About This Episode
Understanding your target audience is everything when it comes to digital marketing. And often, that requires creating more than one persona for a group that you might have thought was “all the same”. Join us today and learn about how diverse the Latinx community is and how it requires smart audience research to be successful.
“Did you know the Latinx Market talks about 20 times MORE about brands than the general market?” – Javier Von Westphalen
Javier von Westphalen is an award-winning marketing and innovation strategist. He has helped companies create new strategies, develop innovation capabilities, launch new products, and execute marketing campaigns in industries ranging from healthcare, education, to consumer products and automotive. As Founder/CEO of Emergent Element, a Marketing Strategy Consultancy, he advises organizations and executives on how to harness the power of culture to design Latinx-driven communication strategies.
Key Takeaways
- What is the most common mistake in global brands when targeting different cultures?
- We’ll talk about how you create a plan to understand, connect, and engage with a different cultural community in the long term.
- How you determine the searcher’s intent (for an SEO project) when the searcher might *not* be your end target audience.
- How to use WhatsApp as a channel with Latinx Market and how to successfully engage using that channel.
Connect with Javier
- Check out Javier’s website
- Follow Javier on Twitter
- Connect with Javier on LinkedIn and Facebook
- Contact him by phone (410) 989-5484
Resources Mentioned
Thank you for listening!
If you’d like to know more about change-makers in digital marketing, celebrate their wins, and discover how they built a breaking ground career, subscribe, share and comment on the Digital Marketing Victories Podcast.
Episode Transcript
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Jim Keeney [0:00] So, Javier, you have been working in the field of multi multicultural marketing for a while now, how did you get involved in that aspect of marketing?
Javier Von Westphalen [0:10] Well, actually Oh, man. it has been, what a year actually? probably was about 17. He got it. 17 years actually. Yeah, I got a degree in graphic designs. And my first job was working on Mac and bedroom kinetics in Peru. So, I love stories. I love video. I love the idea of grading that and doing that we actually got into marketing. And then my accounts were Coca Cola Colinas, which the toothpaste Garza Real, which actually was a beer that was coming in. And then Datsun before it became Nissan.
Jim Keeney [0:52] My very first car was a Datsun.
Javier Von Westphalen [0:54] Yeah, you know? You were part of that experience and it was quite interesting with Datsun and Coca Cola, because they were international brands. Right?
Jim Keeney [1:04] Right.
Javier Von Westphalen [1:05] And one of the things of the moment that, like, made the boat up was that the idea of doing international marketing was for New York, to develop the story, and then send it to different countries, for them to kind of adapt it mainly do a translation in Spanish, but the context of the story didn’t make any sense. Right?
Jim Keeney [1:33] Right.
Javier Von Westphalen [1:33] It goes, you know, for example, you know, is this up commercial was very happy was, you know, everybody on the youth was happy. They were thinking they were laughing, they were stuck in a nice, like an LA highway, like a five lane highway, right? They were stuck in traffic, and then they get out of their car, they go to a pickup, jump into the back of the pickup in the bed and start playing the piano. And the party started. Yeah. Now, if you’re in Peru, you go back into the pickup song one, you start a fight. Nothing happy about it. So, but but the start of it, it actually got me thinking on how do brands really target different countries to me, you know, just follow your international brand. And although the theme was that all teenagers behave the same and have the same kind of aspiration which I disagree. Right, you will be able to market with one message. Right? And that got me into this role over start thinking about Wait a minute, you know, we’re not relating, we’re not talking, we’re missing the mark. Yeah, it’s Coca Cola lives a nice brand is happy, yes, that is spirit, that we’re not reaching the audience or you’re being criticized because you’re not understanding that context, where people are leaving. And then my creative director, when he challenged us says, You better start marketing you get out of the graphic design part part of it. And…
Jim Keeney [3:10] So what led you to Emergent Elements?
Javier Von Westphalen [3:15] Yeah, after working for private labels, I was on like, Little Caesars and other companies. He came to DC. And he started working in social marketing. And I did that for about 15 years and decided I wanted to jump, ship and try. This new venture actually tried to be my own boss and get into the to the startup space. And one, one thing that got me to that and motivate me that was the fact that we only were doing one part of marketing, which was designing communications, marketing, communications, but not really looking at other aspects of other barriers of the audience we wanted to serve.
Jim Keeney [4:10] Okay, yep.
Javier Von Westphalen [4:12] So I am I am a creative part. I am actually I am a creative person. And but I’m a marketer by heart. Yeah. Right. In marketer, by heart means actually looking at the different pieces is just not one aspect is really looking at a different segment of how you create an experience. So you tell the story, how you connect with people, what experience are you creating?
Katherine Ong [4:42] So to do that, do launch focus groups with your target audience. So the different demographics, you can get a handle on what motivates them or what fears they might have that hold them back from their research.
Javier Von Westphalen [4:56] Research definitely, actually it has to be implemented in It is probably not only as talking about on focus groups is one on one interviews going and getting embedded in the community and looking at them listen and observing, right? It is trying to find out what are their real desires? And what are the key challenge or key behavior change we want you want to make and how is that you can grade something, or tell the story, right, that will feed into their lives. And not only that, but also accomplish what they want it to actually accomplish. So it’s not me telling them to do what it is, it is to be helping them to be where they want to be, or helping them go where they want to go.
Jim Keeney [5:43] And that, that’s a big challenge, though, right? Because a lot of people come to multicultural marketing as “Oh, well, we we have a bunch of customers that are Latinx” or, you know, whatever it might be, “oh, let’s… we need to do marketing for them.” And it’s kind of a superficial approach. So talk to how you help a company kind of figure out, you know, how to define themselves with respect to this new set of customers and and potentially this new customer segment?
