AT&T DIRECTV has been rated #1 in customer satisfaction over cable for 16 years running. However, that hadn’t been enough, and DIRECTV was still experiencing a decline in sales. So the objective was clear: Our client wanted to gain back market share by developing an engaging anti-cable campaign using a unique Hispanic Ambicultural insight that would generate awareness of DIRECTV's superiority over cable, convincing our audience to quit cable and switch to DIRECTV.

José Altuve is one of the top idols for Hispanics as he represents the hopes and dreams of this community. He had just finished competing in the playoffs, and news of his injury had shaken the sports world. All Altuve had to do was send out a tweet. “This is frustrating!!! I can't take it anymore. No más. I'm quitting!”

Jose Altuve is quitting baseball! Or at least that’s what sports fans thought thanks to our campaign. Sports fans lost their minds. From tweets of despair to reaction gifs of confusion and all kinds of memes, we had the Twittersphere on fire trying to decipher the message.

Then, two days later, Altuve tweeted: “Tranquilos hermanos. I'm not quitting the game, I'm quitting cable. I switched to @DIRECTV.” The tweet launched our TV campaign across multiple platforms, clearing up the confusion. Altuve would never quit baseball. Just cable.

Our Hispanic Multicultural target has an intense passion for sports. For this reason, sports programming plays a key role when selecting TV entertainment providers.

Hispanic Sports Fans are loyal followers of their favorite teams, and their fandom remains strong through the ups and downs. Their use of social media almost matches their love of sports, and their passion often comes through via tweets, posts, shares, etc. Our target identifies strongly with their favorite players – especially Hispanic athletes that represent the hopes and dreams of their community.

The strategy consisted on using a Hispanic Multicultural passion point and a unique Hispanic Multicultural insight to convince our target to Quit Cable and Switch to DIRECTV.

We knew that having a superstar baseball player quitting with a Tweet was going to disturb the media and position our PR campaign to be picked by top media outlets, including CNN, ESPN, TELEMUNDO and UNIVISION.

Jose Altuve just finished competing in the playoffs, and news of his injury had shaken the sports world. In order to leverage that crucial moment and to ignite fans we began the first phase of the campaign with a simple tweet from Altuve: “This is frustrating!!! I can't take it anymore. No más. I’M QUITTING!”

This tweet caused a frenzy with thousands of fans reacting on social media. The world was trying to figure out what he meant by that tweet. Even the media got a hold of the chaos.

But after a day mass hysteria and free media coverage reaching in the millions, on the day before Thanksgiving – a time when football rules the airwaves – we disrupted the conversation and had everyone talking baseball; we released a film and a new tweet to clear it all up. The only thing Altuve was quitting was cable to DIRECTV

In just 1 week, the TV spot was popping up on every media channel, with over 24 thousand social media shares, almost 17 million media coverage views and more than 4 million Twitter impressions.

The campaign significantly helped change consumer perception towards the brand. It showed that DIRECTV truly understands Hispanic passion points. Made it possible to change the target’s behavior by showing them the advantages of being with a company that understands their entertainment needs. Plus, even though the campaign was developed with the Hispanic Multicultural market in mind, it broke barriers and achieved engagement and increased subscriptions among other targets.

The digital and social traction from the campaign managed to reach new levels and helped expand the client’s understanding of segmentation.

The TV spot not only became one of the most-watched TV commercials, but also one of the most successful Hispanic Multicultural campaigns that DIRECTV has ever produced