That night, Patricia Aguilar, one of the most recognized marketing experts in Chicago’s business community, was watching CNN. Suddenly she heard the words of U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who spoke about how the Coronavirus affects minority communities (African Americans, Hispanics, Asians).
Adams made a direct and dramatic call to the country, asking to wear the mask because protecting ourselves meant taking care of those we love the most.
Those words touched Patricia deeply and moved her to tears. At that moment, she decided to put all her experience and talent to the service of better health education for our community, starting with Little Village, the heart of Chicago’s Latino community.
In addition to her 20 years at Gameplan Creative, where she has had many successes together with her husband in the field of sports marketing, today Patricia’s focus is on FourStar Branding, an agency that manages successful community campaigns.
Thanks to her efforts, FourStar Branding has managed to unite local and state organizations in important projects: the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (IHCC), 1871, La Villita Chamber of Commerce, Food He.ro, and La Villita Community Foundation.
By embarking together to serve small business communities, offering businesses creative and marketing services not otherwise available to enhance their economic growth, no one could have imagined the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s precisely why FourStar Branding devised a bilingual campaign, which has gained wide acceptance in our community. “Proteja para Respetar – Protect to Respect” promotes the use of the mask, one of the few ways science has found to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Every Friday, from the end of April to the end of the summer, organizations promote this campaign, where every relevant personality in our community is portrayed with a mask, telling who they are wearing it for, simply and directly.
It is a multicultural campaign, which respects each community’s way of expressing itself (among Mexicans, for example, they don’t speak the same way as in the Puerto Rican community). Patricia has managed to include everyone to help everyone.
“Hard times bring us together and make us stronger in the fog of darkness. We are calling this an organic campaign because it feeds on the love that each one has for each other,” Aguilar said.
Patricia and her team have done an incredible job feeding that spirit of solidarity in our community. This type of campaign fulfills two important objectives: it educates and, at the same time, it shows the best face of a community that has long suffered discrimination, said Jaime di Paulo, President & CEO of the IHCC.
The organizations that are part of the campaigns thank everyone who has participated and call on other Chicagoans to join in, confident that helping to spread this beautiful message of love will change their lives.
When promoting the campaigns on social networks, please use the following hashtags: #savelivesChicago #stayhome #staysafeChicago #lavillitaunida
