Voice Over (00:00):

Welcome to the Taylor 10. A fast-paced, 10 minute deep dive into the minds of those shaking up the marketing world, bringing you the sharpest insights, boldest ideas and breakthrough trends driving the industry forward. So tune in, get inspired, and stay ahead.

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Kait Stack (00:17):

Hi everyone, my name's Kate Stack. I'm a vice president at Taylor and I'm joined today by Alicia Garcia Gilmar, who is a senior brain manager at Diageo, and someone I would consider to be a great friend now that we've been able to work together for several years. So Alicia, thanks for chatting with me.

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Alicia Garcia Gilmartin (00:40):

Thanks so much for having me on, Kate, I'm honored.

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Kait Stack (00:42):

It's funny that we've talked organically about this several times in our working relationship, and I wanted to bring you into this conversation because I do feel like this is such an important topic, especially as we continue to talk about consumers and marketing to different types of consumers. And specifically what we'll talk about today is the power of language and Hispanic marketing. And to start and to say the obvious, the Hispanic community really encompasses a wide variety of dialects, regional expressions. We've talked a lot specifically in our Smirnoff work together, how we might be able to bring some of that through the line to some larger marketing initiatives. But how do you really approach marketing at Diageo in these various campaigns and without alienating segments of audiences knowing there's so much nuance in the Hispanic community?

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Alicia Garcia Gilmartin (01:45):

I think the real challenge is that Hispanic culture, as well as other cultures as well, are often grouped into this monolith, losing that cross-cultural distinction and connection. And we need to figure out a way to really talk to our entire Hispanic audience in a meaningful and really authentic way without sounding like we're just rolling everyone up into one by group. And I think the way that you can do that is really kind of creating these small moments of if on top of our brand tone of voice and kind of creating these authentic experiences, but really creating these moments where people feel connected to the brand because they feel understood, they feel seen, they feel celebrated. It can be done through messaging or behaviors or content or real life experiences, whatever it may be. But really understanding that people can be and are more than one thing, and that should really be celebrated.

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(02:45):

And speaking to people as if they're more than one thing. There's different dialects and words mean different things in different cultures. And so really having a great understanding of what audience you're targeting as well as what's important to them, how do they talk? I never want to assume that I know how something may land with a certain community. So I always ensure that I am involving experts within our strategy and our marketing campaign build out to make sure things are landing the way we want them to land. It's really important to kind of craft your message, to be inclusive and respectful of course, but also have that tone of we get you, we understand you, and we want it to be simple and clear language.

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Kait Stack (03:32):

I love that you mentioned Spanglish because I think that we're always kind of towing this line between maybe traditional marketing. We had ads in Spanish and ads in English, and that was it. It was kind of like one or the other. And now that this Spanglish conversation has entered the chat, if you will, I think that really bridges this gap of generationally where you might have people who have grown up hearing Spanish but might not necessarily speak it, or maybe they speak it, but they don't necessarily write it. And there's this kind of spectrum, if you will, among the Hispanic community, particularly maybe Hispanic Americans of how they use language, which I think is really fun for us to explore. From a brand perspective.

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Alicia Garcia Gilmartin (04:29):

Spanglish opens up, I think, more creative possibilities for storytelling by blending all these different cultural references from both languages, which can really make our content more engaging and more memorable and more meaningful. And I think you're totally right. There is this spectrum of Spanish speakers in Spanish and people who understand Spanish language, who maybe don't speak it like myself. I'm half Colombian, as I've mentioned to you before, and I don't speak Spanish, but I can understand a good amount of it. And I would say there are generations that are speaking Spanglish, like my 93-year-old Alita attempts to speak Spanglish here and there when Spanish is her go-to language. So I think there's different layers, and I think it depends on what your target is and who your audience is and how they speak. Once again, of if they're speaking in Spanglish because they're Hispanic American, then that makes sense to also have a campaign that's in Spanglish and making sure that it makes sense for that audience.

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Kait Stack (05:36):

One of the things that I wanted to bring up in this conversation and I think is really important again, that you touched on in your last response was bringing in the right people to build a campaign, to build a strategy and really bring it to market. And we've discussed that maybe not everyone on your team has to be from Hispanic descent, but there are ways in which that we bring in people to gut check us fact check us, give us that lived experience perspective that is essential to bringing any type of Hispanic marketing campaign to life. I can talk a little bit how we approach it at Taylor, but I'm curious of how you feel as kind of a brand representative on that side of the coin and ensuring that what steps are you taking internally and even externally before something goes to market, and what should we be thinking through even more? As someone who identifies as part of that community,

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Alicia Garcia Gilmartin (06:50):

It does take an extra step to have that layer in there. And I think for me, even inside Hispanic marketing that I've done, but also with the lgbtq plus community of I'm not in the lgbtq plus community, so I went out and found experts in that community that can help us make sure that we are landing things properly. And I think it's the same thing with the Hispanic market as well. Yes, I am in that community, but I don't know everything there is to know about marketing to Mexican Hispanics, for example, because I'm Colombian and it could be slightly different. And so making sure you have the right people in the room, or at least one right person, at least from that audience or that can speak to that audience to help us do that fact checking. And then I think a lot of it too is around market research and surveys and focus groups and studies and all the things that you can find. I'm very much a leaning heavy into data. And so I think looking at all of that and understanding how something is landing and how it's being perceived from all of the different angles, I think that really helps to build out those insights to drive the campaign even further.

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Kait Stack (08:06):

There's so much nuance there and so much information. How do you kind of sift through that minefield, if you will, of so much information and so many can point you in so many different directions? How do you synthesize that?

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Alicia Garcia Gilmartin (08:23):

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not easy to do. I think for me personally, I find it interesting where if I am on Spotify and I'm listening to today's top hits or whatever, and one of bad Bunny's new songs come on, and I look at my phone and I'm like, oh, I recognize the picture on this album cover, for example, which is these two lawn chairs that are plastic and they're by a tree. And for me, it triggered in my head all these old memories of being at my parents' house with those exact chairs. I don't know who sells them, but they have made a market of themselves and throwing these big parties where we're all dancing to Colombian music and empanadas and things like that. And so I think even though I'm not fluent in Spanish and I'm maybe not listening to Spanish music every single day, when I find a moment of like, Ooh, I kind of understand what's happening here. I understand that if you know moment, and then I tend to dig deeper into that culture, into that experience. And so then I find myself listening to Bad Bunny's entire album on repeat, but I think it triggers that emotional connection. So I think if you can find something that kind of even triggers that a little bit and dive deeper into it, I think that's a great way to navigate through all of the knowledge and information that's out there.

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Kait Stack (09:54):

Thank you for having the conversation.

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Alicia Garcia Gilmartin (09:57):

I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for having me. 

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Kait Stack (09:59):

I appreciate it.