Stellantis tailors campaigns for African-American, Hispanic consumers

Anything that we take on, we really go out of our way to find a very real and authentic connection to the story that we’re telling. I have to say because of my own very strong connection to my own cultural background, and anybody really that I work with that feels that connection, it’s almost like if you’re going to work in this space, and you’re going to build stories in this space, it’s so crucial to be to be authentic because the viewers and the audiences who are going to come to experience your creativity are really going to look for that connection.

Researchers say the U.S. is going to be majority-minority within the next 20 years or so. How could that dynamic change the marketing space when it happens?

If you asked me what I get up and then make as my priority every day, I’ll tell you that that’s one of the things that I do most is really go out of my way, and my team and I go out of our way, to really speak to the different influencers within this organization and even to media and other organizations and really just inform them, remind them, that it’s a competitive advantage to align our brands with what we call that majority of tomorrow. The facts are compelling: 131 million multicultural Americans living in the U.S. today. Close to 40 percent of the country is either Hispanic, African-American or of Asian descent — if you think forward into the next 20 to 25 years, soon to be the majority population. The teams that we work with are very receptive, they’re very sophisticated, so they’re supportive of this initiative.

What are some of the main differences between a targeted multicultural campaign and a total market, broader campaign?

I’d say that we approach a general market campaign and a multicultural campaign, depending on what the project is, in certain ways. There are two very key ingredients. I’d say that the first step is to be really clear on what a brand’s overall communication objectives are. That is at the core. Whether it’s a general market campaign or a multicultural campaign, at the end of the day, it’s a very specific brand campaign and so we need to be aligned with what that brand wants to communicate and then step two, once we really have that solidified, we set out to achieve the brand’s objectives in ways that are culturally relevant to the audiences that we want to connect to. You want to resonate with the audiences, but you have to be compatible with the brand’s overall objectives. I’d say that that’s really sort of the one-two punch to being sure that the consumers who experience it are emotionally connecting to the story.

You have responsibility for international markets as well. How do you stay on top of the different dynamics of those consumers in different markets?

One of the things that you learn in any marketing role is to develop strong team relationships. Whether you are working on a team in the U.S. that’s focused on multicultural, a smaller team, you really have to rely on the partnerships that you develop within the organization to make progress and to move things forward. I would say that we apply that same approach internationally. You develop relationships. You understand what each organization or each region has as their priorities. You really have to find common ground on what each team’s priority is. Once we understand what their priorities are, we support those priorities, we bring in our expertise as storytellers, as creative developers, and we work in tandem.

I have no doubt in my mind that, at least in my experience, my cultural background as not just a Latin American, but someone who has lived in, was raised in, was born in a different country — I feel like there’s there’s an automatic connection to other people who are from other places. I can work with somebody in the Middle East, I can work with somebody in South Korea, work with somebody in Australia. And we may not even know each other in person, but we automatically find that we just have a cultural understanding of one another, and a cultural sensitivity that allows us to connect in an interesting way. It’s almost something that you can’t plan for, you can’t try to do. It’s just I have found that being culturally sensitive to anybody that you work with is a great way to open a door to a fruitful relationship.