AN INTERVIEW WITH:
Tania Cameron
Senior Manager CRM–Hispanic Segment
Kraft Foods
Tania Cameron leads the planning and development for consumer relationship marketing in Kraft Foods’ Hispanic segment, including the Comida y Familia CRM program and Comida Kraft, an online community and its companion magazine, Comida y Familia. Both efforts are dedicated to connecting with US Latina moms in relevant and meaningful ways. Cameron spoke with eMarketer’s Tobi Elkin about the Comida y Familia program, the company’s primary tool for cultivating loyalty among Latinas.
eMarketer: What is the goal of Comida Kraft?
Tania Cameron: Our objective is to connect with Latina consumers in ways that are meaningful and relevant for them. The Comida y Familia program is a 360-degree platform that has many touchpoints. We conduct ethnographies, quantitative and qualitative research, and all the research that we can get to understand what this consumer needs and how we can help her now that she is living here in the US.
We focus on moms ages 18 to 49, the same as the general market. But these are moms who prefer to receive content in Spanish. The Latin consumer here in the US is more inclined to engage with programs like Comida Kraft, because it’s in their own language, and because they help her to connect with other moms like her.
eMarketer: How do you approach your Latina target for demographic/psychographic segmentation models?
Cameron: We use psychographic segmentation. Everything starts with the consumer. One of the insights we have found is that the Latin mom is proud of her heritage. While living here in the US, she’s always looking for ways to share her heritage with friends, family and, of course, her children. She wants to pass on this heritage.
Food is one of many ways for the Latina mom to pass on her traditions. For her, food means love, not merely fuel. We are tapping into this very important and emotional insight to develop content.
We know that Latin moms like to cook, but obviously there are different degrees. Not all moms love to do everything, right? We are aware of these differences and we take them into consideration when developing content.
Latin moms vs. general market moms are more inclined to use fresh ingredients. We develop our recipes with that in mind. But at the same time, they can’t cook the same way they were cooking in their home country, so they need some convenient, quick food solutions. That’s where we come into play.
eMarketer: Is acculturation an important issue in your work?
Cameron: Acculturation involves many things. Obviously one of the factors is language, and how proficient they are in English or in Spanish. But there are other factors. There could be one person who has been here for 10 or 20 years, but still wants to receive content in Spanish.
After a period of time, you can be in a different category of acculturation. But that doesn’t apply perfectly for us. Another thing that we consider is the country of origin. Obviously this is the US Latin market, but it’s composed of many different subsegments or countries of origin. Mexicans comprise the largest population in terms of country of origin, but we also have Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Ecuadorans, you name it.
eMarketer: Do you have an example of a campaign that demonstrates Latinas’ involvement with social media?
Cameron: We have partnered with Chef Alfredo Oropeza, who is the most recognized celebrity chef in Mexico, on the Share Your Latin Flavor program to engage Latina moms. This initiative encourages Latina moms to share recipes and tips related to the cooking of their cultures. The program leverages all Comida Kraft media assets, including our website, Facebook page, mobile channel, PR, word-of-mouth marketing and our Comida y Familia magazine. Comida-focused advertising ran on Hispanic US networks.
With the Share Your Latin Flavor program, we wanted to show Latin moms how simple it is to continue to share their Latin flavor through food while living in the US. So it ties back to the insight that these moms want to pass along their heritage. Through this program, Chef Oropeza and Comida Kraft offer 10 new recipes and videos each month from June through November.
The themes include Everyday Latin Flavor, Best Latin Grilling recipes and Latin Dishes Your Kids Will Love. We put this content on Comida Kraft, on Facebook, YouTube and the mobile site. Knowing that Hispanic moms are very active in mobile, we also designed a mobile promotion that gives them free, exclusive access to more content from Chef Oropeza, if they subscribe to Kraft recipes by email and the Kraft Mobile Club.
Since May 23, when we launched the campaign, mobile site traffic has increased 135% and our Facebook fan base has nearly doubled. We will have two more live video chats with Chef Oropeza on the Comida Kraft Facebook page by the end of the year, in addition to the one we did in June. We did an hour, and for next time, we’re going to do two hours.
eMarketer: What are some best practices in targeting Hispanic moms?
Cameron: The best practice is really to follow the trends. Be open to test, learn and, later, to adjust. Also, communicate your results internally so everyone in the company can learn from them and not continue to test the same thing again and again. Use those learnings, and really listen to the consumer. We always ask for consumer feedback. That really helps us to become a better company and offer better content.
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SOURCE eMarketer