Yesterday, my Twitter feed led me to the following link from AdWeek: “Honda Targets Hispanic Millennials by Mocking the Way Brands Target Hispanic Millennials Bilingual.”
If you are one of those people who feel that agencies and brands have been pandering to Latinos for decades, the following videos from Honda kind of explain themselves. Watch as comedian Felipe Esparza guides us through his dilemma.
In English.
And in Spanish.
In just 30 seconds, we learn that the basic truth: you can’t box in young Latino millenials, so just stop it. And yeah, I know this is an ad, and a few of you will think that we are all blind sheep being sold goods every second, but for all the adults in the room with actual brains, I raise this point: this ad was definitely created by individuals who know the issue. It’s about trying to be original and intelligent when it comes to marketing to a group that quite frankly, hates marketing and being sold to just because they are Latino. And you know how “hot” it is to be Latino now! This ad doesn’t bang your head with forced culture, bad stereotypes or heavy-handed pride. It just is. Yes, young Latinos go to movies, go grocery shopping and go to work, just like millions of other young Americans. What a concept.
So, as someone who writes about a lot of brands that do it wrong, here’s to one campaign that does it right. Congrats to the guys at Orcí. As the agency’s founder told Ad Week:
Agency president Andrew Orcí says the spots, shot in Spanish and English, began with the idea that brands often try to fit Hispanic consumers into specific patterns and niches, when in fact it’s a group that’s pretty much impossible to lump into a few convenient categories.
“Latino millennials are much more than what we make of them. They are a versatile bunch. They ping-pong between cultures, languages, interests and behaviors. That’s why it’s funny when you hear others trying to fit them into their box of clichés,” Orcí says.
Felipe Esparza, as our ‘Latino expert,’ is the perfect voice to make fun of this situation. Why? Because not even a Latino can define a Latino. They simply defy all expectations.
That’s it. “Because not even a Latino can define a Latino.” It’s the reason why we challenge each other every day, why some of us celebrate this identity and some of us don’t. And guess what, that’s perfectly fine.
By the way, one of the coolest things to come out of this spot was the following tweet from the guy who wrote the ad:
We’ll take that.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Julio (Julito) Ricardo Varela (@julito77) founded LatinoRebels.com in May, 2011 and proceeded to open it up to about 20 like-minded Rebeldes. A 1990 Harvard graduate in the History and Literature of Latin America, his personal blog, juliorvarela.com, has been active since 2008 and is widely read in Puerto Rico and beyond. He pens columns on LR regularly. In the last two years, Julito represented the Rebeldes on CBS’ Face the Nation, NPR, Univision, and The New York Times. Recently, he was a digital producer for Al Jazeera America’s The Stream.
