Latin America Has Fallen in Love With Caracol's 'La Esclava Blanca'

Transcription

1 Latin America Has Fallen in Love With Caracol's 'La Esclava Blanca' Latin American audiences have been seduced by the rich storytelling and solid production values of Caracol's La Esclava Blanca (The White Slave) since its January premiere. La Esclava Blanca stars Spain's Nerea Camacho as Victoria, a white girl saved and raised by slaves in the Colombian Caribbean and later sent to Spain to be educated. When she returns to the Americas as a young woman, she finds herself fighting for social justice for the black native people who raised her as family. Since its debut in Colombia, where it won its time slot, the series has been sold to more than 21 countries around the world, including Brazil, Poland and Armenia. It was produced by Caracol Television, a Colombian channel for all audiences, but predominantly targeting women. Señal Internacional, Caracol's subscription TV channel, reaches 18,061,790 households across 23 countries. The series "was conceived as an ambitious production," with "impeccable artistic work, and filmed entirely outdoors, with cinematographic feel," says Lisette Osorio, Caracol Television's vice president, international sales.

2 La Esclava Blanca presents universal themes such as "slavery, revenge, passion and the desire to seek justice for our loved ones," demonstrated by Victoria's willingness to fight for those she loves. The production also achieves Caracol's aim to "conquer new territories and win the hearts of international audiences," says Osorio. Accordingly, Caracaol's marketing campaign preceded the show's ratings success, says Andrà s Barrera Lugo, advertising creative director at Caracol Television. "The campaign's influence was paramount, because it has been an interesting challenge to introduce a historical drama at a time when the television is flooded by music, sports, news and technology formats," says Barrera. The team's aim was to show a free and open world, a world full of hopes and dreams, "where human strength overcomes the oppression and evil that still reverberate in our society, such as racism, intolerance and socially imposed differences," says Barrera. Sticking with Caracol's mission to promote inclusion and tolerance in all of its productions and corporate messages, the main theme of the campaign for La Esclava Blanca is that love can rise above, "it can overcome any social imposition," says Barrera. Those values are embodied in the words El amor no tiene color ("Love has no color")-the tagline used in the campaign's national version, which refers to the love story between Victoria and a slave named Miguel. That racial tension is present across all the graphic pieces, following the protagonist like a shadow. The first spots were accompanied by a cappella singing performed by slaves. "Simple and natural melodies which, appealing to nostalgia, reveal the struggles of a people who dreamed of freedom," says Barrera. These pieces end with the series' logo, formed by an animation of ember particles, a call-back to the iron used to mark slaves' skin. This campaign also was displayed on transit media, such as buses and cabs, "offering users lush and fresh images that took them away from the hustle and bustle of BogotÃ," says Barrera. For the international campaign, the tagline "El amor no tiene color" evolved and became "Porque la sangre tiene el mismo color (because blood is the same color)." The materials used in both the local and the international campaigns are being shared with channels that purchased the series. However, some have

3 decided to also add their own material. Recently, free-to-air TV channel Chilevisión premiered the series at 8:30 p.m. on weeknights. Marà a de the à ngeles Ortiz, international programming manager at Chilevisión, says it was a product that appealed to her before even watching the first chapter. She first saw the trailer on digital media and in this year's NATPE, and thought it was "super powerful, in terms of content, production and storyline," and that the series was "closely in line with our market, which values high-quality products." Prior to launching the series, Ortiz says Chilevisión made use of Caracol's promotional material, which was "branded with our logo, adapting it to our market and using our own announcer." Additionally, Chilevisión kept the tagline 'El amor no tiene color,' used by Caracol in its national campaign, accompanied by a raging fire. Ortiz says a team from Chilevisión traveled to Colombia during the filming of the series to conduct six interviews with the actors, to later be broadcast as part of the programming. In late April, La Esclava Blanca came to the screens of TVN PanamÃ, at 9 p.m. "The audience needs love stories that are more real as well as beautiful, high-quality productions," says Giselle Herrera, marketing director at TVN Media. This is why TVN Panamà bet on La Esclava Blanca, "a wonderful production, in which Panamanians have taken part, and which addresses socially sensitive issues." Regarding the promotional campaign, Herrera says "we always put our personal touch on the release [campaign]." To this end, TVN Media developed a plan consisting of a central piece from Caracol's campaign complemented by pieces created internally. The first step of the campaign was aimed at raising expectations, with a teaser that showed scenes around the plot of slavery and of Victoria. The campaign's central concept was the love story that has connected the main characters since their childhood, "the innocence of a love that knows no racial differences," says Herrera. This is why TVN Media decided to stick to the tagline proposed by Caracol: "Porque el amor no tiene color." Two elements remain in the campaign, on one hand, water, "which displays Santa Marta's beautiful locations and landscapes" and, on the other, fire which,

4 as Herrera says, "symbolizes the turn in the story, which begins with the fire in Victoria's parents' estate, changing the course of her life and giving her a new family." The fire also symbolizes Victoria's fiery will, and her inner fight. In turn, one of the channel's reporters was sent to the filming location in Colombia to gather some behind-the-scenes content. In April, La Esclava Blanca premiered at 9 p.m. on Puerto Rico's Wapa TV. Caracol says the series' debut boosted prime-time ratings by 20 percent. When it comes to selecting programming "we do not necessarily follow what happens in other markets," since Puerto Rico is "a sui generis market, that has the best of the United States and Latin America," says Jimmy Arteaga Grustein, Wapa's president of programming, promotions and production. However, he describes Caracol's historical dramas as high-quality productions, and praises the realism of its characters. Regarding Wapa's promotional campaign for the show, Arteaga says the material received from Caracol "was great and helped us simplify our work." Wapa's marketing strategy was based on three key elements: Puerto Rican actor Modesto Lacen, production values and storyline. This was, in turn, divided into a four-part release: the story of the protagonist, the story of the place, the love story and the revenge plot. All in all, nine marketing pieces were created, making use of the two taglines proposed by Caracol. La Esclava Blanca will also come to Turner screens on a date to be determined, probably sometime next year. "We tried to take part as producers, but the project was finally carried out completely by Caracol," says à ngel Zambrano, senior vice president of content purchase and syndication at Turner. Zambrano thinks it's an incredible project, with a character "so deep that it seemed unlikely that such a young actress could so successfully play it." Since the series' launch on Turner networks is still a ways off, it's too early to talk about the marketing campaign, but Zambrano praised Caracol's efforts, saying in general "we create our own materials, but I think Caracol's material was great." Zambrano trusts that "Latin American audiences will consider La Esclava Blanca an extremely rich project" and says production in Colombia is "a global Latin American benchmark in terms of content, production, theme and execution."

5 To read this story in Spanish, click here.