EVENT AT A GLANCE Objective: Build brand recognition and retail traffic among young, tech-savvy Latinos and expand geographic reach. Strategy: Give back to the community by sponsoring free concerts to engage consumers with a branded experience. Tactics: Create lineups relevant to the unique populations in two markets. Rely on an integrated multi-channel marketing blitz — including social networking — to spread the word, while leveraging Alltel’s existing "My Circle" marketing campaign. Results: Eighty-seven percent of attendees surveyed said they would recommend Alltel to friends and family. Daily traffic increased by an average of 24 percent and 26 percent at retail locations in the two targeted concert markets.

young woman is on her way to a concert and sends a text message to her friend: "¿De dónde eres?" The two text back and forth, eventually finding each other in the crowded venue. Throughout the night, they text other friends who are at the concert, take photos using their cell phones, and watch as some of those messages and images are projected onto massive screens over the performance stage.

Massive projection screens aside, this is the way many people — especially younger people — communicate in the digital age. Use a phone to actually make a call? LOL!

The fact they were texting in Spanish is indicative of another shift in the marketing landscape. The Hispanic market is the fastest growing segment in the United States, and, according to a November 2008 survey by the Association of National Advertisers, companies are taking notice. Results showed that 77 percent of marketers have multicultural marketing initiatives in place, and 66 percent say their companies’ efforts in multicultural marketing have increased over the past few years. Mobile-communications giant Alltel Wireless is no exception.

Alltel began its efforts to break into the highly coveted Hispanic market back in 2006. "Admittedly, we hadn’t focused on the Hispanic market as much or as soon as we should have," says Regina Woziwodzki, director of multicultural marketing at Alltel. "A couple of years ago, we started looking at reports and began by doing what we knew how to do well, making sure that all of the stores had bilingual representatives and adding a Spanish version of the Web site."

But to succeed, the wireless company knew it had to go further and make a true connection with the Latino population. "Ethnicities have a tendency to be more loyal to people who give back and don’t just come in and sell," says Woziwodzki, who focuses on both Hispanic and African-American markets. She knew Alltel had to prove itself, showing potential customers in high target areas that it wants to be an integral and supportive member of the communities in which they live.

To meet its goals of effectively building brand awareness and retail traffic among Latino buyers, Woziwodzki turned to Jack Morton Worldwide, an experiential-marketing firm with a Latino-marketing practice.

In the spring of 2008, Jack Morton Latino had commissioned a survey of 500 Hispanic consumers to gain insight into the influence of various media on purchasing intent and behavior. Thirty percent of survey respondents ranked experiential offers as most likely to drive purchase, with word of mouth coming in second at 24 percent. "We recommend an event because reaching consumers on a personal, experiential level is key to marketing to this population," says Isabel Villegas, a senior specialist with Jack Morton Latino. "There’s something to be said about the trust factor in the community. It’s easier to trust something when you have firsthand experience. In terms of word of mouth, in this community the network isn’t just friends and mom and dad. It’s friends, mom, dad, cousins, aunts, and uncles. So when you reach the key decision makers, you reach a lot of people."

BIENVENIDO A MI CIRCULO

Villegas immediately identified a natural thematic link between Alltel’s existing My Circle calling plan, which allows customers to call up to ten people on any network for free, and the values associated with the Hispanic/Latino population the company was trying to reach. "The My Circle concept is very culturally relevant because family and community are a very big part of who we are," she says.

But the "we" she mentions isn’t easy to define. There can be a wide gap between an urban Hispanic population and a rural one, such as a community that speaks primarily in English versus one that speaks mostly in Spanish. The level of acculturation — the process of adopting the behavior patterns of a surrounding culture — impacts the way a specific group responds to messaging, so just going after "the Hispanic market" wasn’t going to cut it. Alltel had to narrow its reach and target the right potential customers in the most important regions.

The company analyzed its geographic reach and honed in on two key regions, the Rio Grande Valley and the city of El Paso in Southwest Texas. These two under-penetrated geographies accounted for more than half of the Hispanic markets in the United States that Alltel identified as high-potential targets. Furthermore, according to its research, the communities are home to the very people Alltel was trying to reach: young, tech-savvy Latinos who make wireless decisions for their families.

