NEW YORK — Hot Hispanic actress Salma Hayek will appear starting Monday in Coca-Cola's first bilingual commercial produced for national mainstream TV. Salma Hayek, who stars in Coke's crossover ad, was nominated for an Oscar for last year's Frida. The timing of Coke's investment of an estimated $1 million to get Hayek for the 30-second ad, part of its "Real" campaign, seems on the mark. Hayek's new movie —Once Upon a Time in Mexico with Antonio Banderas — opened No. 1 a week ago at the box office. The ad has appeal for the strong and growing Hispanic market. The Census Bureau recently pegged Hispanics as the largest minority group. And market tracker HispanTelligence projects that Hispanic spending power will grow 11% this year to $599 billion. The ad extends a trend for big-name marketers to incorporate Hispanic messages and personalities into mainstream ads. Recent experience has shown that such commercials have strong appeal to a wide base of consumers. "When you're talking about Salma Hayek, you're reaching a great portion of the market — and further validating the Hispanic marketplace," says Manuel Machado, CEO of Miami-based Machado/Garcia-Serra Publicidad and president-elect of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies. "We're seeing more companies looking at crossover work." Coke isn't the first to try to bridge the power of the 38-million-person Hispanic market with appeals to the general market. Pepsi has featured Ricky Martin and singer Shakira in ads that aired on national TV. And Procter & Gamble ran a bilingual ad for Crest Whitening Plus Scope toothpaste on this year's Grammy Awards. Overall, advertisers spent $1.7 billion to target Hispanics in 2002, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR, up 25% vs. the 4% boost in total ad spending. The Hayek ad, by agency Lápiz, begins airing Monday on PGA Golf and Atlanta Braves programming. A version with Spanish subtitles for Hayek's English lines will air on Univision and MTV en Español. Later, general programming will include the American Music Awards in November and Billboard Music Awards in December. "Companies tend to think of people in silos, and that's not the way people live. This spot is great for Hispanic consumers but works for everyone, and that makes it a great crossover ad," says Anali Cabrera Cline, senior brand manager at Coca-Cola. "She is an important celebrity everybody knows and an Oscar-nominated actress." The ad shows Hayek, who has excused herself from a Hollywood meeting to visit the ladies' room. It opens with her stuffing a taco in her mouth, taking swigs from a Coke and talking excitedly in Spanish about the delicious combo. When she returns to the table of waiting executives, she declines the food there, saying in English that she's watching her figure. The bilingual approach is something most Hispanics will identify with, says Linda De Jesus, president of Hispanic ad agency The Bravo Group. "It's the realization by a major brand of what's happening today."
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