Hispanic Campaign Reaches Key Ridership Segment: Spanish Speakers

Target Audience: This campaign strategically targeted Hispanic residents across San Bernardino Valley. Digital ads on Facebook, Instagram and Google Display targeted Spanish-speaking mobile and desktop users ages 18+. Through different creative videos, our messaging was focused on parents and those who make transportation decisions for their household, as well as blue collar workers and adults with similar interests. In addition to digital ads, we partnered with Univision's radio and TV host Denise Reyes, who is a local Spanish-speaking influencer. Several Instagram stories and posts showcased Denise riding the bus with her mom to go shopping, dining and attend a Quakes baseball game. This social content targeted local residents and sports fans who consume Spanish language content from Univision channels.

Strategy Objective:The objective of this entry was to increase ridership among the Spanish-speaking communities across the San Bernardino Valley. Since they represent a significant portion of local residents, creating a marketing campaign directed towards Spanish speakers had the potential to broaden Omnitrans' voice to a much larger audience as well as increase ridership levels. In addition, Omnitrans wanted to build a stronger image that riding the bus is affordable, easy, and fun. Our campaign videos provided positive messages that correlated riding Omnitrans with more time for family, access to work and shopping, and saving money. The goal of this fresh and lively content was to spark a new life in Omnitrans' marketing and build new ridership.

Situation Challenge: Over half of Omnitrans ridership comes from Latino communities, and over a third of their riders don't speak English at all. Despite the fact that Spanish speakers are a key ridership segment for the company, Omnitrans did not previously have customized advertising created specifically for this audience and only translated their general public campaigns. This was changed with their first-ever Hispanic campaign, where marketing efforts were custom designed and targeted to the local Latino community. Omnitrans created animated videos, as well as a landing page fully written in Spanish to ensure a seamless customer experience from ad to website. The influencer content created from the partnership with Denise Reyes was also fully in Spanish.

Results Impact: This campaign resulted in greater public awareness, improved perception and increased ridership among the local Spanish-speaking community. The campaign launched on October 11, 2021 as a 6-month targeted campaign. In less than two months after launch, the campaign reached more than +1.1M impressions and an average cost-per-click of only $1.2 across digital ads. The influencer partnership with Denise Reyes reached more than 297K unique people as well as 2,700 total engagement. The Hispanic campaign successfully supported Omnitrans' overall goal to increase ridership to pre-pandemic levels.

Why Submit: The Hispanic campaign provides important representation to Spanish-speaking communities in San Bernardino, who are often not spoken to nor acknowledged by different companies. This campaign provided customized content and high-quality creatives to show that riding the bus can be easy and fun! As a result, the positive messaging in Spanish hit home and reached more engagement than other evergreen campaigns from Omnitrans. In a short amount of time, the Hispanic campaign also had an impressive reach and helped Omnitrans surpass annual ridership goals by the end of 2021.