Kraft Honored With LMA Awards.

Kraft Foods was recently awarded three Latino Marketing Awards (LMAs) for its innovative work in advertising, promotion and interactive marketing campaigns, specifically developed to reach Latino audiences. The LMAs are the first Latino-focused awards competition to recognize talent in a broad range of categories, such as consumer products, corporate branding, and technique.

The third annual LMA ceremony took place on November 4, 2004 at Liberman Broadcasting Inc, in Los Angeles. Kraft won awards for Best Print Creative – Chips Ahoy!, Best One Time Event – Sabado Gigante Mother’s Day promotion, and Best Banner Campaign – ComidaKraft.com.

“Kraft is committed to enriching the lives of Latino families, and we continue to dedicate ourselves to creating marketing campaigns that effectively speak to our consumers,” says Liz Perez Angeles, Associate Director, Hispanic Marketing for Kraft Foods. “The Latino Marketing Awards help to promote excellence in marketing to Latinos by highlighting breakthrough examples. We are honored to have been selected as one of this year’s winners.”

The LMAs provide a unique forum for recognizing the special skills and talent it takes to execute a campaign that resonates with the United States’ diverse Latino populations. With over 50 award categories, including corporate branding, non-profit and direct mail, there is opportunity for a multitude of different advertising, marketing and public relations efforts to qualify.

Advertising Technique, Best Print: Creative

The Chips Ahoy! “Wanted” campaign created by Bravo, combined creativity and engaging copy that invited the intended audience – Latina moms – to experience the great taste and real chocolate chips, empowering her to feel confident in her choice to buy this product. The campaign successfully helped to position Chips Ahoy!as the preferred brand of chocolate chip cookies among Hispanics.

Marketing Technique, Best One Time Event

The “Queremos Conocer A Una Mamá Ganadora” (We Want to Meet a Winning Mom) campaign created by Bravo, leveraged one of the most important holidays in the Hispanic calendar to connect with Hispanic moms – Mother’s Day.

The sweepstakes featured Sábado Gigante hosts “Sissi & Javier Romero” and invited consumers to enter for the opportunity to attend a taping of the show in Miami. The campaign performed exceptionally well and helped to increase on-line entries by nearly 1,200% over the 2003 promotion, and tripled mail-in entries. Success was also evident at the retail level where Kraft was able to see volume increases significantly higher than prior year.

Interactive Marketing, Best Banner Campaign

In an effort to help drive traffic to Kraft Foods’ Spanish-language website, ComidaKraft.com, Latin Force developed a banner campaign to feature the content and functionality of the site while appealing to Latina moms. In the campaign development it was imperative for consumers to familiarize themselves with the different areas of ComidaKraft.com. The banners were designed by using aesthetically appealing shots from recipes being featured on the site that month, which not only linked to recipes but also to the Healthy Living section, tools and calculators, “Cocina Latina” feature and other special content or holiday-specific ideas. The campaign exceeded performance expectations and nearly doubled site traffic and page views compared to the previous year.

LMA winners are chosen by a panel of marketing and communications professionals that specialize in the field or are leaders in the Latino community.