Opting Not To Target Hispanic Consumers.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have heard a lot of good news about the new Census 2000 Hispanic population numbers. Every major business publication is writing a story about the growth, the socioeconomic and political impact Hispanics will exercise in the next 50 years.

Daisy Exposito – President of the Bravo Group and past President of AHAA in 2000-2001 stated at the last National Hispanic Corporate Council conference, “I am of the opinion that the recent attention from the media on Hispanics as a consumer segment will allow us to move up on Corporate America’s radar screen and ultimately give corporate America permission to believe.”

You probably have also seen us take on certain issues in our market.

Well, here’s another one.

While we were reading the article in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday April 24th titled “U.S. 2000 Census Makes Case for Ads Targeting Hispanics — Companies That Overlook Sector Can’t Plead Ignorance” by Eduardo Porter, we felt a pride in the attention a business publication like the Wall Street Journal was giving our market and community.

As we kept on re-reading this article, we had two issues with the article.

First, they stated that the disparity in monies spent on Hispanic focused media is due to the amount of English language television viewed by Hispanics.

Two, the lack of a strategic advertising effort on the part of an advertiser towards reaching their intended consumer.

We are not going to dwell on the second, since there are many advertisers out there that are not interested in building their share of market by targeting ALL potential consumers in a market. Strategically, this has been a costly mistake for many companies in Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, New York, Texas.

Going back to the first issue.

There is a disparity that is compounded by inappropriate dissemination of facts. Marketers continue to look for facts that promote homogeniality, but the ‘real world’ dictate that we have more differences and preferences that require an expertise in the fine art and science of Hispanic Marketing.

The Wall Street Journal stated figures supplied by Nielsen Media Research, “almost 70% of the television programming that U.S. Hispanics watch is in English.”

We believe that the readers of the Wall Street Journal would have been better served by understanding the entire picture of Hispanic viewing habits and the distinctly different impact each media mix strategy offers on delivering Hispanic Consumers.

Even though this number is correct and is based on Total Hispanic Households, this number should not be the end all statistic to determine the validity of a specialized marketing efforts towards Hispanics.

Hispanics can be reached in variety of programming environments and each offers a certain level of effectiveness depending on creative appeal.

The amount of English television viewing changes depending on the Hispanic demographic sub-group you are targeting. According to Nielsen, the number is reversed once you take a look at Spanish dominant Hispanics – 64.5% view Spanish language programs. When you take a look at other demographic sub-groups, Spanish language television programs are even more impactful.

Any good marketer would not target only 50% of a specific market. Then why would you want to leave out 50% of the Hispanic viewers by not using Spanish Language television? We state 50%, because TV viewing is not an either / or issue, but a mix of programming habits.

Doug Darfield – Sr VP of Hispanic Services at Nielsen Research states, ” certain unique characteristics of the Hispanic Market make the situation a good deal more complex than simply reporting audience shares – as you would in a horse race between ABC, CBS and Fox on one side and for that matter between Univision and Telemundo in the Hispanic Market – making judgments between two different language media requires a rigorous analysis than a simple eyeballing of audience share.”

This is compounded even farther, when you begin to discuss the ability of specific creatives strategies and their effectiveness in impacting ‘In-Culture’ hot-buttons.

It amazes us to see that mainstream advertisers understand the regional nuance (In-Culture) of targeting mainstream consumers across the US and they customize their messages and themes accordingly. But, do not understand or accept that cultural difference between Hispanics and Anglos exist, regardless if they are both are English dominant. It’s an issue of ‘Cultura’.

It would have been more beneficial to the Wall Street Journal readers to have a complete understand of the distinctly different ways to effectively target the “Emerging Majority” in America.

Th**************@Hi********.com