The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 2023
QuickBooks turned the Spanish 'ito' from small into a badge of big ambitions
Hispanic owners felt 'el cafecito' was too small for business software; QuickBooks made 'ito' a badge of scale and nearly doubled Latino signups.
Intuit QuickBooks
The solution
Hispanic small business owners in the US habitually name their shops with the Spanish diminutive '-ito' — el barcito, el cafecito — and, QuickBooks' research found, let that small-sounding name shape their ambitions. Many believed their business was too small to invest in accounting technology.
Alma DDB's 'ThinkOte' flipped the handicap: Mexican soccer star Javier 'Chicharito' Hernández, whose nickname means 'little pea', starred in Spanish, English and Spanglish ads joining 'Team QuickBooks', proving that an 'ito' can still reach the top. The campaign's job was to change what success looked like, not to list features.
The mindset change moved the numbers: new QuickBooks users rose 96% versus the previous campaign, cost per acquisition fell 43%, and the effort beat its internal target of growing Hispanic usage by 35%.
Why it worked
- It attacked the belief, not the product
- Chicharito proved the metaphor inside the culture's own language
- A self-deprecating insight made the brand feel on owners' side
- Spanish and Spanglish media put the message inside the community
What can be applied
A growth problem is often a belief problem: find the self-image that blocks adoption, prove it wrong with a cultural symbol, and the feature list stops mattering.
Aftermath
The campaign took Best of Show and Grand Prix at the HMC Strategic Excellence Awards 2023 and later the Audience Global Grand Effie at the 2024 Global Best of the Best awards, the highest effectiveness honor of its cycle.
Sources
- “Evolution of Smooth” Brand Campaign Wins the Iridium as the Most Effective Campaign in the World
- Case Study: Intuit QuickBooks - ThinkOte
- THE HISPANIC MARKETING COUNCIL ANNOUNCED THE WINNERS OF THE 2023 HMC STRATEGIC EXCELLENCE AWARDS
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.