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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Hispanic Marketing Trends: 2009 and Beyond

The future for Hispanic marketing in the United States is bright, full of "dualities" and opportunities. The future is indeed bright. While the media propagates bad news as their way of attracting attention, they ignore the positive trends in the economy. Hispanic marketing is one of them.

1. Economic crises are not new to Hispanics… Hispanics should be more optimistic in comparison to other cultural groups, thus leading the recovery with optimism... that is our only choice

2. On the other hand migration misinformation and increasing discrimination are setting a negative tone for the role of Hispanics in the US... the voices of negativism can not prevail

3. As a consequence of the above marketers should emphasize achievements and contributions of Hispanics to raise self esteem and build brand equity

4. Faster acculturation. Marketers should place more emphasis on what unites Hispanics beyond language. More leadership potential and higher aspirations for the future can mean a major transformation

5. Identifying the core of the new and emergent multicultural society… third culture…

6. A growing emphasis in communicating in Culture, while communicating in language will stabilize

7. A stronger emphasis on lifestyle segmentation as opposed to sheer acculturation

8. Increasing cross-over from Hispanic products and brands to the overall population… the Hispanization of America

9. Increased used of technology, particularly the Internet… over indexing in several categories… and this goes for all emerging minorities--- Hispanics are leading in the use of social media, and social media marketing is a great vehicle for incorporating Hispanic sensitive brands in the culture

10. Better appreciation of the consumer bicultural chemistry in the home… English and Spanish incorporated in the decision making… more collective than individual decision making

11. Almost 2 million Hispanic owned businesses… more of a focus on BtoB

12. Integrating marketing efforts in corporations and avoiding the marginalization of ethnic marketing… targeting needs to be more inclusive and precise

13. More cause marketing… as these consumers are increasingly green and socially aware

14. The future is in grassroots and high-touch marketing



6 comments:

latino lingo said...

Good post. I would add one more: Renewed focus on the service side of the brand. In other words, not only making the promise, but delivering on it at every touch point. It's not enought to attract us in a culturally-relevant manner you can't provide the service. So, readiness for the market is vital.

www.latin-lingo.com

Unknown said...

Great post!! I would say the future belongs to {digital/mobile}, grassroots, and high-touch. Any conventional media, TV/Print/Radio/Outdoor, needs to have a compelling digital/mobile component. The rapidly-growing USHispanic presence on Social Media will cause tremendous waves, which conventional media will rush to cover. It is just the beginning...

Anonymous said...

I couldn’t agree more with Wilson (Latin Lingo). Too often, the eagerness in trying to attract or engage Hispanics neglects the proper prep work (research), delivery and metrics to be built into marketing or communication campaigns built to reach them. If you want to properly engage and retain an audience, you have to be able to deliver the service. For example, I’ve seen far too many websites with “en espanol” capabilities that are simply a literal translation of the English version or ones that really might not need a Spanish version but rather should offer products or content that is relevant to the culture even if it is in English only. It makes me believe the strategy was simple a PR ploy to say Hispanics matter versus an authentic campaign to effectively engage them.

Also, I think Hispanic Marketing Trends for 2009 should include incorporating, sharing and reporting market knowledge. There are multitudes of places to find information and conversations from general marketing leaders that I think we are not seeing with Hispanic marketers. There are a few, but we are not seeing enough of them!

Finally, working for a nonprofit, I am curious to know if you have information on where we can find stats on Hispanics and cause marketing. Historically, we have not been known to be large donors or givers of our time when the service calls us to work outside of our community.

Thanks for the post! And it was great to see you live at AdTech in Miami, you were one of the best panelists there last year.

Anonymous said...

As an international marketer based in Europe, I was struck by the similarities between what I do and the Hispanic marketing solutions in North America outlined here.

I agree with Jennifer when she says that you do not always need translation - simply targeting what you say to different cultures creates the connection.

Some "quick & easy" translations sort of remind me of people who speak loudly and slowly to foreigners, thinking that opens better communication.

Gustavo_Gruber said...

Jennifer – This is indeed an excellent post and I thank Dr. Korzenny for his unrelenting, positive and valuable contributions to our industry. I’m excited to see the product of his new partnership with the well respected Captura Group.

Regarding your post, I’m curious to learn more about the type of information that you are researching for your nonprofit organization. In my experience, some data may be available at places like Hispanics in Philanthropy at http://www.hiponline.org/home/ or the Hispanic Federation at http://www.hispanicfederation.org/ or even The Latino Community Foundation of Colorado at http://www.rcfdenver.org/latinocfc/ However, it all depends what you are searching.

Hispanics in the U.S. and Latin America are well known for their strong tradition of giving. Although this tradition is mostly manifested through informal means, there are many success stories of well established nonprofit organizations engaging Hispanics in more organized ways of giving.

Speaking from my own experience in helping several non-profit organizations develop effective direct mail programs to raise funds in the U.S. Hispanic community, I know that Hispanics do participate in the process when they are asked and cultivated appropriately. In fact, they tend to have a stronger life-time-value than their counterparts in the general market. Although, a lot of this information is private, I have moderated several sessions in the past where participants have learned a lot from the case studies shared by leading nonprofit organizations.

So, keep attending these specialized conferences and let me know if the information above is helpful.

Hasta pronto.

Anonymous said...

I agree, alot of new media is taking hold of today's digital culture and for advertising agencies and marketers to be successful they need to be more active in the social media environment. That is why I am making my hispanic blog, www.solpersona.com more multimedia related which will capture the Latina market and culture.