Promo - August 2008 - (Page 32)

¡Conectado! Marketers are finding it hard to grab hold of the U.S. Hispanic online audience. They’d better figure it out—rapidamente. By Brian Quinton When it comes to connecting with the massive U.S. Hispanic market, most advertisers don’t know which side the iguana chews on. And if you don’t know what that means, you may be part of the problem. It’s a Mexican idiom—“saben de que lado masca la iguana”—that basically translates as “knowing the territory” or “knowing your stuff.” And it’s not a claim many marketing campaigns can make in regard to the almost 45 million Hispanic consumers now in the U.S. Even in these ethnically sensitive days, many campaigns aimed at Latino audiences in the United States rely on outmoded stereotypes and stock misconceptions to touch Hispanic audiences. They reach too easily for the usual cultural clichés: music, futbol, the beaming “abuelita” (grandmother) offering platters of food to her family. Brands, or their agencies, often point proudly to Cinco de Mayo campaigns and promotions without realizing that (a) the holiday means nothing to the 35% of U.S. Hispanics with origins other than Mexico, and (b) it’s not the Mexican equivalent of Independence Day. (That comes on Sept. 16.) “Many agencies still take a formulaic approach to addressing the Hispanic market,” says Manuel Wernicky, founder and principal of Adrenalina, which last November was named agency of record for the Tecate brand owned by Heineken, and which just produced the brand’s first dual-language TV campaign. “They see it as a black-or-white decision: Telemundo or Univision? The truth is, the market is morphing tremendously and is becoming a moving target.” These home-grown Hispanic consumers have implications for marketers, because they will acculturate faster than their first-generation parents. They’ll grow up bilingual, switching from one language to the other depending on social context, consuming media in both, and moving regularly from home environments that may be more or less Hispanic to conventionally Anglo workplaces. Research produced in January by McCann Relationship Marketing Worldwide and MSN Latino finds these second-gen Hispanics hold a lot of potential value for brand marketers. “Second-generation American Hispanics are not only a bigger market than their first-gen parents, but they are more lucrative, better educated and have more household income,” says Maria Lopez-Knowles, senior vice president and group account director for MRM. That value is amplified by the fact that they are often the brand influencers within multi-generational families, passing on product information and buying advice to other family members. GEN-2 SEGMENTS OFF Two particular drivers are putting that target audience in motion: its organic growth within the U.S. population and its equally swift increase as a share of the online audience. On the first count, the U.S. Hispanic population is quickly hyphenating into American-Hispanics. About 60% of Hispanics in this country today were born here; by 2020, that proportion will rise to 70%. Hispanic births now make up one-quarter of the 4 million babies born annually in the U.S. 32 August 2008 / WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM / Promo http://www.promomagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Promo - August 2008

Promo - August 2008 Contents Editor's Note Turf War Have You Seen Us? Film Fest Print on the Run Always Ready, Always There The Personal Touch Commentary College Bound Shakin' It Up Q&A: The Summer of Slurpee ¡Conectado! Resource Center The Agency Center Customer Care Index of Advertisers

Promo - August 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.