaks directly to them, in their language."
It was this very argument that gave rise to myriad ads featuring salsa-dancing Latinos hugging their families in a kitchen, an image that has been dominant in the largest Spanish-language TV networks such as Univision and Telemundo. Of course, those campaigns also contributed to the creation of the multi-million dollar Hispanic advertising industry as we know it today.
Personally, I must confess that the argument that you need a Hispanic advertising agency to speak to U.S. Hispanics always sounded a little like bullshit. That would amount to saying that only Hispanics can do relevant work for Hispanics, only women can create a relevant campaign for women, or only a billionaire can write and execute a campaign for a yacht manufacturer.
And even conceding that Hispanics are different from everybody else, I could not help but wonder: What does a creative from Argentina, raised in a middle-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires, have to do with a poor immigrant from Michoacán, Mexico? What does a creative from Mexico City have in common with a third-generation Cuban in Miami or a Dominican born in Washington, D.C.? I mean, really, is the Hispanic market in Los Angeles similar in any way to the one in Miami? Does a first-generation, Spanish-dominant Mexican immigrant have a lot in common with his U.S.-born grandchildren?
Ultimately, all of us who work in this business, regardless of the market in which we operate, end up speaking to someone who has nothing to do with us. The question is if the argument that originally gave rise to Hispanic advertising agencies is still valid today, in this very complex market where the mere definition of Hispanic is already controversial, as it groups together people with very different backgrounds and cultures.
stereotypes vs. world-class work
After combing through 215 commercial submissions with Marketing y Medios editors for this year's Best Spots competition, I detected two things about this market. First, I saw that many advertising agencies still rely heavily on Hispanic stereotypes, hammering the Hispanic insight at all times. But I also saw work from agencies that are seeking to do world-class creative, focusing more on making the benefit of a service or product relevant, instead of making the ads "Hispanic" by forcing the concept in the work.
It was clear to me that the agencies belonging to the first group have a much easier time justifying their creative pitch to their clients, and it was also clear that the creativity shown by the second group of shops is much more superior and contributing to improve the creative reputation of the industry as a whole.
Paradoxically, though, is that - with very few exceptions - the better the idea, the more universal it tends to be and thus less "Hispanic."
After thinking about this, I have only one doubt left (and it might sound a bit stupid). I'd like to know if more unique creativity will be beneficial in the long run, not for the consumer but for the Hispanic advertising agencies. On the one hand, this can make the clients move beyond the Hispanic myth, approving and demanding better ideas. On the other hand, though, we run the risk of weakening the very reason that gave birth to our market: What's Hispanic about it?
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