Brands using videos to engage customers online is nothing new. The creation of online mini-novelas to engage Spanish-speaking consumers is. Since study after study comes back indicating that Hispanic consumers overindex in the consumption of online videos, the move to using videos as product-placement entertainment makes sense.
If you’ve never had to work with this segment of the spending population, then you may not understand that the novela is a cross between an online drama and a miniseries… and the most effective broadcast marketing vehicle for the Spanish-speaking consumer. In the last year I’ve been seeing industry news items about this brand or that brand using online novelas as marketing tools for Hispanic consumers. They’re short (5-7 minutes), in Spanish, and use the product placed within the video or as a major plotline.
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The Hispanic MPR podcast has a great interview with Hamilton Brown, senior brand manager, Procter and Gamble Company, where he discusses Gain’s Aroma de Amor novela. Gain’s consumer base is 30% Spanish speakers. Brown stressed that their focus is to provide marketing content that is entertaining and relevant to the consumer. In this case, Gain has a four-part novela in Spanish with English subtitles, which I think is a genius touch.
Below I’ve embedded the first episode of the novela. I’ve also linked to the entire series below that.
Aroma de Amor:
Recommended reading: UNIVISION TO DEBUT NASCAR-THEMED NOVELA, about a web-novela that was transitioned to the airwaves.
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