What’s Different About Marketing to Hispanics?

If one were to use uniform marketing efforts and ideas across the globe it would not be reasonable to expect them all to be successful or accepted among all groups of people. Differences in culture, values, behaviors, and what is “attention-grabbing” varies among people and areas of the world. These differences can create barriers between people that are sometimes hard to overcome if they are not properly understood. With that being said, using uniform marketing techniques and ideas for everyone in every place is not the best way to go about targeting different markets.

First of all, Hispanic and American culture differs in many ways. For example, the Hispanic culture tends to value large close-knit families that do most things together in an effort to support each other, while American culture does not necessarily emphasize having a huge family if people choose to have one at all. After talking with a couple of Hispanic consumers, this value of family in the Hispanic culture was supported in the fact that they either had or currently live with a grandparent in their home. The idea of taking care of the elders of the family as the younger generation reached an age appropriate for work was very prevalent.

Furthermore, to complicate matters worse, US-Hispanics are seemingly a bit different from a Hispanic population that one would encounter in Mexico, Spain, or any other country with Hispanic origins and culture. As generations continue to be raised in the U.S., they tend to become more Americanized while still holding on to their major values and beliefs in most cases. For example, as was mentioned in Hispanic Marketing: A Cultural perspective, some Hispanics prefer to buy fresh foods because they are seen as being healthier, which makes marketing frozen or pre-made foods to these people quite difficult (Korzenny). However, as the families grow and younger generations get older, they many times try to become more “in” with American ideas such as frozen foods. This goes along with the fact that consistent marketing efforts around the world would not be successful due to the fact that there may not even be a market for something, such as frozen foods, among some cultures. This example shows that knowing the background of people’s culture, beliefs, values, etc. is necessary when trying to market to different audiences.

It is also difficult to use the same advertisements in the U.S. that are used in places such as Latin America and Spain. One reason for this is that many Hispanics that are first coming to the U.S. are from the lower socio-economic strata looking to better themselves, such as in the cases of the two Hispanic consumers I talked with. Many Hispanics who are first starting off in America also tend to have lower levels of education if any at all, and are looking for why they should buy products and the information about it rather than trying to find the trendiest product (Korzenny). Therefore, commercials and advertisements from Latin America would not be as relevant in the U.S. as they are in Latin America.

All in all, marketing to U.S. Hispanics is somewhat different than marketing to Hispanics as a whole. Understanding that there are differences in cultures, values, and beliefs, and knowing those differences in detail are important aspects of marketing when targeting different people groups such as U.S. Hispanics. Successful marketing campaigns can be created for various cultures, but researching the target market and knowing the background of the people is what will ultimately make the campaign successful.

By Ashlee Rucker.
Hispanic Marketing Communication
Florida State University

Interviews with two Anonymous Hispanic consumers in Tallahassee, Florida.

Korzenny, Felipe, and Betty Ann Korzenny. Hispanic Marketing: A Cultural Perspective. Amsterdam: Elsevier, Butterwort, Heinemann. 2005.