Javier Von Westphalen [6:15] Well, I follow human centered, you know, human centered design approach, which actually is looking really seeking to understand the consumer, defining a specific area is worth focusing on and that actually has a barrier for our desired outcome. Then brainstorming ideas, looking at what it is that is, how we can help them, right. So it’s bringing in trading ideas from stories to probably service changes to other types of origin, we can have stories about that, and then help them you know, create a plan and strategy for doing that.
Katherine Ong [6:52] Do you have a way because you’ve worked with like, really big brands? So do you have a formula for how you execute that on scale? Because I’ve historically worked with big brands, I’ve also definitely pointed out international campaigns that seem to tone deaf in my life. I’m just gonna, I’ve suggested, for instance, Google surveys for some people, and I’m just wondering what your process is like, how do you help them execute that without? Or maybe you do? Maybe you book face to face? back before COVID? Face to face interviews in different cities, like around the US, for instance? Is there something else that you do that might help exit data at scale?
Javier Von Westphalen [7:31] Kevin interviewed with pro probably community influencers, but by community infrastructure, I’m not talking about the Instagram influencer of the day right now, a hot charged shiny object that everybody follows. Now I’m talking about people who actually leave in the community, people that actually are working day to day and getting part of their insight talking to the consumers, right? Or to actually I hate that word consumer to the people who want to share right there towards their towards is really ticking me off. Why is that using the person consumers? Because it takes the humanity out of it in the hour influencing? It is that sounds such a manipulative word. So it is provide inspire, right ignite, anyway. Yeah. And listening to them. Really,
Jim Keeney [8:18] and when you? Yeah, when you work with the leadership of the company, though, you know, when you start an engagement, do they? Are they tone deaf? Or are they you know, how do you bridge that process, to help them understand the full nature of the journey, and to really begin to, because you’re not only helping them kind of reach an audience, but you’re also helping them think about the engagement of a customer, consumer community, inspiring resonance with their, you know, with their users, and the people who they connect with, you’re helping them kind of understand how important that you know that true resonance is to sustainable markets,
Katherine Ong [9:00] well, and sometimes fine budget to talk to these folks that they hadn’t planned on doing or spending. That’s the part I’m curious about, like, how did you convince people to do these user interviews? And how did you figure out a way to do it in a budget friendly way? If they hadn’t previously been thinking about doing it?
Javier Von Westphalen [9:19] Well, I can help them solve the problem. But I really if I don’t really understand the problem. See, that’s a big assumption that most people make, right? We want to get here the end we want to sell out or we want to attract this consumer. And we already know based on literature, what I have heard or what somebody sells on my staff or the cultural values that are our so therefore, let’s go implement this. But do you listen to the customer? So how is that they can help you? We don’t really know what the problem is. And that’s part of the innovation side of it. Right? It is. Okay, we might assume I’ll give you an example. I’m going to give you an example of a campaign that happened is and there was like went to summer 2018, we might assume assume that this is what the customer needs. Right? And you might not. So we don’t know really what problem we’re solving for them. And that’s a starting question. If they don’t want to engage in that way, then how effective or how, truly they’re going to get into the community to actually, you know, win their hearts, and be able to actually influence behavioral change, which actually at the end, is that what do you want to do? Now an example I’m going to give you a second set of company we were on with we CBC was the Zika virus campaign in 2017. It was an epidemic. It was a really emergency. I don’t know if you remember this. Oh, yeah. Zika virus, okay, was an epidemic. He was really urgent, a campaign that we needed to work in. And the hotspot was Puerto Rico. Now Puerto Rico is an island. Okay. And it was a like an immersion convenient immersion campaign you have, you can have a model of communicating, which is you tell people what there is what’s happening. You tell them, what are you doing, why it is important. And two, three actions that they can do to prevent it. You haven’t got a great sense of control, as if this sense of comfort, this is happening, this is really terrific. This is going to impact us when in fact, your baby, this is what we’re doing, actually to actually to minimize the idea, the effect. And this is why it’s important. And this is what you need to do. So he was such a vast campaign that when we got contracted, we actually when we teamed up with CDC, we had two weeks to hit the ground running. So only two weeks, we created everything we got it previous research company that I was doing research with them that actually shared this insight with us. And we went into that we went in we went into production mode, production mode and launch. And then nothing happens. We get silence. Right? So it says, okay, we need to go back in we need to see what is really going on. Now, we learned, right, and we completely forgot that Puerto Rico is an island, that people have been living with mosquitoes since they are actually were born. That the method that they were hearing is something that actually has been tuned there. They’ve been tuned to them. Right? Since they were five years old. So it’s not any song. And what happened with there is no new song, he goes back to the you know, to be to be a surround sound to be to be able to be a
Jim Keeney [13:00] Background noise. Yeah.
Javier Von Westphalen [13:01] Background noise!
Jim Keeney [13:02] Yeah.
Javier Von Westphalen [13:02] Like you said, it’s tune death. Yeah, that’s that’s one. The second part of it is the context of where they were living, there was an economic and social crisis in Puerto Rico. So this was the least part of what they were thinking about every morning, today. And what we need to find out what we find out when we’re talking about When we find out it is not that they knew they were actually get upset is like I know what I need to do. What I need from you is to help me remind me, because I don’t worry, this will not be top of mind. So our speech and reconvene completely changed. Instead of saying, you know this, all you need to do is okay, let’s create a story that will actually our strategy will actually will remind you of the behavior that you need to take to be able to prevent the disease and get it. And now as a complete new graph, we saw what the problem we were solving was not the knowledge. Right, there was an assumption that we did with a problem that we need to solve is, how do we remind them that this is a daily behavior that they can do, like just washing their teeth to prevent a terrible disease? Wow.
