Wells Fargo Launches Hispanic Campaign.

Wells Fargo has launched its first multi-market brand advertising campaign aimed at the Hispanic market to position the company as the financial provider of choice for the nation’s fastest growing ethnic group.

TV and radio spots, coupled with print ads and billboards in some areas, are appearing in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas major markets. Wells Fargo worked with its Hispanic advertising agency of record – Anita Santiago Advertising – to create the new campaign.

“This is the first time we’re advertising Wells Fargo specifically to this very key segment in a large-scale campaign,” said Bill Bralye, director of advertising for Wells Fargo banks.”

Wells Fargo conducted focus groups to find out what financial services means to Hispanic customers. “We learned that many Hispanics have a real hesitancy to embrace banks,” said Bralye. “Many times they come from places where banks are not secure and people may not trust that their money will be safe. Some Hispanics say they feel intimidated by banks. We’ve learned that the strength of Wells Fargo’s 150-year heritage and its history doing business in Mexico can be reassuring to them. Participants told us they didn’t know Wells Fargo had been around so long. We were pleased to see how favorably the Hispanic market responded to our stability and security.”

The research led Wells Fargo to the brand identity line “Abriendo Caminos,” -literally “Forging Ahead” or “Opening Roads.”

“This identity line allows us to convey that Wells Fargo has a wide range of trustworthy products and services as well as the ability to point the way toward financial success for customers,” he said. “We were happy to learn our existing Stagecoach imagery worked well as a way to demonstrate ‘forging ahead’ or ‘opening roads.'”

Wells Fargo and the Santiago agency developed two television ads. The first features some of life’s most important events – a wedding, a graduation, buying a home, buying a car, opening a new business and suggests ways Wells Fargo can help make dreams come true. The second features real customers who have benefited from doing business with Wells Fargo.

“It’s all about aspiration,” said Bralye. “We can help them reach their dreams and we want them to know it. We want our audience to be familiar not only with the range of products and services we offer, but also with the fact that they can come to us for the basics like checking and savings accounts.”