二叠纪盆地的繁荣时期 Bring Unexpected Marketing Challenges

正如这首歌所唱的那样. 加热蓝天. 一条永远延伸的路.” That’s what most people think of when they envision rural west 德州. 真正的. The roads are long and the sky goes on forever, but there is so much more to this part of the world than meets the eye.

西德克萨斯, 主要是敖德萨-米德兰DMA, 是充满活力的, if not booming - a virtual economic powerhouse. 根据数据从 德克萨斯州的一个&M的房地产中心, Odessa’s economic growth and impressive expansion would be the envy of any city in the U.S. 

让我尝尝我说的滋味. 医疗中心卫生系统, the region’s only full-service health network (and a CultureSpan client) has been in expansion mode for three years running. 他们建了一家新的妇产医院, 一个很棒的健康中心, are currently constructing a new VA center and have plans to build two multi-facility primary care centers. The University of 德州 of the Permian Basin (Go Falcons!), which played a leading roll in opening the very cool state-of-the-art 瓦格纳·诺埃尔表演艺术中心 has announced plans to build new housing to make room for its growing student body. Petrochemical company REXtac is constructing a new $680 million plant, which promises to bring hundreds of jobs to the local economy. 比如哈里伯顿(Halliburton), Schlumberger and Black Gold (all of which have new developments in the works) and you start to get the picture of what’s happening out in dusty west 德州.

But with all of this growth come some pretty interesting challenges, especially in the realm of employee recruitment and retention. 我在这里简化了, but the way I see it there’s an inverse relationship that occurs between employers once the oil fields get pumping. When the crude is flowing, a major portion of the local population goes to work in the fields. When the wells are capped, they go back to work everywhere else.

听起来很简单, but the impact that this “transitory” workforce has on the local economy can present lots of challenges for our clients. But as they say, necessity is the mother of invention… or in this example, ingenuity.

One of my former clients in the Permian Basin (one of the country’s leading small market co-ops at the time), was on the receiving end of this challenge a few years back. Employees were being lured away from the nationwide fast food company in the hopes of making more cash in the fields. This required some interesting maneuvering from a marketing perspective. We not only had to fill the seats in the dining room but behind the counter as well. In the company's true fashion, we went all out. Job fairs with radio remotes in the parking lots, a steady stream of radio ads (not to sell burgers but to cultivate a new crop of employees), a new microsite to expedite the application process, 招聘会赞助, a branded shuttle pick-up service for employees… it was all hands on deck.

然后, as often happens when living on the frontier, came a solution from a completely unexpected source. She was affectionately known as Granny… and that she certainly was. Granny, who was well into her 70s at the time, is all that and a bag of fries. She punched in at the crack of dawn (just the way she liked it) and her sole focus was to make the parfaits and salads for the day. By mid-morning she was well on her way to enjoying the rest of her day.

Richard Rodriguez, the operations manager, saw a unique opportunity in Granny and called me up. The idea: Highlight Granny on the senior living segment on the local Univision affiliate. Granny knew just enough Spanish to get her point across to the Spanish-language viewers (as is often the case in this part of the country). The segment was aired and the push was on. We flipped the burger flippin' company's employee stereotype on its head and gave a big shout out to an untapped and very experienced, reliable and dedicated group of potential employees from La Tercera更高. The message: You can stay active and keep earning on 你的 时间表. It gave new meaning to our recruitment tag line, “You can earn some cash and still have time to be you.”

是的, west 德州 is happening – in a big way – and, 我很高兴这么说, CultureSpan营销 has been fortunate enough to be part of it for years now. We love the market and the bicultural aspects of it. 事实上, most of the campaigns we’ve developed for our clients in that area have been transcreated to reach the fast-growing and economically influential Hispanic audience.

So, now when I have to make that quick 572-mile round trip to the Permian Basin (just down the road in west 德州 terms), 我很高兴. There certainly is big sky and wide-open roads out here. And more often than not, they lead to some pretty cool business opportunities for us.

Do you have a company in an area that’s experiencing a rapid population growth in Hispanics of Mexican descent or have you been meaning to develop a Spanish-language marketing campaign for 你的 business? If so, give us a call at (915)581-7900 or shoot an email to 加布.acuna@keiolainen.net.