Jim Keeney [14:23] Yeah. And often it comes down to that, right? You know, the first orientation is, oh, they don’t have the information. But when we actually dig underneath it, what we do find is, it’s a behavior change. I used to face this all the time in financial services, you know, working with people on retirement and investing is, you know, everybody was trying to educate them more. Well, they were educated out. 30 years of education had not made any change whatsoever. And so you end up you end up realizing No, what has to happen is it has to be a behavior change and a behavior change involves this kind of constant and continuous engagement.
Javier Von Westphalen [15:03] Right? Yeah, it is, it is a long term. And that that is the other aspect is basically Gula marketing, specifically with the Latino community is companies treating a strategy like a political campaign, right getting in and getting out just when they want it, which doesn’t create any benefit, they need to think about long term, it is establishing a relationship with the community, showing themselves that they are actually interested in grammar, like the Latino culture is outward thinking is not inner thinking right is not about me, it is about us. So either Brian actually wants to target he wants to actually engage with it is a long term commitment, it is someone that actually you’re going to get in, and they can show that actually, they’re really interested in a brand new interest and in the community interested in the people they want to actually to reach, if you’re in and out, is a utilitarian.
Jim Keeney [15:59] It’s like the distinction between grass tops and grass roots. You really have to be engaged in the community over the long term. And I think that’s a marketing trend in general. And we see that very much on the digital side is, you know, the first way that people come to digital marketing is they’re like, oh, we’ll just pay and we’ll put ads in there. But the, the successful campaigns are the ones where they’re actually providing value to a community, and they actually understand the community at some deep level rather than on a superficial level.
Javier Von Westphalen [16:31] Exactly, exactly. Yeah. You Aaron, you render right to talk to them.
Katherine Ong [16:36] Yeah. Luckily, Joe talked about that, in our Reddit episode, about how particularly on Reddit, where it’s all anonymous, people can be very blunt. And so you can’t go in and just push, you have to actually engage in the community be a community member, that kind of thing. long term commitment. Yeah. Well,
Jim Keeney [16:54] can you touch on the fact that you know, naive people look at the Latino community as one big community, but you and I both know that? Well, I don’t know. So but there’s a big difference between the Puerto Rican community and the Mexican community and the Cuban community, etc. Can you talk to that? And tell me how you work with clients to help them understand those nuances and differences? Well, yeah,
Javier Von Westphalen [17:21] yeah. That says, we need to actually clarify and define who are we targeting with who actually we’re trying to reach out. because like you said, in the inner community, we not only have different cultural backgrounds, you will have different countries that have their own aspects and cultures. But also we have a corporation or levels, we are the first generation, the second generation of third and fourth generation, which actually they have assimilated some of the, you know, the American values, but is still still conserved from the Latino values. And their experiences are completely different. In add to that, Ben’s on the state that you live in. Right, so for example,
Jim Keeney [18:11] Arizona versus Florida.
Javier Von Westphalen [18:14] Right, Arizona versus Florida, Arizona versus Atlanta.
Jim Keeney [18:16] Yeah.
Javier Von Westphalen [18:17] Or California versus Baltimore. Right. Not only the demographic changes, but also the social infrastructures and helps that you have a network. So you have already stopped, right? Right, right.
Katherine Ong [18:31] So does this mean you create a persona for each of those? as a way to focus everybody about how different the different groups are? So if you were doing the US campaign, you’d might create 15 different latinx personas, because of how distinctly different they are?
Javier Von Westphalen [18:47] No will probably will look at one markets Actually, we shall look, we shall target best what actually will be the you know, higher return of investment. Focus on one we’re focused on we can probably focus on our region or focus on different Mark different status markets. So it’s not just a completely listing… let me stop here and guide my thought. So a national campaign, for example, it doesn’t mean that I’m targeting the 52 states. Right, I’m national campaign means I’m targeting selective estate, where our, our audience or the audience you want to reach will bring you the highest return of investment. These doesn’t mean that, for example, that he will be California, Texas and Florida. We’re actually you know, probably a 60% of the population to any productive supported Latino population leave. You will be a completely different if you are actually targeting first generation, Latinos, right, where they are, and what are the needs and then you develop different type of campaigns.
Katherine Ong [19:54] I just asked him because I’ve worked on a variety of public service and federal websites that are national and they just translate. Yeah, that’s why I was asking.
Javier Von Westphalen [20:04] Yeah. Yeah, you know, one of the beauty of digital is that you’re gonna be very selective and very targeted. And the pressor customization for a persona is not as expensive or you will be doing broadcast. Right, when you’re doing mass media before on that. I mean, if you develop three TV commercials, if you will, for different regions, then you’re customizing it for that region. But then again, you know, it is broadcast. So you’re talking to the average average number, if you will. And we know the average number. People don’t buy average numbers
Jim Keeney [20:45] becomes background noise again, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, and and I think you said something earlier, which is kind of critical, which is, in the Latino community, that involvement in the community is the place where it starts. And so you know, there’s a different willingness or acceptance, and, you know, correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s a different willingness and an acceptance for that kind of generic marketing that, you know, targets an average person, they really want to see much more involvement in the community, I think.
Javier Von Westphalen [21:18] Yeah, yes, I agree. I mean, yes, definitely. I mean, there, you have different levels of communications and different levels of how you tell the story. And so it’s, so it’s, so those aspects that need to be taken into consideration that so you know, three elements like you’re talking, the beginning is still not done is Tory, green, enter relationship, right, and design an experience. Now how those three elements combining each other into your strategy is just not about telling the story.
Katherine Ong [21:49] So a lot of the space that I’m in is people proactively going to Google to search for something. So I have a burning question. You just talked about how very different these communities are across the nation? Is the Spanish radically different? Would they literally be googling stuff that’s different. So you might have to maybe label it differently in Spanish in order for them to find it. Like is the Puerto Rican Spanish radically different than the Spanish being spoken in Atlanta?
