What I enjoy about blogging is that I can gather facts and data that supports my ideas of how Hispanic marketing can be successful. Some of the great sources are actually from professional marketers and advertisers that have been doing this for a good long time so I know that the information that they provide are factual and up to date and I am happy to share what they have on my blog as kind of social media archive. I happened to come across a blog while doing my research that supports my earlier post that marketers cannot generalize the Hispanic segment, thorough research has to be done to successfully achieve a marketing/advertising campaign. If it is not possible to do it in house maybe it would be best to hire an agency that specializes in Hispanic marketing, some I will post throughout my blogs. This blog post that I happened to find in Advertising & Marketing Review helps support my personal facts and that I am on the right path in blogging useful information about Hispanic marketing.
Some of the blogpost is actually posted below, I plan on dividing the post because the second half will lead me into traditional media and the best way to use it when marketing towards Hispanics. The blog post was blogged by Laura Sonderup, the Director of Heinrich Hispanidad, a division of Heinrich Marketing, Inc. that specializes in Hispanic marketing.
Hispanics – One Market or Más?
“Latino” or “Hispanic”, as a description, refers to an origin or ethnicity, not a race. There is no one monolithic “Hispanic market.” What, if anything, unifies Hispanics? For the most part, the language. Spanish stands as a symbol of difference for U.S. Hispanics; wherever they’re from and regardless of their history, Spanish is a key to their individual and collective pasts.
Country of Origin
The single most important segmentation factor among U.S. Hispanics may be their country of origin. The U.S. Hispanic market is comprised of subcultures from over 20 countries in Central and South America, the Caribbean and Spain, with the majority (63%) of Mexican heritage. The culture, beliefs, opinions and consumer behavior patterns of U.S. Hispanics are not identical, as a result of the influence of differences in their native countries’ geography, indigenous ancestry and colonial origins.
Acculturation vs. Assimilation
U.S. Latinos tend to “adopt and adapt” to customs and habits in the U.S. without shedding traditions and value systems. Along that line, marketers, and those trying to tap into the Hispanic segment, cannot simply transfer directly to the U.S. Latino market the conceptualizations or marketing strategies that work with more traditional, general market consumers. Latinos are assimilating to prevalent U.S. culture, but they are not, and probably never will be, fully assimilated. Instead, theirs is a path of acculturation. It is a process of integration of native and traditional immigrant cultural values with dominant cultural ones.
¿Habla usted español?
Language is one of the most obvious examples of this phenomenon. Spanish is likely to remain the language of preference among U.S. Latinos. In fact, Univision is now the #5 network in the United States, behind ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.
When asked about advertising effectiveness, 38% of Hispanics surveyed found English language ads less effective than Spanish ads in terms of recall and 70% less effective than Spanish ads in terms of persuasion. Many younger and acculturated Latinos mix languages into a form of “Spanglish,” in which they speak English peppered with Spanish words. But when it comes to selling, 56% of Latino adults respond best to advertising when it is presented in Spanish.
Communication Channels for U.S. Hispanics
Research shows that while Hispanics consume every type of media, they do seem to have a special attraction to television and radio. Nevertheless, the air-time used to identify a product or service at an in-depth level is typically too brief and too incomplete to be effective, thus the “sale” will not be closed. However, the combination of direct mail, broadcast and print makes it possible for the Hispanic consumer to obtain additional information and “close the sale” — with each medium contributing to the total communication story.
