Lucha Antifraude Case Study

Lucha Antifraude is a Spanish-language public relations campaign aimed at investment and consumer fraud to empower the Iowa Latino community to recognize illegitimate scams and report them to the appropriate authorities. The campaign’s priorities are helping end fraudulent scams and protect consumer’s livelihoods. It is based on the Iowa Insurance Division’s existing Fraud Fighters campaign but has been adapted to effectively reach a Hispanic audience.

Based on our team’s decades of experience in Hispanic and Latino outreach, it was determined that Hispanics in the U.S. receive their information from specific outlets, including radio, Facebook, and trusted community organizations. Given these mediums, we developed content and materials to reach the target audience where they are. Among other tactics, this included a series of radio ads and public service announcements, a robust social media presence mixed with an informative website, and community partnerships that assisted in the creation of in-person seminars and the dissemination of related educational content.

The content created focused on fraud and scams in a way that makes them relevant to the Hispanic community, not only in language but in context. Particular emphasis was placed on topics directly affecting Spanish-only speakers, such as affinity fraud, online marketplace scams, fake immigration scams, e romance scams.

In addition to the tactics outlined below, LS2group developed partnerships with key leaders in the Hispanic community in three areas of Iowa with large Hispanic populations: Sioux City, Des Moines, and West Liberty. Parceiroships with leaders and organizations were intentiemally selected based on their prominence in the communities they serve. For example, the Catholic church is seen as a trusted organization across most of Latin America and within Hispanic communities worldwide, so collaboratingwith the dioceses of Sioux City and Davenport was critical to our efforts. In addition, extensive research was conducted to identify Hispanic-serving organizations in Iowa that are well-respected. Food banks, churches, school districts, and the League of United Latin-American Citizens (LULAC) were also engaged to be champions of the campaign’s messaging to their constituencies. In-person events were held in each of these cities where staff from the Iowa Insurance Division gave presentations and held Q&A sessions about fraud and scams in Spanish. Having the support of the partner organizations in those cities was crucial in securing attendance at the events, as they are seen as respected leaders in the community.

To date, the campaign has reached more than 1 million unique people within our target demographic using the following:

• Website with culturally sensitive e relevant information
• Over a dozen public service announcements
• 16 billboards resulting in over 17 million impressions
• 17 newspaper ads
• Online ads with 2.7 million impressions
• Social media posts and ads reaching 410,000 people