Javier Von Westphalen [22:15] They’re a dramatic, yes. And how they use the Spanish is Spanish, right? is like the difference between England and United States, English or Ireland, you have an accent, he has certain modisms that actually are common to the culture or common to the place that the language is the same. Now, yes, I will have to say that if we are searching for something for a term, they may use a term that they are used to how or or how they are. They’re used to how to talk.
Katherine Ong [22:52] Right, right. Because I saw that when I was in Australia, I was floored by it. I forgot what it was rent and lease or something. But the term they used was not the term that we used here in the US. There were quite a few moments like that, where I was like, what are we talking about? You know, it’s still English, but they use a completely different term. So how many of those variants are happening here in the US? How many different I guess I don’t know if you call them slang terms, but is it five in the US are 10?
Javier Von Westphalen [23:20] You got me!
Katherine Ong [23:21] I’m really curious.
Javier Von Westphalen [23:24] You got me. See, the thing is with when we use actually search with a strategy for search, right? You use about the intent.
Katherine Ong [23:32] Right? It is about the intent, which is why the slang would matter.
Javier Von Westphalen [23:35] You look at you look at what you’re trying to find out. For example, one of the things the and this is, you know, in even or do things is not even related to what they are going on formulating my thoughts. One of the things that we do, right, is just not only looking at the specific term, be so straightforward. Right. So, you were saying you’re looking for a vaccine flu vaccine, they’ll just give you an example. Okay. flu vaccine. Usually you’re looking for, you know, flu symptoms, those kind of things. But what is really the Latino population looking at on their life, and how that what served and they’re using the what search terms are they using to find information? Maybe condoms, maybe sex, maybe they’re looking at other aspects that are important to them. So we combine both things. So he will appear the message will appear nor for Direct search, like, I’m going to want to know, the flu symptoms, but there might be looking for how to better rest how to actually kind of better a sleep.
Jim Keeney [25:12] So overall health, exactly. But from their perspective, and that is, you know, that’s interesting, because that is kind of a fundamental cultural difference. So, so years ago, I came up with a whole thing where, you know, I was trying to figure out, you know, it’s generally understood that there are cultures that are much more kind of oral based, and others that are more literature based. So Northern European, Northern, Western European. And so, you know, I kind of thought about that, and it didn’t really describe it for me well enough, until what I stumbled upon was, what I said was transactive versus interactive cultures, and northern Western European is transactive. And the foundation of the interaction is a contract. And its terms and definition, whereas interactive, the foundation of all of the engagement is the community and the relationship. So you know, in Latino communities, you know, sit down, have lunch, get to know each other, etc. And then only then do you start to transact the business aspects of it. And that’s been, you know, it’s kind of simplistic, but it’s been a very good, it’s been a very good kind of way for me to understand how this works. And so, you know, generally the Latino community tends to be much more interactive and less transactive. And so what you’re saying is, they’re not, you know, if you think from transactive, it’s like, I have the flu, let me go find a solution to the flu. Whereas an interactive is, well, you know, I have a health issue. And where am I community can I find information about health issues? And oh, it turns out, that’s all you know, while looking for this, that’s also where I want to find out about flu shots. And I also want to find out about, you know, COVID-19, or what have you. And so that’s a kind of a fundamentally different way of looking at the world.
Katherine Ong [27:05] So, circling back to, like,
Javier Von Westphalen [27:08] I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Katherine. Actually, not to that. Doesn’t there’s a fundamental thing that actually could you tell the stories as well, because this community versus individualism, right, is not a utilitarian message. It is a value message. So when you’re creating stories, that the ones that actually they are best suited and have better affinity with Latino? Is that part of it? It is not saying today is the special and this is you know what I’m getting for 99 cents, is this breakfast with bacon? And no, it is? Oh, look, my kid is working at this restaurant. And, you know, and this is fantastic, because this is the stage of life that we need to celebrate. Gotcha, right. It is a different way of presenting the story.
Katherine Ong [28:01] So sorry, circling back around to persuading your clients to become closer to their target audience, which I think is the essential thing here that I’m really holding on to now for you, you’re a member of the community. So I am assuming when you have a conversation with these clients, they just kind of nod and go, Okay, yeah, you’re more of an expert in this community than I am. And I believe you and Okay, I’ll let you talk to them. Maybe for those of us who are not a member of this community, I tried really hard sometimes when clients want me to market to another country. And I’m like, I don’t know, let’s go talk to them, but it’s hard to persuade. So do you have a set of resources that you or research that you point to that says that okay, if you want to target a community, you have to be on Snapchat or they are not interested in a vaccine message or whatever? Is there a set of places that you could point the rest of us to get our clients to go Oh, yeah, okay. I do need to talk to the target audience.
Javier Von Westphalen [28:56] Well, for secondary research, yeah, they have you know, usually go to Hispanic Pew, eMarketer, which give you a broad overview of media habits Nielsen, mainly here in US. eMarketer is good actually, they have research for us as well as Latina medica which can give you a very overview of you know, media usage and some of the sentiments a US Hispanic Pew is a great source for demographic chains, the poles for a general or for the community itself, not specifically for an area of the community. That for said United States itself, how they are feeling, what it is, their sentiments are. So give you a little bit of guidance, a notch on what is happening, whether you’re thinking, what…
Katherine Ong [29:56] Does at times even I had a client where literally I was their target audience and I still had to point them to research to get them, you know? So anyway, that’s why I asked the question like, how do you get the client to be like, you think you know what you’re talking about? The audience is not necessarily jiving with you, or they have a different background or whatever.
