• by Karl Greenberg , February 25, 2014

Latin rock music star Juanes is back in a Ram 1500 pickup truck, continuing down the road as Hispanic market ambassador for Chrysler's Ram Truck brand. The company has just launched a new TV spot featuring the Grammy winner that extends the “A Todo. Con Todo” (“To Everything. With Everything”) campaign that launched in 2012 when he first signed on with Ram. 

The new spot features Juanes’ new single, “La Luz,” from his new album "Loco De Amor." Via Dallas-based Richards/Lerma agency, the Hispanic marketing arm of The Richards Group, it shows Juanes performing the song on stage, with his roadies building and breaking down his set and hauling gear in Ram 1500 pickups. 

The ad, linking Juanes to Ram with a theme of hard work and determination, and running nationally on the Univision and Telemundo networks, is in Spanish only, and features the star prominently. That’s a big change from previous Ram Hispanic spots with Juanes since last year.  

Juan Torres, head of multicultural advertising at Chrysler explains to Marketing Daily that the first ad in the new series, which began with the Latin Grammys last November, teased Juanes’ new single and the additional spots to come, and only featured the artist briefly -- paying most of the homage to Juanes’ roadies, tying the work they do to the personality of Ram.

“The ads have evolved to feature Juanes more and more, partly to benefit his own album release schedule,” says Torres. "As we worked with his team, one thing they did not necessarily wish to do in November was put him out too much, because there would be lots of PR and marketing this year leading up to the April album launch. We intentionally focused on the truck and 'heroes' behind the scene. After the December release of the single, we made him and ‘La Luz’ very prominent." 

Also prominent are Ram features like 25 MPG, technology, eight-speed transmission, other onboard technology, and interior space. The campaign includes print and digital. Torres says Hispanic consumers are major truck customers. “Hispanic consumers are very important to Ram, as the large pickup truck segment is the third-biggest segment among U.S. Latinos and the top U.S. truck markets (and six of eight top Ram truck markets) have large Hispanic populations,” he says.

He adds that Hispanic sales have built steadily since the campaign launched in 2012. "We have seen steady increase in market share, so the brand is performing very well. When you are looking at the pickup market in general, when you start to list major cities where trucks are sold you begin to see that they are also top Hispanic markets: Houston and Dallas, for example, and Los Angeles, which is the third-biggest truck market, where 70% of the population is Hispanic.”

Using Juanes enables Ram to appeal to U.S. Hispanics from a variety of national backgrounds and cultures, per Torres. “What's unique about him is that within the Hispanic market he has huge crossover appeal, even though he's Colombian by descent. With Mexican Americans, for example, he's always been top of the charts. It’s not traditional, regional music but a style that transcends cultures. And he is really hitting his stride now."