By Sandra Baker, Fort Worth Star Telegram
FORT WORTH — Luis Caballero wants to improve and change the way advertisers market goods and services to the local Hispanic community.
Armed with nearly 20 years of corporate-marketing and advertising-agency experience, he recently launched Matador Marketing Group in Fort Worth. Allen Wallach and Andrew Yanez, principals of Concussion, an 8-year-old advertising and public-relations firm in Fort Worth, are also partners in the Hispanic advertising agency. Caballero serves as president and oversees day-to-day operations.
“Seeing how it’s done at a big corporate level, and growing up in the industry, the Hispanic model of advertising, you just can’t put it up on the billboard anymore,” Caballero said.
“Now, it has to focus on lifestyle. Before it was easy from a language standpoint because you were getting a contained consumer. But now full generations of kids have grown up who feel comfortable with English and Spanish.”
By 2010, the buying power of Hispanics nationwide will reach
$1 trillion, according to HispanTelligence. But advertisers don’t always do a good job of getting their message across to
Hispanics, Caballero said.
“There’s more high net worth with the under-35 age group, and their needs are different,” he said.
Caballero holds undergraduate degrees in Spanish and psychology and a graduate degree in behavioral sciences from Southern Methodist University. He’s worked with brands such as Taco Bell, Church’s Chicken and Subway, as well as at the Tracy Locke advertising agency in Dallas and at Sosa & Associates in San Antonio, a leading Hispanic advertising agency.
“I’ve developed this theory of branding at the point of contact, which is basically, ‘How do brands get to the Hispanic consumer market from a lifestyle standpoint at the point of a transaction?’ ” Caballero said. “That’s what I’m developing this whole agency around.”
Are companies truly concerned about their how their message is received by Hispanics?
I believe so. We’ve seen companies try to get into the market. It’s really seeding that message at a grassroots level, really developing what I like to call brand roots. My goal is to get that growing midsize company that is now realizing, “Hey, this is a growing consumer base for me, do I need to advertise in Spanish?”
Is Hispanic marketing still a growing area?
I would say expanding. No one’s nailed it yet. Companies have to look at biculturalism, not just bilingualism. You’ve got multiple venues, mediums and targets that you now have to be considerate of. One of the biggest myths out there is that Hispanics don’t go on the Internet. That’s a huge fallacy, and there are statistics to show it.
Detail a particular project in which you helped
change a message.
The Taco Bell campaign to get people to go to Taco Bell after 10 p.m. How do you create Taco Bell as a destination place? Taco Bell internally viewed themselves as quasi-Mexican. But when you looked at Hispanics, Taco Bell was an American brand. If they wanted authentic Mexican food, they wouldn’t go to Taco Bell. At first we thought it was price point, make it cheap and make it accessible. We revised the program and created an operational thing to make sure all the lights were on, that no chairs were on the tables before closing time and make sure the outside was clean.
Do you think we’ll see an increase in Hispanic
marketing in this area?
Miller Lite has a great ad out there with brown faces in English language and it’s relevant to lifestyle, and the lifestyle could be very common in the general market, Hispanic market, African-American market. It’s an outdoor scene by a pool. I thought it was very effective, very well done and very creative. You’ll see more of that on a branding standpoint.
Give an example of bad advertising.
I’ve seen something here locally that’s obviously been translated, where the message they were trying to say in English came out exactly how they wanted it in Spanish. But if you were to get the meaning of it, it wasn’t the meaning they wanted.
How did you get interested in advertising and marketing?
I’ve developed and based everything I’ve done, everything I’ve learned, all my education on how to get a person to do that same action over and over again. That’s the psychological twist of a marketing concept. By crafting messaging in a catchy way or crafting strategy in a relative way helped me realize that you can influence behavior and develop repeat behavior just by nuances in language.
A matador is a bullfighter. Is there some significance as to why you chose that as a company name?
The idea of the matador, he really has one shot at that bull. It’s a pretty skilled position. I wanted to be able to bring that very skilled messaging, that you’ve got one opportunity to make a foray into a segment or a market and do it right.
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