California Community Colleges
Reaching an audience of people in the language they connect with.
The Problem
California Community Colleges needed to convince Latinx youth that financial aid made college affordable. The usual public-service messaging wasn't landing with an audience that had been talked at for years.
All work on this project was created in partnership with RSE.
My Role
I was part of the creative team that developed Lupita as a bilingual character and campaign hook, then led post-production for the series.
My role covered the visual identity including hand illustrated titles, graphics, and the overall look and feel of post production.
The Move
The concept skipped a translated script for Spanglish dialogue, built in the language the audience actually lives in, code-switching included, riding on an existing telenovela property viewers already knew, "El Gran Sueño de MarÃa Esperanza" (2016 to 2018). Getting that voice to land depended on the cut as much as the writing. Post-production pacing kept the code-switching natural, and a visual identity built for a phone-first, scroll-first audience (sticker graphics, hand-lettered titles, a look nothing like standard education marketing) gave Lupita a point of view of her own. Distribution followed the same logic: geo-targeted social and YouTube aimed specifically at Latinx youth, in a state where nearly 40% of the population is Latinx and more than a quarter of households speak Spanish at home.
What Happened
The first two episodes and their supporting promotion generated nearly 1.5 million views in the initial three-week tracking period and are available on YouTube.
The series also received a Gold ADDY in Online Film, Video & Sound Series." and replace with: "The series also won a Gold ADDY in Online Film, Video & Sound Series at the 2020 American Advertising Awards (Sacramento).