The panel included Ramiro Padilla Klein, US Bank; and for Casanova//McCann, Karla Acevedo, Will Pierce and Carlos Tornell.
Creatives from Casanova//McCann and U.S. Bank participated in the webinar “The Power of Deep Cultural Insights and Emotion” organized by the Hispanic Marketing Council (HMC) to explore the Found in Translation campaign. The initiative, which won three Lions at Cannes Lions 2024, was a collaboration with McCANN Detroit.
The work sought to introduce a cultural impact beyond U.S. Bank and set a new standard for inclusive banking.
The panel for this webinar included from the client side Ramiro Padilla Klein, Vice President, Hispanic Segment Lead, US Bank; and from Casanova//McCann, Karla Acevedo, EVP/Chief Operations & Client Officer; Will Pierce, EVP/Chief Strategy Officer; and Carlos Tornell, VP Creative Director. The conversation was moderated by Victor Paredes, HMC Education Chair.
The challenge for U.S. Bank was how to market and draw attention to the bank’s Spanish-language intelligent voice assistant – the first to offer such a tool – but connect in an authentic and meaningful way beyond just the product.
“Our goal is to ensure that everyone, including minorities, has access to the tools, resources and networks that help them get ahead. And one very simple way to do that is our Intelligent Assistant that we launched in early 2022 and is the first Spanish-language virtual assistant in the country, it was an innovation that came out that helps Spanish speakers bank in their language of choice from their mobile device,” explained Padilla Klein.
The initial opportunity was to increase awareness and engagement with California Hispanics, retain existing customers and attract the next generation. Padilla explained that U.S. Bank is the fifth largest bank in the U.S., headquartered in Minneapolis, and is a bank that has grown organically by acquiring smaller banks. In the last decade they have grown northwestward by acquiring several banks in Arizona, Nevada, and in 2022 they picked up Union Bank in California, becoming a very important player in that state. “The interesting thing is that the relationship on this side of the country is much more diverse, Hispanics are 40% of the population and that comes with that challenge.”
Padilla said they could have done this through a traditional 30-second TV ad that talked about the bank and its services. “But instead we decided to take a more intentional approach and made the effort to connect with this audience in a more genuine and authentic way.”
