All Inclusive: Why Pedro Lerma Believes “A Rising Tide Floats All Boats”
ALTERED.LA is fighting for more equal representation and an all-inclusive general market. Over the course of 20 years in the biz, Marcos Cline, ALTERED.LA founder and EP, has seen the power of Latin audiences grow exponentially and is passionate about ensuring this market is authentically and creatively catered to. Representing top-notch award-winning directors, ALTERED.LA believes it's important for Hispanic representation in front of and behind the camera and is advocating for clients to pursue this demographic as part of growing their business.
For this new LBB series, ALTERED.LA will be speaking to representatives from the biggest agencies in the industry to see what they too are doing to advocate for more authentic bicultural storytelling, how this will grant the next generation of Hispanic talent a foot in the door and why this will result in greater Latin representation within the General US Market overall.
Through his work in the advertising world, Pedro Lerma is redefining what it means to be 'multicultural', by forging a 'cross-culturalism' approach to brand storytelling. Here, LBB’s April Summers learns how that looks and the ways in which his agency, LERMA/, is advocating for greater Hispanic representation in the business.
LBB> How have you seen the demand for Hispanic and bicultural content evolve over the years, and how is your agency responding to this?
Pedro> The US is more multicultural than ever and brands need partners with the sensibility to help them navigate the future. LERMA/ is in a unique position in that we started as a Hispanic agency, but we’ve evolved into what we call a cross-cultural agency built on the foundation of multiculturalism. Today, for many of our clients, we are their lead agency and the work we do always infuses multicultural insights, often with the underrepresented as the hero in the brand’s storytelling. We find that it resonates with the underrepresented segment and it has a broader appeal across segments, often outperforming historical work. We’ve found this to be an approach that has generated lots of opportunities for us.
LBB> What are some of the biggest challenges LERMA/ faces in advocating for more Hispanic representation and how do you overcome them?
Pedro> Even with the Hispanic influence on US culture being at an all-time high, the political landscape often has brands hesitating to take too bold a stand by championing the underrepresented. You’ve seen it with the LGBTQ+ community, where brands have been attacked for their advocacy of this community. It has made marketers more cautious. However, we’ve been really successful in showing brands how they can lead with Hispanic storytelling in an authentic way and still navigate the landscape in a way that delivers broader audiences without making the brand a political target.
LBB> Can you tell us a bit about how LERMA/’s Brand Inclusivity Performance Index helps promote Hispanic and bicultural storytelling in your campaigns?
Pedro> Our Brand Inclusivity Performance Index helps brands be more multiculturally attuned and authentic in the ways they connect with the audience. We’ve also adopted an A.I. based platform that allows us to better mine for competitive intelligence, identify detailed audience profiles of opportunity segments, craft more insightful briefs, test creativity against virtual focus groups, plan and execute more targeted media and optimise the work. The combination of that platform, which we call Cultural Fluency A.I. and BIPI, allows us to demonstrate the potential of more Hispanic and bicultural campaigns.
LBB> Can you share a recent project that exemplifies your commitment to authentic Hispanic representation and storytelling?
Pedro> Yes. The Home Depot wanted to highlight female doers. Doers are what we call our customers. We brought them a story featuring Latina doers, not just home improvers, but also pros. The insights we shared focused on how Latinas are driving the growth of new businesses in the US while also being the most underpaid segment of our society. For every dollar a white male makes, a Latina earns 57 cents. And we chose to lead with this by highlighting Latinas in several different ways, including a Latina who has her own roofing company.
The work was evaluated by the ANA’s CIIM (Cultural Insights Impact Measure) and scored among their most successful work. We found that the work resonated with Latinas, of course, but also with Latinos, as well as male and female general market audiences. This is some of the work that led to the ANA recognising The Home Depot as Most Culturally Inclusive Brand of 2023.
LBB> Have you formed any collaborations or partnerships to further the cause of Hispanic representation? And if so, how are these collaborations enhancing the work and outcomes for your clients?
Pedro> I am on the board for the Hispanic Marketing Council. We recently launched a campaign called Stop Latino Coating. It is an effort to push marketers to fully commit to Hispanic marketing – a $3.2 trillion opportunity. But current marketing budgets aren’t in line with capturing that opportunity. Furthermore, brands need to go beyond simply translating general market work or doing Hispanic campaigns during Hispanic Heritage Month. We are beginning to see marketers recognise and act on this opportunity, but there’s more work to do.
Our involvement with the Hispanic Marketing Council has been incredibly beneficial to us in knowledge sharing with other prominent Hispanic market experts. We all believe that supporting one another is critical to our overall success and growth. Sure we compete, but I celebrate the success of other Hispanic agencies and I hope they celebrate ours. In fact, the Stop Latino Coating campaign was developed by two of the member agencies, MEL - led by Luis Miguel Messianu and Creyentes - led by Marco Vega. We truly believe that a rising tide floats all boats. And that collective success makes us all smarter and more effective when it comes to servicing our client relationships.
