José Vélez-Silva, VP of multicultural brand marketing for Comcast Cable, read a letter to himself as he will be in five years at the Hispanic TV Summit, helping to kick off a new Hispanic Heritage Month ad campaign that launched on Xfinity Latino's Instagram account today.
The warmly written note congratulated his future self on achieving career and family goals and encouraged future José to “keep going with the same heart and feeling that you put into everything.” The full room at etc. venues in midtown Manhattan applauded. Velez-Silva encouraged attendees to write their future selves a note, too. “I found it very freeing," he said.
He urged marketers who only think to market to Hispanics during October to not bother if they are not going to be doing so year-round, as Comcast does. He pointed out that the last time Comcast defied the trends and showed positive subscriber growth, the gains were "all because of the Hispanic audiences.”
“We support the Hispanic community every single day of the year,” he said, not just with ads but by designing products inspired by Hispanic households, including the first bilingual voice-activated remote.
He was joined on stage by José Pablo Rodriguez, managing director of GALLEGOS United, the multicultural marketing agency used by Comcast for more than two decades and the one responsible for executing the new “Querido Futuro” letter-writing campaign. They said a half-dozen celebrities will take part in the campaign, which will expand depending on the social feedback generated. The individuals selected are quite diverse and the LGBTQ community will be represented within them, Rodriguez said.
"I celebrate being Puerto Rican, gay and an American every single day of the year,” Vélez-Silva said.
