Toyota
Strategy & Copy
"How can we portray meaningful and nuanced representations of all Latinos within advertising?"
Latino and Afro-Latino communities remain drastically underrepresented in mainstream automotive advertising.
When they are shown, portrayals often lean on outdated stereotypes or tokenized visibility rather than lived cultural authenticity.
Insight
Afro-Latinos are a significant yet overlooked demographic in media. Despite 6 million U.S. adults identifying as Afro-Latino (Pew Research Center, 2022), only 8 Afro-Latinos were main leads in 1,600 major films from 2007–2022 (Case, Smith, & Pieper, 2023). Afro-Mexicans weren’t even counted in Mexico’s census until 2015 (Custodio, 2019), reflecting a long history of erasure.
Execution
This campaign challenges that invisibility by highlighting everyday cultural symbols—blankets, food, flags—that carry generational meaning. These quiet moments reflect real identity and love. Afro-Latinos exist, and their stories deserve to be shown—without stereotypes or simplification.
