Hispanic Group shortlisted 2013 Effie Awards.

Miami based Hispanic Group is among the top finalists for a highly-coveted 2013 North American Effie Award in the Hispanic category. “Better Way,” created for global online money transfer provider Xoom, was a 360° campaign that set out to revolutionize the way Hispanics living in the U.S. send money to their country of origin.

With the “Better Way” campaign, Hispanic Group was tasked with shifting the mindset that Hispanics have regarding Internet transactions. In particular, the agency had to change the common habit of sending money offline by increasing awareness of Xoom’s online money transfer service. The campaign also highlighted the difficulties that wiring money from a store presents for immigrants, including long wait times and sometimes unsafe locations. Xoom allows a new generation of Latinos to take advantage of technology instead of enduring the challenges of the traditional money transfer method.

“In order to be effective, the campaign needed to be a game changer and disrupt the way people have been sending money for years,” explained Ivan Dibos, VP, Business Development for Hispanic Group. “By going beyond the language and targeting Latinos who are avid Internet and mobile device users, ‘Better Way’ was able to essentially convince them that there is a more convenient method of sending and receiving money.”

Hispanic Group created the campaign to show to the target audience the all too familiar problems of sending money through storefronts, and how a few clicks on Xoom.com was the solution to send their hard earned money to their relatives back home.

“As immigrants at some points ourselves, we knew that we had strong first-hand insights and knew the best way to portray the message was through TV,” said Jose Luis Valderrama, President and founder of Hispanic Group. “The beauty of TV was that it allowed us to dramatize all of the situations that immigrants have to endure when sending money and shined a spotlight on the hardships of sending money offline.”