Engaging the Community: A Fresh Approach to Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration 2024

By Zuhaly Ramon, MA – Marketing Director | Brand Strategy Expert focused on developing millennial and Gen-Z Latino voices | Share Multicultural Marketing Insights

We are six months away from 2024 Hispanic Heritage Month but if you want to do it correctly – the strategizing, planning, and coordinating of the month’s activities begin now.

Each year during National Hispanic Heritage Month, we witness how brands, companies, and organizations highlight their Hispanic staff, love for the culture and especially the food – all aimed at acknowledging and celebrating the contributions of the community.

From September 15 – October 15th, we get teased with our favorite reggeatton artist or Banda groups appearing in commercials or streaming platforms, releasing limited series that capture stories we can relate to. However, by October 16th, everything is back to normal.

This is how you break trust and loyalty with the Latino audience. You leverage the culture for clout but ignore the community.

Let me help you succeed in this upcoming Hispanic Heritage Month.
Who are you talking to?

Now, this may sound like a redundant question, but that’s where the trick lies. For campaigns during this month, we typically see a general approach being taken because the assumption is that all Latinos/Hispanics are cut from the same cloth.

Latinos are a mosaic, not a monolith.

You must determine who you are speaking to within the community. What’s their ethnicity? Race? Socio-economic status? Geographic location? GENERATION!

Side note #1: Generation is one of the most crucial component you must consider when targeting, reaching, and engaging this audience.

Find the aspects that make the sub-group you are reaching unique. It’s crucial that you and your marketing team examine how their experiences and pain points differ from other Latino groups.

Side note #2: Can you guess the two states that saw the fastest population growth among all 50 states?

None other than North and South Dakota!

Therefore, studying the specifics of your audience thoroughly can and will be the difference that helps your impact stand out among many general approaches.

Leverage micro-influencers. These influencers have hyper-local engagement with high levels of trust and loyalty with the audience that you may be targeting. Be ready to collaborate with these influencers for the campaign. The reason people trust them is because of their unfiltered, authentic perspective and or identity – which is something that is not easily reconstructed after broken with an engaged audience.

It’s not what you say – it’s how you say it.

Creating messaging that directly speaks to your audience as they speak within their own community will resonate much more than just throwing in snippets of Spanish words in your commercial, ad, or event.

Leverage lingo, traditions, customs that are true to—yes, you guessed it—your target audience. It’s not enough to market to “the community” when Latino consumers are made up of various nationalities.

Side note #3: Please stop assuming that all Latinos are Mexican and therefore using papel picado in your graphics because you may be generalizing the audience you’re trying to engage.

Now more than ever, there is a big mix of Latino populations across the United States.

• Mexicans (59%)
• Puerto Ricans (9%)
• Salvadorans (4%)
• Cubans (4%)
• Dominicans (4%)

However, due to economic and political changes in their countries many Venezuelan, Paraguayan, Honduran, and Guatemalan presence has quadrupled in the last two decades (Zong, 2024). This signifies that there is now an abundance of diverse cultures that can be authentically engaged with more than ever before.

Learn From Successful Strategies in Action

“BiCulturally” by Ally: This campaign celebrates the cultural richness of the Hispanic community, showcasing moments where elements of all their worlds come together and inspire viewers to reach their financial goals with a little help from a great ally. The best part of this campaign – a multicultural approach is a year long strategy.

“La Vida Más Fina” by Corona: This campaign explored Corona’s deep roots in Mexican-American culture and the bicultural identities that many of their consumers can relate to. The best part of this campaign – is all year long.

“Más Que” by Target: This campaign identified and leveraged products from Latino/Latinx creators, artists, and entrepreneurs. The best part of this campaign – you can find many Latino products all year long.

With this six-month advance notice, I look forward to seeing a lot more real Latino voices, stories, context, and representation pre, during, and post Hispanic Heritage Month because as a friendly reminder, we are Latinos all year long.