Unilever BestFoods kicks Off Hispanic Voter Registration drive.

With the rate of Latino voters at half the national average, Unilever BestFoods brands have banded together this presidential election year to help provide a novel solution to the problem.

Beginning this week, the brands, all manufactured by Unilever Bestfoods (UBF), will leverage their scheduled participation in Hispanic festivals around the country to register potential Latino voters. The campaign kicks off this Sunday at Miami’s Calle Ocho Open House, the nation’s largest, Hispanic street festival.

“Democracy cannot work without participation by all sectors of society,” said James Fish, UBF Customer Marketing Manager and Hispanic Team Leader. “By offering our presence at major Hispanic festivals to register Latinos to vote, we hope to strengthen our democratic system, while helping empower a community, which our brands value both as a market and as a culture.”

The registration drive’s sponsoring brands are Knorr, Country Crock, Lipton Tea and Soups, Hellmann’s/ Best Foods, Ragú, WishBone, and Lawry’s. To carry out their campaign, they have included a voter-registration booth inside their newly created La Plaza Del Sabor™, a traveling outdoor pavilion about half the size of a football field, which houses numerous kiosks and a central stage. Fashioned after the numerous plazas, or town squares, that dot the urban landscape of Latin America, La Plaza del Sabor™ will provide visitors with gifts, interactive games, food and entertainment aplenty at the 13 different stops it will make between March and September. UBF feels it will also provide a culturally relevant platform for encouraging eligible Hispanics to stop by and register to vote.

In all, UBF’s voter-registration drive will reach a potential audience of 3.3 million persons, the combined number of attendees expected to visit the 13 festivals.

After Miami, La Plaza’s next stop will be Los Angeles, where the mammoth inflatable structure will hunker down at Fiesta Broadway, in the Downtown area, on April 25. Other festivals it will visit are, Houston’s Cinco de Mayo Festival, at the George Brown Convention Center (May 2); Los Angeles’ Cinco de Mayo Celebrations, at Whittier Narrows (May 2); Chicago’s Festival de Memorial Day, at Plaza Garibaldi (May 31); Elizabeth New Jersey’s Waterfront Festival (May 29-30); New York’s Concierto de Verano, at Flushing Meadows (June 27); San Antonio’s Hispanic State Fair, at Rosedale Park (July 11); Houston’s Fiestas Patrias, at the George Brown Convention Center (Aug. 29); Chicago’s Fiestas Patrias, at Sportsman’s Park (Sept. 5); Los Angeles’ Fiestas Patrias, at Whittier Narrows (Sept. 12); Phoenix’s Fiestas Patrias, at Glendale Park (Sept. 12) and San Jose’s Fiestas Patrias, at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds (Sept. 19).