Saskia Sorrosa of NBA: Five years after launching the Enebea campaign our Hispanic fan base keeps growing

PRODU met with Saskia Sorrosa, Hispanic marketing director for the NBA professional basketball league, to discuss the success of the campaign targeting the Hispanic market and the efforts being undertaken to keep it growing.“Research told us that Enebea was the way Hispanics refer to the league, so we took what the market knew for years and made it the official brand name of the NBA for the Hispanic public” Sorrosa said.“We know that fans don’t write it like that but they do pronounce it that way, and we wanted to add a touch of humor to a message showing them that we understand them and that this is a brand just for them”.Since the campaign launch the number of Hispanic fans has grown in a much larger proportion than the total growth of Hispanics in the United States, and its growth compared with that of non-Hispanic fans has been 500 percent to 5 percent. “Our growth has been enormous, the way we measure success is with the number of TV viewers, merchandise sold and attendance at the games” Sorrosa said. “One of the annual programs is La noche latina, a yearly event held in March. La noche latina goes on throughout the month of March, because Hispanic Heritage Month (September/October) does not coincide with basketball season – that’s why we chose a month to celebrate our Hispanic heritage when we can say thanks to our Latino fans and players” she said.