DoorDash wants to recruit more Spanish-speaking delivery drivers. The delivery platform today debuted a campaign in both Spanish and English (the English version can be seen below), with national media buys across streaming TV and paid social, aimed at a demographic it believes is underrepresented in its gig workforce.
DoorDash tries to hire more Spanish-speaking drivers with new campaign
DoorDash began working on the campaign after discovering that 30% of Hispanic American adults had earned money through gig platform work, which is the highest percentage among Black, Asian and white adults, according to Pew Research. Hispanic Americans also made the highest amount of deliveries from a restaurant or a store for a delivery app (16%), according to Pew Research.
Meanwhile, DoorDash found through internal research that it wasn’t top of mind for Hispanic Americans when it came to gig work, especially in more urban areas.
“There is a gap between where we are and the opportunity there,” said Val Noonan, senior manager of brand marketing at DoorDash. “But we also saw that Spanish-speaking Dashers had good performance on our app—they worked longer, had a higher [net promoter] score and retained longer,” meaning they were employed by the platform for a longer period of time.
In its 2022 economic impact report, DoorDash stated that 47% of its dashers were people of color, but declined to break down the numbers by demographic.
The campaign, called, “Everyone knows, you should too,” comes from Superette and Gallegos United.
The ads follow Irene, who keeps tabs on her neighbors—wondering how they can afford to throw parties or pay for college. The answer, she finds, is DoorDash. The spots aim to link the flexibility and extra income from delivering with DoorDash to providing for families. The campaign is not tied to Hispanic Heritage Month, which began Sept. 15, according to Noonan.
DoorDash and Gallegos wanted the message to land with its intended audience without leaning into cultural tropes.
“We started with lots of research about Hispanic gig workers and how they live their lives,” Noonan said. “One goal was to highlight the benefits of gig work that resonate with this community, including working when they want so they can spend time with their families.
“It was crucial to make sure the Hispanic community had a seat at the table, and we constantly tested the work,” Noonan added. “We tapped into Gallegos’ knowledge and our own employee resource group to provide feedback before formal testing. We found that they resonated with the Irene character and could identify having that person in their community.
The new work comes a month after DoorDash reported its best quarter ever for total orders (increased 25% year over year to 532 million) and revenue (increased 33% year over year to $2.1 billion).
The campaign will launch along with Spanish-language updates to the Dasher app, including an in-app translation feature, a Spanish-language chatbot and the ability to use the Dasher app in Spanish, even if a person’s phone is set to English.