Javier Von Westphalen [30:16] Yeah, I would wait to do this actually, as a matter of fact, if they’re willing to is doing an affinity workshop, an empathy workshop, we’re actually you want the clients to, you know, bring some expertise to listen to them. Right? Well, there are many ways to do this. But one it is actually you can bring the experts to the community to talk to him, and listen, and ask questions, and then go and do a empathy graph. That is what I think what they say, or they do. Right? and gather those thoughts from that, compared to what they were thinking. So trying to see, so trying to see the difference between what they have heard, what they think they say, what they think they do, and why they’re feeling what they were thinking,
Katherine Ong [31:12] oh, oh, I just got it. It’s like the eight second test for websites, except with messaging. You show it really quick, and then you take it away, and you go, who owns the website? What do they do? Do you care? You know, those kind of questions? Right?
Jim Keeney [31:31] Yeah, in psychology, it’s called difference checking, where you know, and that’s actually one of the tricks is you can say, okay, so you thought, you know, you thought they loved your brand on a scale of one to 10. You know, where do you fall? Oh, I thought they were an eight. And then you go to somebody else who was in the exact same session, and you say, Well, on a scale of one to 10, where, oh, it’s a five. Okay, now, why do you say eight? And why do you say five? And that’s when the real conversation begins to happen. Because now somebody says, Well, you know, they were five, because Did you know that? Did you notice that the person on the left, kept pulling back every time you talked about the product? And the other person’s like, No, I didn’t notice that. And now you start to have the substantive conversations, they get underneath the surface. And so you call that affinity?
Javier Von Westphalen [32:20] Affinity and empathy and affinity.
Jim Keeney [32:24] Okay,
Javier Von Westphalen [32:24] workshop.
Jim Keeney [32:25] Okay. So it really starts for you with the interviews and the face to face and the engagement with the with actual people, right?
Javier Von Westphalen [32:34] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you know, I’m Latino, first generation, I go through the same kind of experiences, my experiences, there doesn’t mean that they are the same experience other people have actually gone through. Yeah, right. I can sympathize with them. I can I able to understand, because they go probably some certainty or similar circumstances. But they’re not me.
Jim Keeney [32:55] Right.
Javier Von Westphalen [32:56]
Right. You, I and Kathy, don’t have the same values and beliefs and experiences and knowledge. And it will be very arrogant for me, just because they work with the community and saying, “I know”
Jim Keeney [33:11] Right
Javier Von Westphalen [33:12] And I know you want me to look as like, I can see you. I can listen to you. And then I can tell fine, what you’re not saying it’s all fine. What is the problem that you want to solve to get where you want to get?
Jim Keeney [33:29] One? That’s the core arrogance that needs to be addressed from corporate leadership, right? Which is, well, if I just put the right words on paper or on social media post, or what have you, that’s it. And you know, if translated into Spanish, that’ll be okay. And what you’re saying is that number one, you know, don’t do it casually, it’s got to be a strategic choice, because you’ve got to be in it for the long haul. And number two, it’s a very diverse and complex community, therefore, you know, start trying to figure out exactly what your intent is what you’re trying to do, go out to specific communities that you want to have engagement with, because of the ROI implied. And now find out what they actually think as opposed to what you think they think,
Katherine Ong [34:17] well, but also, he mentioned the pain point, which I think is really important. That’s what drives people to search, right? They’ve got a problem in their head. And you can’t assume you know what their problem is. I think that’s the gist of it. Is that really where the problem and your product intersect? That’s where you need to be marketing. Right? And you don’t know what their problem is, unless you talk to them, especially if they’re that diverse.
Javier Von Westphalen [34:39] Right? Yeah, exactly. So what is it? I mean, yeah, and there comes a difference. I mean, it the desire of a person, original Latino, who has been here for five years to the desire of someone who has been here for 20 years, has completely changed. Yeah, right, or actually have been born here. So that’s that change and the experience is different. They might want to Car Now, why do you want a car? What was the resources? What problems they’re solving them? You know, if they buy something, what people will say about it? Yeah. So all those aspects they you know, take into consideration your own it is looking at their barriers. You know, an example, for example, in something that we did, this just happened, we didn’t even we didn’t even think about it. I mean, I have a client who actually is in a profit organization leave. And is it lets you know, the kitchen apartment fun. And when that what they do with his record does his advice and coach first generation parents, Spanish speaking parents navigate the US school system? Her process of her approach is do one on one, workshops, and one on one consulting face to face because that is more comfortable for the community. Now we covered everything got to change, right? Everything actually, you needed to be able to be online. So 111 of the tools that we are more comfortable using wealth, right? All of that is soon an invite our assumption was the community because they are smartphone savvy. They will be able to figure it out or be able to use it
Wrong! Because they use smartphones for different purposes. Right? They are I mean, they are. You know, they use more than broadband, they use smartphones, but they use it for different purposes. And they have never been exposed to these tools soon. And he fight. So one of the barriers was when we need to educate them. They want to participate. The interest is there. The demand is there. Ramon was didn’t know how to use the tools.
Katherine Ong [36:51] So did you keep it on zoom? Or did you find another video sharing platform? They were using?
Javier Von Westphalen [36:57] No. or something but the thing is, they were not using any any video platform we’re using. And there used to be the platform will be what’s up? Yeah, right. But WhatsApp doesn’t actually allows you to run a nice conversation and nice meeting with a group. And it breaks down a lot, when actually it’s a large group. So so the first piece of that is okay. Let’s educate the community on how to do this step by step walk them through.
Katherine Ong [37:32] Well, we’re gonna be zooming for a while, probably so that they can participate in all sorts of zooms everywhere.
Javier Von Westphalen [37:41] Oh, wait, look, she just got one. I’m sorry. But
Katherine Ong [37:45] at least another however,
Jim Keeney [37:48] you provided a critical community service right there. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll zoom my son who’s in the basement.
