This past year we saw several examples of global brands that used
cultural and linguistic differences to their advantage, taking a unique
cross-cultural approach to marketing and advertising.
One of these was the iconic American brand Levi's and their Nuevo Pionero campaign.
In this campaign that showed a truly "adventurous" approach to catching the eye of the young, bi-cultural Latino market, Levi's took five young U.S. Hispanics on a journey this summer from Alaska to Argentina on the Pan-American Highway. This literal and metaphorical journey from North to South shows the five travelers fully clad in Levi's new Work Wear line, stopping in ten different cities and pitching in on work projects involving the arts. Their experiences were documented in a ten-week reality show, "Norte a Sur: Una Ruta, 5 Experiencias" (North to South: One Route, 5 Experiences), that aired in the fall on Discovery en Español.
Levi's market research showed that young Hispanics are even more likely than their general market counterparts to have smartphones, blogs, and be active users of social media. To build hype for the show, they armed the five pioneros with iPhones, which they used throughout their journeys to post updates to the show's website and their own Facebook pages.
Keys to Success: Real-time updates on the journey for web-savvy, hyper-connected U.S. Hispanic youth. A campaign that matched up naturally with the brand's main message, but was customized specifically for a Latino audience, with mixed Spanish and English dialogues.
Read about two other brands that we think really used cross-cultural campaigns to their advantage: Volvo in the U.K. and Coca-Cola in South Korea.
