Stellantis multicultural advertising chief Juan Torres wants the automaker to be in tune with the “majority of tomorrow.”
The U.S. Census Bureau projects that minority groups will make up a majority of the population by 2045, and Torres says it’s a competitive advantage to engage these audiences now with messaging that is culturally relevant. Authenticity, Torres says, is key when trying to connect with minority shoppers.
Torres, 51, spoke with Staff Reporter Vince Bond Jr. about how the automaker tailors content for multicultural viewers, recent campaigns aimed at African-American and Hispanic consumers, and how the marketing space has changed over the past decade.
Torres, who also oversees advertising in international markets, was born in Colombia and split time between that country and the U.S. while growing up. This upbringing, with a Colombian father and American mother, helped shape how he approaches multicultural marketing. Here are edited excerpts.
Q: What are some campaigns you’re really proud of in the multicultural space?
A: Last year, we launched a really special campaign called “Lupita.” Basically, what we did is we found that there was an important volume opportunity with Latinos. Sixteen percent of the pickup truck segment is Latino. We reached out to a young woman named Lupita Infante, and she is the granddaughter of an iconic Mexican singer named Pedro Infante. What we liked about Lupita is that she was this young woman — bicultural, who lives in Los Angeles but was very much connected to her Latin-American Mexican roots and had all the influence of her [grandfather] being this icon as her heritage. But what really made us very proud of that campaign is that it resonated very well because we felt that it was important to tell a story about Ram trucks to a population that in many ways is like a description of my own background: Latino Americans, people who have either been born outside of the United States or born in the United States but have a very direct and emotional connection to their heritage.
In the past year, we’ve also done a really special campaign for the African-American market. We actually initiated it as a social media campaign for Grand Wagoneer called “Where I’m From,” with [former NBA player] Jalen Rose as the spokesperson or the narrator of the story. He was able to highlight his own personal journey and pay tribute to the city and the people of Detroit, whom he very much considers the influences that have made him the person that he is today, so that’s a really special piece. I worked on that directly with Jalen and I can say that we were all literally on that set during the Christmas holidays last year building that together. It was really one of those special moments where you just knew that this was so much more than an advertising campaign. This was really a story about one individual who was very proud of his roots and very proud to tell that story publicly. There’s an authenticity that I certainly look for in the storytelling that we do. So that when we get onto sets and when the piece comes to fruition and comes together, something special has happened, a very authentic story has come to life.
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.
What have been some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in the marketing world in the last decade?
I’ll keep it close to the things that we’re talking about in terms of multicultural. What I have, without a doubt, really seen is that the space of multicultural marketing, that there has really been and, especially at Stellantis, a concerted effort to dedicating resources, dedicating focus, dedicating time to these marketplaces. When you have a small team and you’re trying to do something as significant as trying to reach about 32 percent of the automotive segment, you need to rely on the support of a lot of different organizations in order to be successful. And what I’ve seen over the last 10 years is that internally in this organization — whether they be the media teams or the brand teams or the product placement teams or the public relations teams — there is a willingness and there is an interest and there is an effort to really come together in support of what we’re trying to accomplish with multicultural consumers.