Looking at these two target markets, Alltel and Jack Morton developed a multi-channel, integrated effort that included advertising on popular radio stations, a strong internet presence, and in-store promotions to attract the bilingual, culturally assimilated trendsetters within their sizable young Hispanic populations.

But the centerpiece of Alltel’s effort would consist of free, live concerts by acts popular among its young audience. Thus, in 2007, Alltel launched Mi Círculo, Mi Música, a series of culturally relevant music events branded around its pre-existing My Circle campaign.

"The concert strategy was eons beyond any of our past multicultural campaigns," Woziwodzki says. "Concerts don’t work as well in general markets, and I was getting feedback that people were worried that this approach wouldn’t work." But Woziwodzki put her trust in Jack Morton.

With a background in entertainment and extensive research about the market under her belt, Villegas was more confident about the concert approach. "When you look at the Hispanic market, passion points depend on the level of acculturation. We could have gone with sports or festivals, but for this group, we knew music would resonate most with their passion points," she says.

Although El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley are, generally speaking, sited in the same part of Texas, their populations are highly distinct. To appeal to both, Alltel had to create customized events catered to each region while building a cohesive overall strategy. Villegas dug deeper to determine what music would appeal to the young Hispanic trendsetters she was after. "The Rio Grande Valley population tends to like more Tex-Mex, while El Paso has a more metropolitan feel — it’s a border town with a lot of crossover," she says. So, regional Mexican artists Los Horoscopos de Durango and Siggno were selected to perform in the Rio Grande Valley in February 2007, and rockers Reik and La 5a Estacion were scheduled to draw the masses in El Paso the following July.

MY CIRCLE, MYSPACE

From the street to the Web, Alltel staged an all-out media blitz during the two months prior to each free concert. In-market brand ambassadors distributed collateral at music venues, bars, and various retail locations. Door hangers were distributed to targeted zip codes. Alltel and Jack Morton worked with sister agency Accent Marketing to create culturally relevant ads for radio, print, and transit, and performers appeared at live radio promotions to talk up the event.

Because the concerts were free, the strategy already met Woziwodzki’s desire to give something to the community — an important attribute to the Latino market — but she wanted to do more.

Alltel selected local nonprofits in its two concert markets and sent local employees to spend a day volunteering. In El Paso, employees visited a child crisis center. Alltel donated the funds to revamp a part of the center called "the circle of love." Volunteers built and painted a sundeck, while scheduled concert performers helped out and met the kids. The press coverage of this event lent credibility to Alltel’s message of a company that cares about the community.

Alltel also reached out online. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 57 percent of people ages 25 to 34 actively using the Internet have joined a social network. More important to Alltel, 75 percent of those ages 18 to 24 have joined a social networking site.

To promote the events, the team used Facebook as well as MySpace Latino. "We identified where our market lives, so to speak, and targeted them with Web banners and dedicated pages," Villegas says. Alltel landing pages pointed people to MySpace and Facebook pages, while in-store information and search optimization created more traffic. The selected concert performers even put the events on their own pages, growing the events’ online presence.

While concertgoers did not have to buy tickets to the free events or be current Alltel customers in order to attend, they did have to get their hands on a wristband — available exclusively at Alltel retail locations. Most of the consumers who visited an Alltel shop received green bands that admitted one person plus one friend. A random selection received purple VIP wristbands, admitting one person plus 10 others within his or her "circle of friends" — tying back to Alltel’s My Circle brand — to both the event and a VIP after-party with the musicians.

Buzz exploded on day one when the concerts and wristband giveaways were announced on local radio stations. Music fans made their way to Alltel retail locations, which were full of promotional signage and staff promoting Alltel’s My Circle plan while giving away wristbands. In less than one week, all of the coveted wristbands were gone. Despite running out of wristbands, the promotional efforts continued up until the concert. "We were flattered that there were thousands of people who flocked to our stores. We tapped into a legitimate passion point, and our strategy was working," Woziwodzki says.

