Consumer “Army of One”:
Values, Marketing, and Latino Youth
Carlotta Ocampo, PhD
A
perusal of the faces of the fallen in Iraq is tragic
by any standard. A closer read, beyond the faces to
the names, brings an unsettling revelation: a
significant number of the fallen carry Latin-sounding
names. I was struck by what seemed like an
overrepresentation of Latinos among the deceased; in
fact, a Pew Charitable Trusts-supported analysis of
Defense Department documents indicates that there is
an over-representation of Latino enlisted personnel as
compared to their representation in the workforce,
after adjustment for education and immigration status
(Pew Hispanic Center, 2003).
While the military has always been an option among
young Latinos for the same reasons that it has always
been an option among those to whom many opportunities
are denied (job training, job security, exposure to a
broader environment), I began to wonder whether
advertising might influence this phenomenon. I became
aware of a powerful advertising campaign, the “Army of
One”.
Ads in
this campaign feature a series of faces passing by on
the screen, all Latino; a Latino youth asks his mother
whether she would give him her blessing to join the
military. This imagery presents a powerful and subtle
message in which traditional Latino values interface
with the acculturated American values of a second
Latino generation. Think about what an “army of one”
implies: rather than indoctrination into a lock-step
community, the army is presented as fostering
individualism, independence, being unique. A young
man cuts his mother’s apron-strings – and the
traditional Latino communal value of familismo – by
asserting his independence and joining the military;
but not without first respecting his mother in a
traditional Latino way (he won’t go without her
blessing). What strikes me about this message is how
it seems to effectively target a critical “new” Latino
market: bi-cultural, partly assimilated Latinos, who
may have been born in the US, or immigrated during
early childhood, who find themselves caught between
the traditional values of their parents and their
“new” widely divergent values of American
individualism. Intra-familial conflicts arising from
this clash in values can create bi-cultural tension
and stress in this second generation. The “Army of
One” ads seem to offer an “honorable” way to escape
this tension. I strongly suspect there are
psychological mechanisms at work in this type of
advertising.
Targeting this second
generation of rapidly acculturating Latinos would seem
to present special challenges for advertising. Many
of these young Latinos are bi-lingual or speak English
as their first language, yet retain Latino values –
communalism, familismo, religiosity, traditional
gender roles, etc. At the same time, forced to make
choices about their social categorization in the US,
many – particularly in cities – embrace the “urban
youth” label (read inner-city Blacks and Latinos, aka
the Hip Hop generation). They are not the same “Canal
Latino” market their parents were – they will not be
watching telenovellas on Galavision. One wonders
whether advertisers might not wish to create a
consumer “army of one” that entices this emerging
market with ads that promise the nearly impossible –
maintaining Latino identity and values while embracing
the American dream. Just as the army proclaims
individuality, yet requires conformity, so might these
ads appeal to emergent individualism while creating an
essentially conforming consumer base. In my brief
remarks, I will try to further clarify exactly who the
Latino youth market is and what it represents to
advertisers, as well as what is at stake for Latinos.
I will also discuss some recent Latino targeted ads
within this framework of bi-cultural tension and
assimilation.
Carlotta Ocampo
(ocampoc@trinitydc.edu)
received her PhD in Neuropsychology from Howard
University. She is currently associate professor of
psychology and Chair of Human Relations at Trinity
University in Washington, DC. She also acts as an
advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples.
