“Stranger Things” and “One Day at A Time” Actors Star in Spanish Verizon Fios Ad

Ruben Perez Jr

A recent study shows that 55% of U.S. Hispanics identify as bicultural. It’s important now more than ever to represent bicultural Latinos and tell their stories.

Verizon is at the forefront of this storytelling with their most recent dedicated and original Spanish/bilingual ad for Verizon Fios starring American actor Gaten Matarazzo (known for his role as “Dustin Hendersen” in “Stranger Things” (2017), the thrilling Netflix sci-fi drama) and actor Marcel Ruiz (known for his role of “Alex Alvarez,” in the Netflix’s 2017 reboot of “One Day at a Time”), portraying bicultural families in a fun and creative way with relatable family dynamics.

 

 

Based on real insight captured through ethnographic research that found that families usually take turns to connect to the internet at home due to poor bandwidth, the commercial centers around Danny (played by Ruiz) and his friend Gaten (played by Matarazzo) as they try to play video games without Fios’ 100% fiber-optic network, meanwhile Danny’s frustrated parents are also trying to connect online with no success. The family shouts in Spanish back and forth about trying to do their own activities online.

  • Of 75 million millennials living in the U.S., 42% of them are multicultural. This means millennials who grew up in a family with Latino culture and American culture can participate in both worlds, switch back and forth between languages (English and Spanish), but they still maintain their close family ties.
  • According to a Pew Research study, 41% of Latinos call homeland once a week.   The spot highlights how stay connected with loved ones is important in the Latino culture when the mom is trying to video chat with relatives back home.
  •  Soccer is a passion and an important component of the Latino culture. The dad on commercial showcases this when he was trying to video stream his soccer game.
  • “Yelling” to communicate with one another in the Latino culture is not really a bad thing, so the spot uses humor to highlight this characteristic of the Latino culture on it.

The spot will run locally in the Northeast on TV on Univision and Telemundo, as well as online video, beginning November 27th.