For Juan Oubinña, group creative director at Grupo Gallegos, Long Beach, Calif., making too great a distinction between U.S. Hispanic and so-called mainstream English-language advertising can be a costly mistake.
“You don’t want a schizophrenic brand that has one personality in the English-language market and another in the Hispanic market,” he said. “You have to maintain consistency in brand personality because many Hispanic viewers are watching both English and Spanish-language television. Essentially, we’re one market.”
Shortly after joining Grupo Gallegos a little more than two years ago, Oubinña scored his first major coup at the agency, helping it land the California Milk Processor Board account. Grupo Gallegos in turn embraced an approach in sync with maintaining a consistency in brand personality throughout the marketplace. The client’s previous agency had created a campaign centering on the tagline “Familia, Amor y Leche” (Family, Love and Milk).
“This traditional family theme was entirely different from ‘got milk?’ [the longstanding English-language campaign from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco] that has been so successful with its light-hearted tone and special brand of humor,” related Oubinña. “So we decided to be more in the spirit of the brand personality established in the ‘got milk?’ campaign and to showcase the benefits of drinking milk because at that time milk consumption was decreasing among Hispanics.”
This translated into last year’s well received package of comedy spots in which we see the positive effects of milk on certain communities and families. In “Amazon Hair Goddess,” a village of women use their long hair to amazing ends, including lassoing a wild horse. In “Teeth,” milk has strengthened people’s choppers to the point where they can chomp down and carry heavy objects all over the city. And in “Amazing Contortionist,” a family of circus performers exhibits amazing anatomical flexibility thanks to milk. The tagline to all three spots–directed by Andy Fogwill via Landia, Buenos Aires, and Colibri Films, Hermosa Beach, Calif.–was “Toma Leche” (“Drink Milk”).
The follow-up campaign this year consists of three more “Toma Leche” commercials, two of which recently debuted on air: “Dream Town” and “Laughs.” In the former, we are taken to a fantasy land in which people get whatever luxury/sports cars they desire, there are lottery-winning masses, a man has an eye on the back of his head so that he can be attentive to wife and baby in the foreground while watching sports on TV in the background–in short, everybody’s dreams come true. In the last scenario, we see a teen boy drinking a glass of milk before going to bed. That’s because milk helps everyone get a good night’s sleep and the better you sleep, the better you dream. As he nods off, we see four young, hot-looking, swimsuit-clad women singing him a lullaby in his bedroom. Ah, the dream has already kicked in.
In “Laughs,” we’re placed on an island where all its inhabitants are laughing no matter what the circumstance. A woman chuckles uncontrollably during childbirth, people at a funeral laugh while standing around a casket. Two vehicles collide, an accident that causes both drivers to laugh. On this island, milk is essential because it not only gives you a sunny disposition but also healthy teeth, which you can flash while laughing.
A third spot, “Law of Gravity,” isn’t scheduled to premiere until May. In this ad, we are taken to a place of weightlessness where accidents are ubiquitous. Here, people drink milk for strong bones that won’t break as a result of all these mishaps.
This newest “Toma Leche” batch of commercials was co-directed by Luciano Podcaminsky and Armando Bo. Podcaminisky is repped by Agosto in Spain, Rebolucion in Latin American and @radical.media in the rest of the world. Bo is handled by Anonymous Content in the United States and Independent in the U.K.
Lion worthy
Grupo Gallegos has made a major creative mark for a relatively young agency. Formed five years ago, it won a Silver Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival in ’05 and a Bronze Lion last year on the strength of its Eveready Energizer ad fare for U.S. Hispanic audiences.
Inspired creative for Energizer continued with the latest spot, “Immortal,” which made SHOOT’s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery last month. The commercial introduces to a man who cannot be killed as we seem him emerge from what normally would be fatal accidents. For him, relatively speaking, nothing else but him lasts–with the exception of Energizer batteries and its famed pink, drum-beating Bunny mascot.
“Immortal” was directed by Nicolas Kasakoff of Flip Films, Mexico City. Weaving the Energizer Bunny–an icon created by TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles, for the mainstream market–into the Spanish-language campaign again underscores Grupo Gallegos’ philosophy of maintaining continuity in brand personality.
Ad vet Oubinña came to the United States some 11 years ago from Argentina. He broke into the agency arena as a writer with Southern California-based Hispanic shop Casanova Pendrill. He moved up to being a creative director there, working on such accounts as DirecTV and X-Box.
A couple of years back, he came aboard independent agency Grupo Gallegos as a group creative director overseeing three creative teams. The Grupo Gallegos account roster includes Energizer, California Milk, Comcast and bus company Crucero. While the thrust of his work has been in traditional media, he noted that the agency is exploring longer form content prospects and emerging outlets.
That eye to the future is also reflected in Grupo Gallegos’ launch of an office in Buenos Aires just two months ago. Oubinña supervises a creative team there that is turning out concepts and projects for Crucero in the stateside Hispanic market.
“We opened in Argentina to help groom new talent, the next generation of creatives for the agency,” explained Oubinña, who reports to Grupo Gallegos’ chief creative officer Favio Ucedo. “It’s hard to find young people who know how to really write ads well in Spanish. A lot of the young talent ends up gravitating to places like Goodby anyway. So we have to have a farm system, tapping into other countries for promising talent.”
In that vein, he disclosed that Grupo Gallegos hopes to have an office in Mexico City up and running before year’s end.
