Blue Diamond Growers reaches U.S. Spanish-speaking and bilingual audiences with in-language display ads
October 2, 2023 | By Jareen Imam, Sr. Content & Editorial Manager
Who doesn’t love a good almond? Blue Diamond Growers, an agricultural cooperative and global consumer packaged goods company, has spent years creating a variety of almond flavors that resonate with different audiences. In recent research, the brand saw that their Spanish-speaking as well as their English- and Spanish-speaking bilingual consumers were some of the fastest-growing audience segments in the U.S. that enjoyed snack nuts, particularly Blue Diamond Almonds.
Seeing this large audience segment engaging with their brand, Blue Diamond Growers wanted to reach them in their preferred language, in a space they were already shopping in order to better engage and connect with them. With these goals in mind, Amazon Ads was a top choice for Blue Diamond Growers to develop a campaign test to better connect with Spanish-speaking and bilingual audiences. The brand wanted to leverage the scale of Amazon while also effectively and efficiently reaching their key audiences.
It was important for Blue Diamond Growers to engage with these audiences in an authentic way as a part of their inclusive business efforts.
To better reach Spanish-speaking and bilingual consumers on Amazon, Blue Diamond Growers ran a test of in-language display ads.
— Lorena Nuñez, senior brand manager of multicultural and inclusive marketing at Blue Diamond GrowersWith Spanish-speaking and bilingual audiences being the largest multicultural segment and the one with the fastest population growths, we started our efforts with this audience
The campaign test ran from March to May 2023, and its objective was to reach Spanish-speaking and bilingual consumers on Amazon while also learning about the differences and similarities between the audiences in order to determine which creative and products would resonate the most with consumers.
During the test, Blue Diamond Growers used Amazon Ads creative services to create in-language display ads. The only difference between the ads positioned for Spanish-speaking and bilingual audiences versus the ads for English-speaking consumers was the language.
“Using Amazon’s creative services made a great impact because we were able to quickly create in-language ads and launch the campaign,” Nuñez said.
The visual branding and creative messaging remained consistent throughout all the ads because Blue Diamond Growers knew that Spanish-speaking audiences, including bilingual speakers, were already familiar with Blue Diamond Growers’ brand and marketing media, including the creatives used on Amazon. Therefore, it was important for Blue Diamond Growers to keep the same branding across all touchpoints, regardless of language preferences, in order to create a seamless brand experience for all audiences.
In the end, the campaign was a success for Blue Diamond Growers.
“We learned which flavors, sizes, and messaging most resonate with Spanish-speaking and bilingual Amazon users,” Nuñez said. “We have a fantastic partnership with Amazon on many different levels; we make a great team. Their proactivity and collaboration helped make this program a success.”
The campaign reached over 3.6 million unique shoppers, and drove positive brand impact and incremental sales lift.1 Brand preference increased and brand favorability each increased 11% and ad recall increased 21%, as compared to a control audience.2 The campaign delivered a 14% higher than average click-through rate and a 33% higher than average return on ad spend on Amazon.3
Additionally, the brand used the learnings to develop an “always on” Spanish-speaking and bilingual message strategy on Amazon.
“An interesting aha moment was seeing strong sales of flavors and products we didn’t realize would resonate with Spanish-speaking and bilingual audiences,” Nuñez added. “But that only goes to show that if the advertising is done right, consumers will take the time to browse through the brand Store and check out the variety of products. We drove consideration of multiple flavors although we were only promoting a select few.”
1-3Amazon internal data, US, May 2023