Q&A: How Interactive Language Toggles Can Add New Flavor To Bilingual Ads

Did you know Infillion was the first company to ever build ads for bilingual audiences that allow users to toggle between languages in real time? Michael Colella, SVP and Executive Producer of Infillion’s Creative Studio, gives a behind-the-scenes look at this technology, which has been honored by the MediaPost OMMA Awards and the ARF David Ogilvy Awards.

Q: What was the impulse behind building this first-to-market technology?

A: Hispanic audiences are almost 20% of the U.S. population, and over half of them are bilingual to some degree. But some of them prefer English, some prefer Spanish, and some change their preference based on what content they’re watching, who’s in the room with them, or any other number of reasons. Empowering them to switch languages in real time, without needing to restart the ad, was a way to not just speak to them, but allow them some agency in how they prefer to be reached. So when a client, Nissan, came to us with a campaign to reach bilingual audiences, we thought it was time to take on this creative challenge.

Q: What tech challenges had to be overcome to make it work?

A: We had to pay close attention to ensuring that the technology could toggling between two audio and video assets at the exact timestamp that the user hit the toggle button, eliminating any visible lag or content shifting effect. We had to engage our engineering team pretty extensively here. But with brands increasingly challenged to gain the attention of consumers, a sense of immediacy and instant gratification is a must. 

We also faced a challenge in figuring out how to incorporate closed captioning. At Infillion, we strive to design for inclusivity, and we had two options here. We could either render the closed captioning as part of the video asset, or develop a solution where we’d leverage a transcript, allowing users to toggle closed captioning on or off. We settled on developing a transcription solution since it offered us the most flexibility and efficiency to deploy creative.

Q: Ads that toggle between two languages had been built and deployed before – including using Infillion’s TrueX format – but never with a real-time toggle. Why do this? How does it make a difference for the user?

A: One study after another says that consumers like choice in their advertising, and that can extend to the language that the ad is served in. This kind of ad technology is technically challenging, but it’s worth it. But the more exciting outcome was developing a solution that could be consistent across all devices, especially on CTV. The future possibilities here are.

Q: What kind of insights can a brand gather from a real-time language toggle ad?

A: The main insights brands can gather from real-time language toggle are the nuances of users’ language preferences. Maybe they always prefer English, or always prefer Spanish, or prefer one on mobile and one on CTV – where, presumably, they might be watching with others who aren’t as multilingual as they are. By determining a user’s preferred language of communication, brands can tailor their content and targeting accordingly. Especially as advertisers look to target bilingual audiences who speak languages beyond Spanish, the possibilities are endless.

Interested in learning more about multicultural marketing strategies? Download our report, Engaging Multicultural Audiences.