Katherine Ong [38:00] Talk to me about these different I’m completely ignorant about how to market to the Latino community. I’ll admit that though, I’ve looked at some research intermittently. But so what are the social media platforms that they hang out on? We’ve talked about WhatsApp though, I don’t know what you can do with WhatsApp as a marketer, because it’s chatting back and forth, right.
Javier Von Westphalen [38:19] Actually, on Facebook, you know, Facebook for trying to monetize any platform, right changing algorithm, if you have created a new one well, actually is WhatsApp for business. And WhatsApp for business. You’ll be able to do sin ads. But this is the thing is, it is WhatsApp is the email for the Latino market. Right? So 3% of Latinos, in general Jews, this is on average, right? 3% are Latino, usually you email communications. There are more text oriented, more voice oriented, more social media oriented. So top platforms that use social media is Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, I mean, video is a huge thing. YouTube, Google search, right. And WhatsApp and WhatsApp, the index and you mentioned this in WhatsApp in the twice the general population. On usage, so there are 52% of their time on is limited. Let me back this 52% versus 21%. Wow, of usage of time using was
Jim Keeney [39:45] something like WhatsApp, you said it’s like email. It seems to me that then what you’re trying to do is build up subscriptions, right? You’re trying to get people to voluntarily allow you to broadcast to them. Is that how you handle it? Is that how you normally
Javier von Westphalen: Nope, no. I mean, if you do that, you’ll be background noise
Jim Keeney: Okay. Javier von Westphalen: Because they’re already getting inundated with Facebook. They already are getting inundated with a lot of ads that, you know, the WhatsApp, platform on it is to be able to create a group or affinity group or engagement. Right. So it’s a conversation. It will, they will. They will. They will. How can I say this? Thinking about this? It is. You were a guest when they engaged with you. Right. And it is so how it is that you’re going to be able to continue being invited into the party.
Jim Keeney: gotcha.
Javier von Westphalen [00:41:00] Right. and be a great, not host, but guest. So what stories you tell how you’re going to communicate? How are you going to help? How are you? You know, answer. If they have a question in this interaction, doesn’t have to be every day, the interaction has to be there. It has to have a purpose and an intent is you said it is about creating value.
Jim Keeney: Does the, because of that though, does the cost of engagement go up dramatically or have you found systems to be able to do that level of engagement at roughly the same resource requirements as other forms of engagement with
Katherine Watier Ong: Oh, you’re asking about scale. Like how do you do this at scale? Or can you do it at scale? that’s actually my biggest question. Can you even do it at scale?
Javier von Westphalen: you can do it at scale. I mean, what stops it is. It’s a general product form. You create a group or you create a number and you do it a Grammy. The thing is that the thing is that you need to be show up, you need to show up and be present and, this is the other thing, and consistent,
Jim Keeney [00:42:00] Yeah. and then the quality and value of what you’re doing then becomes critical because you want them to keep coming back, right?
Javier von Westphalen: So you’re not, you become a WhatsApp is becoming a resource. Like I said, you work for friends. we are guests. And then that’s the way you engage with them. and you could be inviting people. People will and this. This is the beauty of it, right? If you become a resource, you become a friend, the devalue, they will talk about you and they will tell other people about, you, will share that information about you.
Now, you know, that Latinos. Talk 20 times more about brands than the general market.
Jim Keeney: wow.
Javier von Westphalen: Yeah. So that is a key component.
Jim Keeney: so once you’ve actually done the legwork and gotten the [00:43:00] community and become part of it, the stickiness is much greater. is that what that implies,
Javier von Westphalen: Right.
Jim Keeney: Yeah, well, that’s the consistency element, right? Is, you know, if you show up and you provide this value on a consistent basis, once you’re actually established the, you know, the loyalty to your brand and the ability to spread via word of mouth.
You know, quote unquote, is significantly higher. So that’s an interesting, because you know, because many brands are struggling with the fact that, in the general population, as a whole stickiness has gone out the window, people are just like, yeah, well, if you’re not doing anything for me today, forget it.
Katherine Watier Ong [00:44:00] but still, this sounds like a process challenge though, because most marketers say you’re in-house, you’ve got multiple channels, usually everybody’s too stretched. And so you’re using like Hootsuite to preschedule or something else to preschedule. So you’ve, pre-thought about your message and you push this sounds like you actually need to show up and talk
Jim Keeney: It’s more like webinars.
Javier von Westphalen: Exactly
Katherine Watier Ong: more like a webinar. Exactly. Which is a lot more of a lift you get, you’re not pre scheduling anything.
Javier von Westphalen: All right. So, so it’s not a, it’s not a push message. which I do not negate. Right. Developing your message and setting it up and then schedule it up and send them to actual, to be top of mind, something that’s actually valuable. This is more of a building a relationship part with the community and engagement part with the community and listening to them. You know, there are a couple of values of that.
One it is that you become a trusted advisor, right? You become, they see that the brand or the company or whoever it is that wants to serve is active and with them visually, but they are second. It is. You have, you gather great insights
Jim Keeney: yeah, the listing part.
Javier von Westphalen [00:45:00] when they trust you, right. It’s already spoken about not only the problem that you’re trying to solve ; X and X and X problems that they’re going through with their lives. Right. So it is a great research tool, it’s a great listening tool. A great connection
Katherine Watier Ong: tool.
So if they’re chat, if the community is chat-based, does that mean that Facebook messenger is more used by the community as well as, or is it just Facebook facebook?
Javier von Westphalen: Is, there are two parts of it actually is Facebook groups, right? It is used by the community, Facebook, Phoenix use by their community a lot on, okay. no. If you go to Latin America, they are other. You know Whatsapp’s still being used, but there are other chats that they might be more local, more.
