The Importance of Home for Hispanic Consumers [INSIGHT]

You know you’re in “the Valley” when you start to see palm trees lining the roads and you get a whiff of carne asada on every street corner. It’s more than just a cluster of cities in Texas, it is a state of mind. As marketers, we want to try our best to reach consumers in the best possible ways. We want them to connect to our message, engage in our brand and ultimately buy our products. When we analyze Hispanic consumers in the US many of us break them down by generation, length of time in the US, education, basic demographics, but that is sometimes not enough. If we seriously want to understand consumers we must understand the places in which they live.

To start, I’ll use the Valley as the perfect example. The Valley, or El Valle, is made up of four counties along the southern tip of Texas with a population of over 1 million people, not including undocumented immigrants. What makes this area unique is that Mexico is literally five minutes away from them. Most of the people there are Hispanic, of Mexican heritage. While the population is not solely Hispanic, it’s common to see Hispanics in both high and low-wage positions.Though the people there have become bicultural, their home country is right  at their fingertips.

They can easily cross the border to buy their favorite foods, visit their families and take advantage of less expensive medical treatment, all this while still living in the US. I don’t think Puerto Ricans in New York can do that as easily. The Valley’s consumer behavior would be different from Mexican Hispanics living in Colorado who don’t have the feeling of “home” so close.

Because consumers in this area have both cultures right in front of them, they could react differently to products and the marketing strategies used compared to Hispanics in other areas. For instance, research showed that Corona is the imported beer drunk most by Hispanics, but after asking Hispanics from the Valley, most of them answered Dos Equis, Modelo or Indio beer, while very few said they chose Corona (Korzenny, 2013).  This could be because they see Corona as a lesser product than other Mexican brands with more prestige in their culture.

Marketers need to analyze regions where Hispanics populate and determine what products they are most likely to react to in a positive manner. Goya foods makes most of their profits in areas with large Hispanic populations, but it could be a smart move for them to focus some marketing strategies in areas with growing Hispanic consumers such as North Carolina and Alabama who have both seen over a 150% boom in their Hispanic populations (Huffington Post, 2013).
Alabama’s Hispanic majority is young, US-born millennial (HLN, 2012). Every week there is something new saying how millennials are wanting to embrace both sides of their culture. This would be a perfect opportunity for Goya and others to zone in on regions such as this one and market to their specific needs. Unlike many Hispanics in Texas, those in Alabama can’t just decide to eat authentic Mexican food by crossing a border or asking their grandma to make them some beans and rice. Alabama Hispanics would appreciate that a brand wants to help them live their culture by providing them products that remind them of home.

The two areas mentioned, The Valley and Alabama, are very different from each other, but in them we have people who share similar cultures and traditions. These traditions are sometimes changed and form new meanings, depending on the region. As regional characteristics were used to describe marketing scenarios, it is important marketers see the possibilities in different areas. It could also be smart to visit cities and get to know their vast Hispanic cultural environments.

The place someone lives or grew up in not only affects their culture, but it also provides them with memories and emotions attached to them. When planning a marketing strategy, marketers need to see beyond simply categorizing a city as important for the Hispanic market or not; they have to see what makes it important to Hispanics. Statistics can tell us a lot about the consumer, but it never hurts to dig a little bit deeper.

By Karen Garza – Student at Florida State University

References

Korzenny, F (2013, 25 July) The Latino Beer Story in the US. Retrieved from <http://felipekorzenny.blogspot.com>

The Huffington Post (2013, 3 September) Latino Population Booms in the South: Pew. Huffington Post. Retrieved from <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/latino-population-growth_n_3860441.html>

Hispanic Leadership Network ( 2012, 12 March) Top 10 Facts about Hispanics in Alabama. Hispanic Leadership Network. Retrieved from <http://hispanicleadershipnetwork.org/top-10-facts-about-hispanics-in-alabama/>