Thursday, July 22, 2010

Levi’s: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for TV…Kind Of

This blog post was written by Paul Sangalang who is an intern at Conexión Marketing. He has received a B.A. in Business Administration from Washington State University in International Business and in December he will receive a second degree in the Spanish language.

Levi jeans, in conjunction with the Discovery Channel, will follow the journey of 5 young U.S. Hispanics on their journey from Alaska to Argentina by way of the Pan-American Highway. The 10-week show will be broadcast in Spanish and is accompanied by a bilingual website. The three men and two women who were chosen to partake in this “trip of a lifetime” will have 10 stops along the way where they will work on projects related to music, style or design; all while wearing the latest from Levi’s Work Wear collection.


This TV series will represent Levi’s principal effort to-date at attracting the Hispanic market to the brand. If you read about Hispanic marketing here or elsewhere, you know that research has found the Hispanic segment to be generally young and a prominent user of social media. Levi’s is harnessing this vital piece of information by kick-starting their Levi’s-branded website with frequent updates from the 5 stars. These status updates can then be shared on other social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook to increase awareness and foster a base of followers for the show. This is all in conjunction with their “Go Forth” campaign, chosen specifically as the “pioneering” aspect was found to connect with the Hispanic market.

While the show will air in Spanish, Levi’s target market is the young bilingual Latino. This is one of the main reasons why the website following the show will be in both English and Spanish. Marketers have consistently found the task of successfully reaching this segment to be one of the most challenging and Levi’s hopes to have found an innovative way to reach out to them.

Levi Strauss & Co. is one of the United States’ great business pioneers, being founded in San Francisco, California in the 19th century. While the goal of the show is to target the Hispanic market, I feel that the general U.S. public can relate to the story. The United States was founded by explorers and pioneers willing to travel through uncharted land. This modern-day version, albeit with charted maps, illustrates a similar journey of new experiences and learning about one’s self.

I think it’s important that we, from time-to-time, go out and explore new frontiers and have new experiences…but if you can’t do that, at least you can zip up a new pair of Levi’s and follow these 5 Latinos on their personal journey through North and South America.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Telecom Services Are Getting Hispanic Dollars - How Will Other Industries Fare?

This blog post was written by Paul Sangalang who is an intern at Conexión Marketing.  He has received a B.A. in Business Administration from Washington State University in International Business and in December he will receive a second degree in the Spanish language. 


In a 305-page report by Insight Research Corp. titled US Hispanic Use of Telecommunications Services 2010-2015, it concluded that Hispanic buyers will account for “17 percent of all residential telecom expenditures.” With the number of Hispanics in the US estimated to surpass 50 million, it’s apparent that this demographic will become a major target for marketers outside of only telecommunications services. Telecommunication companies, as well as other industries, have been aggressively marketing towards the Latino population for years, but the question is: when will all the other industries tap into this market segment?

It’s important to note that the Hispanic ethnicity is the youngest segment in the US, with the largest percentage of citizens under the age of 18. It was also found that Hispanic-Americans are very social online, which can be attributed to the youthfulness of the segment. If marketers play their cards right, they will be able to obtain long-term consumers and reap the financial benefits of lifetime customers.

According to early Census predictions, US Latinos will hold $1 trillion in buying power. It will be paramount for companies and industries, which haven’t already, to recognize the immense potential that the US Hispanic segment holds. It’s not too much of a stretch to presume that those companies who fail to recognize what the Hispanic market holds for their business will fall to the wayside, while those that do prosper.

It will be interesting to see how these companies market to the Hispanic segment and who will succeed in gaining the most market share. I’m sure that these industries are all thinking the same thing and will be working furiously to outmaneuver their rivals. So let the games begin…or better yet: ¡que comience el juego!

To view the article click here.