Katherine Watier Ong [00:46:00] Yes, this is a story I’m always telling, like, if you want to be found in South Korea, it’s neighbor, it’s not Google changes radically depending on the country.
Javier von Westphalen: Yeah, exactly. Mix that. Well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, for search engines, I mean, Google is all over Latin America. That’s no problem in better for text messages. There might be other platforms that I have, I don’t know, because I’m not these moms or working with them.
Katherine Watier Ong: It was about, they were targeting South Korea and they were just doing Google and they were just doing, and I spent all this time digging up the researcher out in that country. It’s actually X, Y, and Z. And this one is XYZ
Javier von Westphalen: Yeah.
Katherine Watier Ong: Yeah.
Jim Keeney: Well, but that gets us back to your first point, which is if you sit down and actually talk to them, you’ll find that out right away. Right. You know, it’s a simple question. What social media platforms do you use? I mean, that’s the way we would phrase it, but it’ll be slightly different depending on the country and
Javier von Westphalen: also, how are you using, how are you using social media?
Jim Keeney: Exactly.
Javier von Westphalen [00:47:00] Does it, does that’s the, that is the other part of it. So.
Jim Keeney: Yeah. My experience with that is, you know, I work with, developers in China and, and it’s a completely different landscape for one thing. Google is blocked. So, you know, the one time I visited, you know, when you land your phone stops working. Which is fascinating because, you know, I’ve become very dependent on Google maps and I can’t read the signs and the only alternative was Baidu and Baidu is that everything’s in Chinese. So, so I found myself in the middle of Chengdu once, completely lost with no way of getting back and no phone.
Javier von Westphalen: and you cannot use Google translator either. So.
Jim Keeney: Completely lost. Luckily I figured it out, but, and I was, you know, like five blocks away from the hotel, but it is still.
Katherine Watier Ong: So, I have a question cause you were talking about generations and my husband is actually a second generation from Indonesia. So, how [00:48:00] often are you finding the generational, whether it’s first generation or second generation would impact? Again, coming back to the Google stuff that I spent a lot of time on, who is Googling.
So is this is, do they find maybe the Spanish is so atrocious here in the U S on websites that they have, like their parents Google for it, or, I mean, the kids Google for the parents. Do you get into that with the campaigns too? Like who exactly is doing the
Javier von Westphalen: Yeah,
Katherine Watier Ong: absorbing the message?
Javier von Westphalen [00:49:00] absolutely. Absolutely. One of the key things that we need to look at. So, so thus, that’s a great question because one of the things that you need to look at when you’re creating strategies is who is the influencer. Latinos make the, make decisions as a group, as a family, they don’t make decisions individually.
And then they take that into consideration. Everybody and remember. Yeah. The mom or the dad at the end will be actually saying, this is what we’re going to do. But everybody actually has something to say and everybody else has a point of view or something to contribute to, you know, to that decision and dependent on what you are buying or what are you looking at? The influencer could be the second generation or third generation. Second of it. It is, they might be able, the persons to attribute to help see. First, second generations are specifically for a segment of the population and the Latino population who actually are listed, located, and don’t know, don’t speak English. The second generations are the ones who help their parents transact in the States. To speak for them, translate for them, help them in many different ways. The same thing is happening online. They are becoming the digital Sherpas.
Javier von Westphalen [00:50:00] So parents will go and ask them for favors to help them with technology, to help them with search, to help them to do so. They may be one of the influencers. And I mean, that’s, you know, it coming back with coming back to that, it is who is helping also ignite the thought, on the
Jim Keeney: That it has to wreak havoc with your demographics because, you know, so say you’re selling insurance, and your target audience is 45 to 65. You go into like, but the people who actually are doing the research might be, you know, in their twenties.
Javier von Westphalen: Exactly. Exactly. So, the metrics are different, right? The message where you want to say is it is not, this is not insurance for you, you’re doing it for your dad, you’re doing it for your uncle. You’re doing it right. And this is why are the important things that you actually need to bring up to him to make a decision?
Jim Keeney [00:51:00] If you expose that awareness. Is that okay? Like if you’re, if your marketing messages is actually help your, you know, is it as, is as bald faced as, you know, help your parents figure out insurance or, you know, something of that nature. is that too unsubtle or is that,
Javier von Westphalen: You will do it. Multimodal
Jim Keeney: Okay. That’s what I thought, but.
Javier von Westphalen: for example, I’ll give you an example. We actually were looking at the flu campaign. Right. And when we’re looking at the three different generations and each one was a completely different strategy, but the flu vaccine is already a well-known product and it is a seasonal behavior change.
So part of the strategy was not to let them know this is a reminder. And why should they do this? Right? What was, what is the reason that the flu is so important to be able to do that? So that campaign was, I do it for you,
Jim Keeney [00:52:00] Yeah,
Javier von Westphalen: right?
Jim Keeney: which ties into the community aspect
Javier von Westphalen: I’m vaccinating myself for you,
Jim Keeney: Yeah.
Javier von Westphalen: you know, to keep you safe.
Jim Keeney: Yeah.
Javier von Westphalen: I’m vaccinating. You know. And it, and this is going bust with the budget. It
is. how is it that you can talk to a group right. To their specific needs when there is no budget, there’s not a certain amount of budget. So it is what it is that you combine, what it is that you select. And we were talking and we did. Like three, four personas. And we would target at the different ages and the different demographics and generations based with that message. And we tweaked the message. We adapted the message to reflect the interest of, but in general, the campaign was we’ll do it for you.
Jim Keeney [00:53:00] yeah, that makes sense.
