• by Les Luchter , 2 hours ago

 Cologuard has tapped telenovela icon Gabriela Spanic for its latest Spanish-language campaign.

“What are you doing with that box?” she demands of a dashing man removing her Cologuard package as a new :30 spot begins.

“I have to get checked for colon cancer,” he replies.

“But you look so young,” Spanic responds seductively.

“You should get checked at 45,” he notes seriously.

At this point, only halfway into the ad, a doctor appear on screen to state that Cologuard “detects 95% of colon cancers, similar to a colonoscopy.”

 “And it’s delivered to your home,” chimes in the brands’ anthromorphic box.

Spanic, 52 years old herself, is highly recognizable to Hispanic audiences, having played the female villain in very dramatic telenovela roles for over three decades, Michelle Gonzalez, Cologuard’smulticultural marketing lead, explains to Marketing Daily. “Gabby is a powerhouse.”

As for applying a telenovela style to ads for colon cancer testing, Gonzalez notes that “novellas have a history of presenting common and everyday elements very dramatically in a fun way… that takes the stress out.”

This, she says, should help to take the  “ometimes complicated or unfamiliar territory of cancer screening and make it an everyday topic.”

Turning that topic into an everyday conversation is one of the goals of the Spanic campaign, which will run into December.

In addition to national TV,  the campaign also includes national radio and both paid and organic social, featuring Spanic engaging in conversations with the CPG-animated Cologuard box.

Just two years since the brand launched its first Hispanic-language ads, Hispanics have become a consistent audience target, Gonzalez says, with the investment for the Spanic campaign “probably a little bit more” than usual.

It’s an important market in the colon cancer space overall, not just for Cologuard.

Colon cancer, Gonzalez says, is not only the “second or third most common type of cancer for males and females among the U.S. Hispanic population,” but only 53% of Hispanics “are up to date in their screenings, compared to the white population at about 75%.”

Due to that “big gap in testing,” she elaborates, “when Hispanics do find out they have colon cancer, it’s definitely at the later stages and harder to treat, so they have worse outcomes.”

Cologuard’s Hispanic marketing also aims to raise awareness of the need for the product, driving such consumer actions as making doctor appointments and ordering tests (Cologuard is a prescription product, but can be ordered directly online through telehealth at cologuard.com).

Cologuard’s first Spanish-language campaign in 2024 was created by Casanova/McCann, with OMD leading the media buying. As for the new campaign, Gonzalez says that Abbott, the brand’s new owner since spring, has a policy of not sharing agency information.