Perhaps we should translate this article into Spanish, Cantonese, and and Tagalog, the primary languages of non-English speaking American residents, because Comcast’s Internet Essentials program has developed marketing campaigns to reach the people who speak those (and nine other) languages.
Internet Essentials, Comcast’s program aimed at bringing high speed internet to needy Americans, is now producing culturally-appropriate marketing materials in a diverse assortment of languages through Améredia, it’s multicultural advertising and marketing agency.
Internet Essentials calls itself “the nation’s largest and most comprehensive broadband adoption program for families that have at least one child eligible to participate in the National School Lunch Program”. It tasked Améredia with producing multilingual transcreations (that’s marketing lingo for “translating words and images in a manner that’s culturally appropriate”) a wide range of marketing materials. Those materials will help Comcast deliver it’s message across cultural and linguistic barriers.
Of course, we have often editorialized in favor of Comcast’s Internet Essentials and its goal of eliminating the digital divide between America’s rich and poor. As Comcast said in a press release, “The ability to get online and properly navigate one’s way around the World Wide Web is especially vital to school-aged children as online connection allows for the completion of class assignments, the filling of job or college applications, and a link to the outside world.”
It’s been estimated that a shocking 29% of Americans still aren’t online. And as you might expect this lack digital divide is exacerbated among minorities. USA Today recently reported that just one third of Asians have high speed internet access at home. The numbers get even worse for other minorities. It’s just 14% of blacks and under 13% of Latinos.
“In partnership with Améredia, Comcast was able to extend the reach of its Internet Essentials program to more diverse audiences by providing materials in 12 languages. Peter Intermaggio, SVP Marketing Communications at Comcast, noted. “Internet Essentials continues to gain momentum and make a difference in our communities.”
Améredia is justifiably proud of its contribution.
“Our total market approach works wonderfully for Comcast,” said Pawan J. Mehra, the agency’s founder and principal. “Our unique agency model is able to offer the client cross-cultural capabilities across diverse multilingual groups to enable successful launches of their diversity campaigns.”
Améredia created marketing materials for 12 diverse ethnic groups. They use a little marketing mumbo jumbo to say they created “in-language, family focused, and child focused messaging.” Languages include Arabic, Chinese, Haitian, Hmong, Korean, Oromo, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Tibetan, and Vietnamese.
To Améredia and Comcast, we’d like to say, شكرا, xièxiè, di ou mèsi, ua tsaug rau koj, 감사합니다, galatoomaa, dziękuję, obrigado, спасибо, wad mahadsantahay, thuk jay chey, cảm ơn bạn on behalf of the needy Americans who speak those languages and desperately need affordable, high-speed internet.
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