Katherine Watier Ong: How do you measure the effectiveness of these campaigns? Just thinking back to all the federal campaigns I’ve been exposed to and how many times they translate to all the different languages. And I’m just kind of curious how you. How do you measure whether it would work? I mean, you sort of mentioned Zika, there was clearly a moment where they measured and they knew it wasn’t working, which is why you’ve got to talk to people and pivot. Right. So how did that come about? Are they doing surveys, phone surveys or something?
Javier von Westphalen: Yeah, we were doing phone surveys. But one of the things that we did was two things. remember actually the campaign is specifically in Puerto Rico was to be able to remind people to do the behavior. Right. In one, one, one of the behaviors was actually used repellent. And so in order for them to remind them next it’s use repellent, we bought led ads on the aisle repair any grocery stores, right. and some of the stores were [00:54:00] actually community stores where actually, they usually, they used to go every day or every week and work with them to measure. What was the uplift on self-repellent before the campaign and after the campaign.
When it happened and then it wasn’t.
Katherine Watier Ong: Yeah.
Javier von Westphalen [00:55:00] Exactly. Yeah. And then, we also measure the intent. We actually worked with Google to do a brand lift intent of certain messages, and we did it. we did this, the search, not only for a YouTube campaign, a video campaign, but also for searching Google and see what was. You know exactly what did it change? did it actually really change something or people were searching more because of what we were doing. And we saw a lift. We saw actually a significant lift on the purchase intent and the awareness and the intent of using repellents. And then we compared that with sales, right.
We did a, quarter to quarter in a year to year. the repellent sales and see where it was and where were some of the gaps? So for example, the one of the gaps that we saw overall, we saw repellent sold, you know, repellent to, actually lift about 15%. from the previous year, that is year to year and then on the stores where we didn’t put any signs.
Cause we were no, not for any reason. We were not able to actually be there. We saw that our sales went down, whereas the stores where actually, we put the signs as your reminder, their sales were up.
Jim Keeney: So Javier you’ve been great. This is, this has been a fantastic conversation.
Katherine Watier Ong: So how can people learn more about you if they want to connect with you?
Javier von Westphalen [00:56:00] Well, they can actually, they can call me, let me get you to be like, they don’t even remember my business number, you know, or email me. number is (410) 989-5484. They can look me at LinkedIn, Facebook page and Emergent Element, (https://emergentelement.com/employees/javier-von-westphalen/) Instagram emergent element, Twitter, https://twitter.com/javiervw or, go to the, my website,
Jim Keeney: And what’s your website address again?
Javier von Westphalen: Emergentelement.com.
Katherine Watier Ong: Thank you so much. This has been awesome. Super enlightening. I think a lot of my fellow marketer friends are probably not targeting this market or maybe occasionally getting pinged about targeting this market in a way that’s not very savvy. So I really appreciate it. I learned a lot today.
Javier von Westphalen: Well on that note and not just to put some statistics to this, right. And I know you probably already know this, right. It is that, you know, growth within the Latino community of the year’s population from 2010, 2018, 50% of the growth. The U S population actually is because of Latinos.
Jim Keeney: wow.
Javier von Westphalen [00:57:00] And then if they are thinking about, because those, this could be one of the barriers or challenges is why choose the target with them.
Right. To put it in perspective, it is like targeting the economies of Canada or Mexico because they have 17 million, purchasing power, the Latino market.
Katherine Watier Ong: Yeah, 17 million people. And what was it? 20% more likely to spread your brand message?
Javier von Westphalen: no. There’s not a 20% more likely to progression it is they speak 20 times more about their brand than the general market.
Jim Keeney: Yeah. And you said 70 million, right?
Javier von Westphalen: They’ll let me double check on this because I actually in my, on my, where he shot him, ready note. Yeah, no, sorry. It’s 1.7 trillion spending power
Jim Keeney: Wow, so it’s dollars. Yeah.
Javier von Westphalen [00:58:00] dollars. 1.7 trillion in spending power, which actually is the, you know, is similar to the economy of Canada or Mexico.
Jim Keeney: Yeah.
Javier von Westphalen: Right? So if you’re going to go into any of those markets, you’ve got one here at home.
Jim Keeney: Yep. Yup. That’s right. Why set up a satellite office in Canada when you can just market to a different community in the United States, get just as much bang for your buck. If not more, that is excellent proselytization for your cause.
Javier von Westphalen: Yeah.
Jim Keeney [00:59:00] Yeah, no, this is, and it couldn’t be more timely, frankly, because I think that one of the, you know, joking aside about, you know, some of the, some of the events that have been happening in the country over the last five years, I think part of what’s happened is an activation of the Latinx community.
That you know, that, it is driving them to demand more and expect more. And, you know, given the fact that they’re, you know, they’re growing in prominence throughout the country, it’s no longer going to be a question of whether or not you should. It’s going to be a question of you must. and I think that’s really becoming obvious.
Javier von Westphalen [01:00:00] Well, yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, one of the things that I want to prompt that actually you asked me, is why the shift there are mainly really mainly two reasons: demographics and purchasing power. I mean, right now there are 60 million, Latinos in the US, right. It was a one of five is a Latino and soon is becoming one of four in, you know, four generations.
You see where 25%, whereas the growth of the general market. As a matter of fact, this is zero, You know, the growth in Latino population has been 52%. You know, it is. And not only that it is where different in such a different life stage is. It’s a younger population that actually median age is 26.
Jim Keeney: wow.
Javier von Westphalen: So where do you, if you’re marketing someone that already have, listen, my work let’s talk about not only health, but let’s talk about. Your lifestyle, your lifestyles and the material that you need, houses, cars, comfort. You want to actually target people who are changing their, you know, their, the different life stages, the different growth stages.
you know, someone that’s actually going down that you know, is more likely to look for other things and experiences, right.
Jim Keeney: right.
Katherine Watier Ong: Right. this is awesome.
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