THE BIG NIGHTS

On the night of both concerts, the performance venues were bursting with people — and Alltel messaging. Attendees without wristbands gathered in hopes of getting in (when Alltel repeated the strategy in 2008, it allowed those without wristbands to pre-register for concert access). When Woziwodzki peeked outside of the venue at the show in Rio Grande and saw the people waiting in line, she knew she was on to something. "It was cold, but there were people waiting to get in," she says. "I knew this was going to work for us."

When doors opened at 6 p.m., attendees with green wristbands filed along a red carpet into venues where brand ambassadors photographed them and used Bluetooth-equipped phones to beam the fan photos to screens positioned throughout the space. At the show, purple-wristband holders were invited to VIP meet-and-greets (autograph signings with the musicians) and to the Alltel tech lounge, where they could play text-messaging games, digital video and picture games, and Guitar Hero — anything that could tie back to wireless and Alltel in a fun and engaging way.

Serving as emcees, local radio personalities kicked off the shows at 7 p.m., and Woziwodzki greeted the crowds in Spanish. Attendees also enjoyed complimentary, culturally relevant catered food and drinks. While the bands played, guests could text the Alltel network from their phones and have their messages to friends displayed on the main stage’s video screen.

In addition to strategically selected performers and bilingual visuals, the events’ aesthetic made it clear that this was a concert designed specifically for this group of attendees. Collateral literature featured faces that looked like the crowd — Hispanic, young, and hip. And Alltel’s existing materials were a good fit as well. "Thank goodness for the Alltel color palette," Woziwodzki says. "It’s very colorful, and color is a definite passion point for this population."

Keeping with the interactive feel of the events, survey cards were given to attendees throughout the concert venues. Willing participants provided Alltel with their contact information and agreed to be contacted about their concert experience. In the Rio Grande Valley, phone interviews were conducted with 103 people, or 21 percent of the 500 cards collected. Ninety percent of those surveyed were under the age of 39. In El Paso, of the 796 cards collected, 39 percent of the sample was interviewed post-concert. A staggering 92 percent of respondents were under age 39, and 71 percent were female — a great result since women, says Villegas, tend to make more of the purchasing decisions for this demographic.

ROCK-STAR RESULTS

The two concerts attracted nearly 4,000 guests apiece. During the eight-week promotional period, the events generated more than 15.9 million media impressions through local media outlets. Counters in retail locations reported that daily retail traffic in El Paso increased by an average of 24 percent over the same period in 2006. In the McAllen store in the Rio Grande Valley, there was a 26-percent increase versus the previous month — which exceeded the company-wide retail-traffic average during the same period by 6 percent overall. "It was far more successful than we thought it could be," Woziwodzki says.

The post-concert survey revealed powerful numbers as well, proving that Alltel had indeed reached the decision-makers it wanted to influence. Approximately 89 percent of attendees said they were likely to switch to Alltel and recommend the brand to a friend. Word of mouth, driven by the "bring a friend" strategy, was key to the event’s success: 56 percent of attendees in the Rio Grande Valley and 71 percent in El Paso reported learning about the event from a friend or colleague.

The numbers speak volumes. But attendee comments on the follow-up surveys proved that the event truly succeeded in connecting the Alltel brand with the people it sought to reach:

 "I put your pictures of my friends and me on MySpace. Great concert."

 "I wish I was an Alltel customer."

 "My cousin is picky about her wireless and I know it’s good if she has it, so I’ll switch."

The success of the Mi Circulo, Mi Musica events has meant a shift in goals as Alltel moves forward into new markets. "Our initial goals were at the top of the sales funnel," Woziwodzki says. "We wanted to increase brand awareness and show people how we could meet their needs. We have moved down the sales funnel faster toward purchasing than we thought we could." Following each of the events, Alltel realized customers were much more willing to make a purchase after being introduced to the brand through the concerts.

So for the second wave of events between February and November 2008, Mi Circulo, Mi Musica was repeated. But this time those who wanted a purple wristband — the golden ticket required to attend the VIP event — had to make an Alltel purchase before the show.

The free-concert format again worked wonders for Alltel, attracting its target audience, generating buzz, and driving pre- and post-event sales. And results like that are music — or musica — to Alltel’s ears.e