PHOTO COURTESY OF EDDIE CAMPOS, MOUNTAIN RECREATION
EQUITY
Mountain Recreation in Eagle County, Colorado, engages Latino community members through its first-ever bilingual adult learn to ice skate lessons.
Bicultural Marketing and Closing the Gap By Eduardo “Eddie” Campos
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s park and recreation professionals, it is our duty to serve 100 percent of our community, which each day grows increasingly diverse across a myriad of physical, mental, spiritual and self-identified differentiators.
As marketing and communications manager for Mountain Recreation in Eagle County, Colorado, I am responsible for communicating with our diverse community. However, built-up inclusivity in marketing often ends at marketing, and if an organization is not prepared to deliver on that promise when customers come through the door, the organization is left in a worse position. It is not only a matter of disconnect, but also a way of losing the community’s trust. Equitable marketing is achievable and is proven only if an organization can close the gap in its community’s customer journey: from awareness 24 Parks & Recreation
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through to continued participation. For the purposes of this article, I will focus on ethnicity, since it is the greatest element of diversity in my community. Our Latino community makes up an estimated 30 to 40 percent of our overall population, and in public schools, ranges from 50 to 90 percent of students. The following are steps we are taking to close the gap.
Bilingual and Bicultural Marketing It is not enough to repurpose and Google Translate current marketing materials to be used for Latino communities. Tailored marketing
to this demographic is often disregarded and results in a disingenuous approach. Auto translations lead to translation mistakes (even of your own organization’s name!) and contain a message culturally relevant only to the sender. How do we solve this? Mountain Recreation’s goal is to ensure that every word we communicate verbally or in print to the mass community is bilingual. We contract translators who are bicultural and I, being bilingual and bicultural, create or approve all messaging. Some examples are facility signage, radio content, direct mail, editorial, social media, our registration software (with limitations) and soon, email marketing. And it doesn’t stop there — our staff work with our translator regarding program materials, parent handbooks, membership agreements, staff training manuals
