NHCC: Understanding The Hispanic Consumer.

The National Hispanic Corporate Council held their first biannual meeting for the year 2001 in New York City last week. The theme of the conference was “The New Hispanic Consumer.”

Through out the two days of the conference, representatives of the Top 1000 corporations in the United Sates were represented and the panels were filled with professional marketers, ad agency and government experts discussing key demographic data and effective marketing technique to target the Hispanic Consumer.

Betsy Guzman, a demographic statistician from the Census gave the attendees a break down on the new demographic data about Hispanics, the growth of the segment and compared the Hispanic population to other demographic segments.

Dr. Andrew Beveridge from the Department of Sociology of Queens College, analyzed the Census numbers and helped the attendees better understand the undercount of the 1990 Census and the 2000 Census data.

Interestingly, he points out that the Census was surprised to find a couple of key idiosyncrasies:

1- They found 8 million more people that they had projected to find.

2- They did not expect Hispanic to check other qualifiers besides “Race” descriptors.

3- Over 50% of the Hispanics check other descriptor beside the Hispanic race indicator.

He stated that the growth of many key mainstream markets and/or the fact that many markets sustained their previous population projections was due to minority population growth. In other words, ‘White Flight’ phenomena was not detrimental to many markets due to the increase in the minority population. In most cases, many markets grew in population size.

Neil Comber – Director of Hispanic Corporate Relations for Procter & Gamble presented ‘The Hispanic Shopper: Her Unspoken Needs’ company presentation. The presentation detailed the experience Hispanic Women have with regards to analyzing and purchasing products for herself and her family. The differences between Latina and non-Latina women are dramatic from a cultural and psychological perspective. Influencing shopping habits and patterns for Hispanic Women. Procter & Gamble has sought to better understand the complex nature of Hispanic Woman and pursued a shopping experience that enriches the relationship between the consumer, the product manufacturer and the retail establishment.

Cherri Prince from Leo Burnett’s LeoShe division presented their ‘Fertile Ground’ presentation which is available at HispanicAd.com. The presentation details the four distinct types of women and their individual characteristics. Hispanic Women are part of one or many of these types of women and can be better understood along with non-Latina women if not looked at an a specific demographic age group, but as a qualitative consumer segment.

Daisy Exposito – President of the Bravo Group addressed the attendees voicing her support for the data the Census will provide the agencies, the media and advertisers in better understanding the importance of the US Hispanic Consumer, ” 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.’

The attendees were also addressed by Dr. Antonio Coello-Novello former US Surgeon General and currently is the NY State Health Commissioner. She delivered a passionate speech regarding the state of the Hispanic woman, the family, education and the need to stand up as a unified voice and create a positive awareness of the Latino community. She stated that,” Hispanics want a piece of the American pie and our population size by the year 2050 will tell America at what temperature we also want to eat the pie.”

To better understand the ‘New Hispanic Consumer’ the attendees were given presentation by Victoria Hudson – President of Cartel Creativo and Roberto Ramos and his team at Ruido Group, which together positioned the emerging Hispanic Youth segment in our market. Both agencies detailed the profile of this important and viable consumer segment, along with ways to reach and impact effective advertising for clients with this group.

Kevin Kay – Executive VP at Nickelodeon Television explored the way the network has been working to produce multicultural programs that best reflect the reality of the kid’s universe. Programs such as The Brothers Garcia, Taina and Dora are theme from the Hispanic experience and have been very successful at complementing the networks programming roster.

Martha Gerdes – Sr Director of Marketing at McDonald Restaurants shared how McDonald’s has impacted Hispanics Consumer outside of their special Hispanic focused programs. She detailed the re-structuring of their mainstream efforts to complement their special ethnic marketing efforts with main stream efforts that take into account the diverse nature of the US market as a whole.

The National Hispanic Corporate Council is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to serving its member companies as a principal resource for information, expertise and counsel about Hispanic issues affecting, corporate objectives, and to advocate for increased employment, leadership and business opportunities for Hispanics in corporate America.