Hispanic Customers for Life: a fresh look at Acculturation by M. Isabel Valdés

The Hispanic market is experiencing its most important socio-demographic and cultural shift since its emergence as a powerful and distinct U.S. market segment. A new book by M. Isabel Valdés, “Hispanic Customers for Life: A Fresh Look at Acculturation,” explores the present “Hispanic generational crossover,” providing insights, data and tools to manage the generational and acculturation differences among U.S. Hispanics, immigrants and their U.S. born offspring.

Ms. Valdés, a marketing expert, is recognized as the creator of the “In-culture” marketing approach. A lecturer and public speaker, Ms. Valdés has been studying and writing about the Hispanic market for more than 20 years. Her earlier books, Marketing to American Latinos, A Guide to the In-Culture Approach, Parts I and II, are classics used in many universities around the country and on the bookshelves of most multicultural marketers.

Although most news media speak of Hispanic consumers as only or mostly immigrants, in fact, in 2006 only 19.9 million Hispanics living in the U.S. were “first generation” or foreign born, whereas 24.8 million or 55 percent of the total were second, third or more generations and born in the United States. Add the 3.9 million Puerto Rican Islanders–also American citizens–and the true size of the U.S.-born Hispanic market today is nearly 29 million.

The growing segment of U.S. born Latinos poses unique business, marketing and communications challenges and opportunities. Ms. Valdés describes in her new book how to target them successfully for marketers of all kinds of products and services.

She notes that there are two basic marketing platforms for Hispanics born in the United States: The “young millennial Latinos,”–the second generation youth market–children, teens, and young adults born to foreign-born parents and the “traditional Latinos”–those born to Latino families that have been U.S. citizens for two or more generations. By 2016, it will be a different Hispanic market altogether; the vast majority of Hispanics aged 20 to 29 will have been born in the United States. These Hispanic “Twentysomethings” will constitute a significant market segment – well acquainted with U.S. culture, however, as Ms. Valdés emphasizes, “often born to at least one parent who was foreign born.” Thus, straddling two cultures.

In an important departure from the usual ways of viewing this market Ms. Valdés segments it by age and generation, highlighting the waves of acculturation per segment, simplifying a complex marketing landscape by helping marketers understand how different levels of acculturation change Hispanic consumer expectations and hence their responses to marketing messages.

The growing relevance of “emotional marketing” to build HeartShares, the “how to’s” and new gold standards are described and illustrated with business case studies.

An additional value of the book is a comprehensive list of Hispanic-related websites, including marketing and advertising companies, trade organizations, non-profits, media, researchers, and so forth.

For more information at http://www.isabelvaldes.com