From Cultural Stronghold to Category Leader

How a Household Cleaning Brand Deepened Hispanic and Mainstream Brand Love Growth — and Rose to #1 in Category Share

The Challenge

A leading household cleaning brand had long enjoyed strong loyalty among unacculturated Hispanic consumers, where it was widely trusted as a familiar and reliable staple in the home.

But as Hispanic consumers became more acculturated, the brand faced an emerging challenge.

While awareness and trust remained high, loyalty began to decline, with many consumers shifting toward larger mainstream competitors that dominated the broader cleaning category.

This created a critical growth question:

Why were consumers who trusted the brand early in their cultural journey choosing other products as they became more integrated into the U.S. marketplace?

Understanding this transition point was essential. Bicultural Hispanics represent one of the fastest-growing and most influential consumer segments in the country, and maintaining relevance across that cultural journey would determine whether the brand could sustain long-term growth.

The Insight

Using Collage Group’s proprietary Brand Cultural Fluency Quotient (B-CFQ) diagnostics, the brand moved beyond mass-market averages to analyze performance across cultural segments.

The analysis revealed that the brand wasn’t losing relevance universally, it was approaching a cultural inflection point.

Key Cultural Unlocks

• The Unacculturated Stronghold
  Unacculturated Hispanic consumers rated the brand significantly higher on Trust and Familiarity, reflecting deep equity built through household routines and cultural tradition.
• The Bicultural Inflection Point
  Among bicultural Hispanics, loyalty began to soften as consumers balanced cultural heritage with signals of modernity and performance emphasized by larger category competitors.
• The Emerging Halo Effect
  At the same time, brand perception was beginning to rise among White and Black consumers, suggesting that the brand’s cultural authenticity had the potential to translate into broader mainstream appeal.

Rather than a declining brand, the data revealed a brand poised to grow beyond its cultural base—if it could maintain relevance across the acculturation journey.

The Solution

Instead of competing head-to-head with category leaders through mass-market media spending, the brand partnered with Collage to focus on cultural credibility as its primary growth lever.

Three strategic shifts guided the activation plan:

• Targeted Cultural Media Strategy
  The brand prioritized digital platforms, retail activations, and media environments that over-indexed with Hispanic households, focusing on culturally relevant content and community engagement.
• Authentic Household Storytelling
  Campaigns highlighted real multicultural households and everyday family routines, reinforcing the brand’s role as a trusted product passed across generations while connecting to modern lifestyles.
• Continuous Cultural Performance Monitoring
  Using Collage’s Spark platform, the brand tracked B-CFQ diagnostics across cultural segments every six months, allowing teams to refine messaging and sustain momentum as perceptions evolved.

The Results

Within six months, the culturally focused strategy delivered measurable momentum across key audiences.

• +13pp Brand Love Growth – Among bicultural Hispanics, signaling a significantly stronger emotional connection with the brand.
• +16pp “On the Rise” Perception – Among unacculturated Hispanic consumers, reinforcing continued loyalty within the brand’s historical base.
• Broader Market Momentum – Brand perception also increased across other segments, including +8pp gains among White consumers, indicating a growing halo effect beyond the brand’s original cultural base.
• Category Leadership Achieved – As momentum spread across audiences, the brand ultimately rose to become the #1 multi-purpose cleaner brand in the U.S. by market share, demonstrating how cultural fluency can translate into sustained commercial growth.