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US HISPANIC
comfortable speaking English. So to reach the entire Latino market, we have to address them in Spanish and in English,” Otero-Smart says. In fact, almost all bicultural and English-dominant Hispanics prefer to be targeted in English online and even by traditional media, according to data gathered by the Hispanic Cyberstudy of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, or AHAA. The digital area is an example of this new configuration. Today, six of every 10 Hispanics go online regularly, almost equalling the 71% rate of internet use by the general population of the US, according to that same study. “We continue to focus on the US Latino market, which is nothing like homogeneous — there are different levels of affinities and interests, and for us, cultural relevance is much more important than the language,” says Mark Lopez, chief operating officer of the Hispanic portal and co-chair of the multicultural council of the IAB. “There are subjects that we cover only in Spanish, but take the soccer World Cup, for instance — we’re going to cover that in Spanish and in English. Our goal is to do very strategic programming in English, though most of our programming continues to be in Spanish.” Oddly enough, Hispanics on the internet are dif-
ferent folks from the US Hispanic population in general. Among Hispanic cybernauts, more than half prefer to communicate in English, unlike those tuning in to other media such as TV. Almost nine out of 10 Hispanics on the internet begin their purchasing process online, and eight out of 10 make their final buying decision on the web. “The consumer continues gravitating toward the digital world. No less than 61% of Hispanics use the internet when they need information, while a third tells us that their prime source of entertainment is the internet. Agencies and clients are studying how they can adapt their marketing strategies to that world. And we’re seeing a lot of progress in the talks we’re having about long-term strategies and no longer just about tactical manoeuvres,” Lopez says. Tapping into the Latino movement is an innovative project called Yo Sumo which takes off in a new direction, even for a multimedia campaign, as it interacts with the target to explore what it means to be Latino at a time when the 2010 Census results are being awaited. As the advertiser Pepsi says, it’s time to “stop being counted and begin to count”. Yo Sumo was created by Telemundo, the second-largest Hispanic broadcast network in the US, which originated the con-
cept and presented it to Pepsi and developed it together with the latter’s Hispanic agency, Dieste. “The challenge was to do something relevant for Hispanics at a time when the subjects of immigration and the Latino vote are under scrutiny, and to do something fun,” says Dieste’s Quevedo. “From the start it was seen as a project and not as a campaign. We thought about what people would like and built a campaign around that. We had never done anything as massive as
theatres nationwide.” This is People Relevancy. In a statistics-driven nation, the first challenge was to do the maths and come up with the numbers. So the community of Hispanic agencies united as a self-contained industry with enough success stories to convince big American advertisers. Now the challenge is to make sure their investment is proportional to the numerical importance of the segment. This many people, this many dollars. As simple as that. “We’re still at a testing level,”
“THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO REACH HISPANICS IN THE US” this project or a campaign that is updated week after week with comments from consumers on social networks.” Yo Sumo will climax with a documentary produced by Eva Longoria-Parker, who will choose the best stories that Hispanics in the US send in on videos to different social networks, basically explaining the contribution they are making to the US, what they are adding to the country. “It’s something great,” Quevedo says. “Pepsi is looking into distributing it to movie
Robinson says. “We just started our Hispanic efforts last year. It’s easy for us to make the investment proportional to our consumer base, but at the same time we need to have a balance. So we are testing results versus any action we have made in this segment. It seems to be logical to just make it proportional, but in this initial stage we can say that we are very happy with the efforts we have made and the results we have got.” Another challenge is to keep creating so-called “culturally
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relevant” advertising, which looks like advertising from the US mainstream market but keeps that Latino touch in order to click on the “passion points” (another cliche of the market) of those with Latin blood. Creating programming and ads for people who, like the USborn grandkids of immigrants, share practically all the behaviour patterns and habits of their mainstream American counterparts but have a “Latin soul”, is the other task to be pursued. To the whole complex subject of the Hispanic market, its definition and characteristics, has recently been added the multicultural wave. A marketing concept created to include all who are not “purely American”, this group embraces Hispanics, but also AfricanAmericans, Asian-Americans and immigrants from other minority groups. Outside of that would remain only about a quarter of US households. “I don’t believe there is one multicultural market. That varies by brand. For example, with Pepsi, the multicultural market is dominated by AfricanAmericans and Hispanics, but in the case of HP it is AfricanAmericans and Asian-Americans. I don’t believe there is a black and white with regard to a multicultural market that includes the entire population,” says Quevedo of the concept of the “market of the future” in the US, which according to some experts will be a single multicultural market that includes the original American culture and all which have been added to it. If that is so, all advertising will target an assortment of people from different cultural backgrounds who relate within the social and occupational dynamic, THURSDAY, JUNE 24 2010