The Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication hosted a refreshing afternoon with Alba Castillo Adamo, Group Director of Hispanic Marketing for Coca-Cola’s North America Group. Adamo is responsible for reviewing the strategies of the global leader in the beverage industry to connect and engage with Hispanic consumers.

Adamo met with students and interns in the College of Business, and gave a presentation on Coca-Cola’s Hispanic marketing strategies. She provided insights into how to become successful in the industry to the students, many of who are enrolled in interdisciplinary programs for the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication.

Take advantage of as many opportunities as possible,” Adamo said. “Do everything in a very enthusiastic way, do it well and you will be noticed.”

Adamo, who described herself as a dreamer, identifies that her key to success is perseverance and hard work. She left her home country of Colombia to study in the United States. Through those first few years in the states, Adamo worked two jobs to pay for her education, and gained professional experience while in college.

Show your passion, volunteer, help others, make sure people know they can count on you,” she instructed to the students. “Always try to stay ahead and anticipate.”

Adamo has over sixteen years of experience and has demonstrated broad leadership experience and high-impact results in shopper marketing, customer management, commercial leadership, strategic planning and project management. She has led the shopper marketing discipline and cross-functional team to build core competencies that drive shopper engagement and purchase transactions across 3.5 million retail outlets in Latin America.

Give your best, delivery one-hundred percent, always give a little extra, and don’t take the shortcut,” she said. “In the long term, your efforts will pay off.”

While intelligence is required, Adamo believes that the primary elements to building a solid inbound marketing campaign are planning short and long term goals, marketing analysis, solid marketing foundation, minimizing distraction and increase marketing productivity. Adamo develops her campaigns to be flawlessly executed and able to adjust to the times.

Adamo expressed that Coca-Cola campaigns place a priority on creating brand love and value with Hispanic consumers. “They are the largest group in this country with a high purchasing power and being able to connect with Hispanics in a meaningful way is part of our marketing strategy,” she said.

Although the U.S. represents 19% of the company’s worldwide unit case volume, Coca-Cola is selling more overseas in key markets Mexico, Brazil, China, and Japan. Mexico is the largest consumer of Coca-Cola beverages, with per capita consumption in the country almost 1.85 times that in the United States. Latin America is the largest market for soda in terms of dollars sales, according to Euromonitor International, and is forecast to grow 17.3 percent from 2013 to 2018.

To woo these customers, Coca-Cola sponsored the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and poured another $1 billion into advertising. Adamo explained that Coca-Cola’s multicultural marketing team saw an excellent opportunity through a partnership with the FIFA World Cup to focus their efforts on Hispanic-Americans, who they refer to as the volume drivers.

Coca-Cola is all about happiness, and is very consistent. The master brand concept understands the connection with its group,” she said.

In the United States, Hispanics experienced the World Cup through multiple perspectives. Latin America is certainly a more homogeneous region when compared to Europe or Southeast Asia, and the passion for soccer is very strong among Latinos. The difference between Latin Americans and Hispanic Americans is that, according to Adamo, Hispanics in the U.S. are very democratic and inclusive.

During the World Cup, Hispanics are passionate about their team and curious about their neighbor or colleagues team. Branding strategists brought this insight to life through Estadio de Todos.”

For a global company like Coca-Cola, the challenge is not in creating a program for each country, but identifying common cultural insights that are consistent around the world, but with the ability to be translated to anyone. America is a melting pot and the Coca-Cola marketing team wanted to lead the conversation and use the “Estadio de Todos” campaign to unite people, close the gaps, and to build a bridge that would ensure that everyone participated. “Soccer is everyone’s game, Brazil is everyone’s country, and Coke is everyone’s drink,” Adamo said.

Adamo is a successful woman with a fast-paced professional life, and she is also a mother to a three year old daughter. She is currently working on a new campaign for Coca-Cola’s that is called “moments.” The marketing team wants to show how Coca-Cola can enhance all of life’s moments of Hispanic-American moms, since they are considered the “CEOs of the home” according to Adamo.