In-Language Materials Essential To Reaching Hispanic Clients
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When a company doubles the assets it receives from a specific segment of the population in six years, that segment is likely to attract significantly more attention than it had previously.
Such is the case at Allstate with the Hispanic market. By 1995 without having made a focused effort to reach the Hispanic market, Allstate had $1 billion in assets from that sector. That year, a number of initiatives were instituted to reach the Hispanic client.
The result is $2 billion in assets from the Hispanic market as of September, says Raymond Celaya, assistant vice president of ethnic marketing, Allstate, Northbrook, Ill.
"Back in 92 Allstate was wrestling with the idea of diversity," he says. "We decided we would leverage our diversity in Allstate to get a competitive advantage in the marketplace."
Part of that effort includes having 2,500 field agents in "Spanish-able" offices, where either the agent or members of the staff speak Spanish.
Being able to communicate in-language is particularly important in communities that are rapidly changing to a Hispanic demographic, Celaya says.
"Many of our communities in Chicago have gone from Polish to Hispanic," he says. "We have agents who wake up one day and realize that people come to their doors and want to speak Spanish. We have developed a pamphlet for agents wrestling with that."
The ability to communicate in the clients language is important not only for literal translations, but for translations of foreign concepts as well, Celaya says, because there is little context for the idea of insurance among Latin Americans.
"We have first, second and third generations coming to grips with the role of insurance in society and how it works," he says. "For many, they understand concepts better in-language."
Celaya offers as an example a 30-year-old bilingual Hispanic woman from Houston who worked as an assistant principal at an area school. She was part of a focus group conducted by Allstate about five years ago. At the end of the session, she asked for the name of a local agent who spoke Spanish. When Celaya asked why she wanted a Spanish-speaking agent, the woman answered that she understands concepts in English, but feels them in Spanish.
"Its a more emotional context," Celaya says. "Allstate was reaching out in-language; that was important to her."
Allstate offices in Hispanic communities try to accommodate the Hispanic clients preference to do business with his whole family present, rather than one-on-one with an advisor, says Leonor Cortez Cockrum, Allstate ethnic marketing director.
"You dont normally see one person coming in to make decisions; you see husband, wife and children," she says. "So agencies think about that in the way they lay out the office. There are more chairs, bilingual magazines; its a more hospitable environment to the family."
Many field agents win the loyalty of the Hispanic market by becoming directly involved in the community, Cortez Cockrum says. Among other things, Allstate agents have been known to become coaches of juvenile sports leagues, provide translation services for their clients in areas other than financial services, provide defensive driving courses, and even help build homes.
"They are looked at as role models," Cortez Cockrum says.
Allstates campaign to reach the Hispanic market includes between 250 and 300 promotional items written in Spanish and English, according to Celaya "because you never know whether the language in the household is English or Spanish."
Promotional materials include brochures, direct marketing, billboard, radio and TV advertisements, Celaya says. The ads list an 800 phone number that leads callers to a "Spanish-able" agency in their vicinity. Allstates Web site contains that information as well, Celaya says.
In-language marketing materials are part of The Principals campaign to target the Hispanic community as well. Small-to-medium businesses comprise the market targeted by the company, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa.
The translations are both literal and cultural because the priorities of the Hispanic client are often different from those of the mainstream public, says corporate marketing manager Michelle Swanda. Cultural translations are achieved through different visuals that speak to the needs of a specific community.
