The Power Of Hispanic Radio – Radio’s Key Role in Multi-Cultural Marketing.

Interep and Spanish Broadcasting System hosted the 1st “Power of Hispanic Radio” symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.

Over 200 advertisers, media decision-makers and ethnic marketers attended the event, which focused on the U.S. Hispanic marketplace, and Hispanic Radio’s powerful role in marketing to the Latino community. The symposium kicked off Hispanic Heritage Month with a mix of speakers, panel discussions, and Latin musical entertainment.

Speaking on the success of the event, Peter Doyle, President, Interep Independent said, “The interest and support from the advertising community surrounding this event has been tremendous. Obviously, there is a growing interest, and rightly so, in learning more about marketing to the burgeoning Hispanic community.”

“Co-sponsoring this “Power Event” is part of our ongoing efforts to showcase Hispanic Radio’s unsurpassed ability to influence the lucrative, $580 billion U.S. Hispanic market,” added Raul Alarcon, President and CEO of Spanish Broadcasting System. “I can not think of a better way to share and celebrate the culture, music and growing marketing power of the nation’s 35 million-plus Hispanic consumers with the ad community.”

Themes of the conference included the tremendous consumer power of the U.S. Hispanic marketplace, diversity with the Latino population, their escalating influence on all aspects of our culture, and the growth potential to companies who actively reach out to this community.

Isabel Valdes, author of the book Marketing to American Latinos: A Guide to the In-Culture Approach, was keynote speaker for the event. Ms. Valdes is a pioneer in the field of multi-cultural marketing, and founder of the in-culture movement. Ms. Valdes opened her remarks by thanking Interep, SBS, and the radio industry for being the first medium to host this type of event for the advertising community.

During her keynote address, Ms. Valdes stressed that marketing to the Latino community is no longer a public relations gesture for corporations, but rather the key to their future market growth. She also spoke extensively on the diversity that exists within the U.S. Latin community, and the challenges this poses for Hispanic marketers. Differences include country of origin, degree of acculturation, English-language proficiency, and foreign-born versus 2nd and 3rd generation U.S. Latinos. She stated that understanding the cultural nuances within the market is key to successful product branding.

She also discussed the “New Latin Culture” emerging within the influential U.S. Latino youth-market. The “J-Lo” generation of Hispanic consumers is extremely proud of its Latin heritage, generally bilingual, and integrates aspects of both cultures into daily life. Ms. Valdes added, “Sometimes radio is the only way to reach these young people with ‘laser precision.’ ”

The first panel of the day, entitled “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Hispanic Demographics,” discussed the many research and segmentation tools now available to Hispanic marketers. Panelists included Peter Roslow/ Roslow Research, Laura Ivey/ Arbitron Research, Adam Lindemann/ Mega Communications and Cesar Melgoza/ Geoscape.

The panel, “The Marriage of Strategy and Creativity,” addressed the important synergy between culturally relevant creative, and effective media placement in Hispanic-targeted marketing. From the account management perspective, Sam Pagan/Lumina Americas spoke about the importance of creating an emotional connection between a brand and the Latino community. He spoke specifically about his agency’s work for Bustelo coffee, which primarily uses radio to create a “buzz” among their target audience. Fellow panelist Ken Deutsch, Media Director for Grupo Gallegos, discussed how general market and Hispanic agencies must work together as marketing partners, and encouraged Hispanic agencies not to accept an secondary position in generating ideas and strategies for the client. Paco Olavarrieta/ The Vidal Partnership, winner of Ad Age’s Hispanic “Best of Show” award for the Heineken radio campaign “Traducciones,” demonstrated that when well-executed, radio can be as
powerful as any other medium.

Bill Tanner/SBS, VP Programming, and Pio Ferro/SBS, National Program Coordinator, emphasized that “Spanish” is not one format, but actually many format genres programming in the Spanish-language. As programming executives for SBS, Peter and Bill outlined the diverse format variety that exists in Hispanic Radio today.

Peter Bellas and Bill Kay from All Access Entertainment Events spoke on the ability of event marketing to connect with Hispanics within their own communities, and to provide advertisers with interactive opportunities, including sampling, trial and product demonstrations.

In the closing session, Eva A. May/ Espanol Marketing & Communications discussed her company’s highly successful national roll-out for Franklin Electronic Publisher’s Spanish-English Dictionary – a campaign using exclusively radio. Also participating in the session were Frank Guerra, CEO, and Cesar Martinez, Creative Director, for Guerra, DeBerry, Coody/ GDC Latino. They discussed their success in using radio to reach Hispanic consumers in political advertising, including the campaigns of President George W. Bush, Governor Jeb Bush in Florida, and Governor Rick Perry in Texas.

Following the speakers and panel discussions, guests were entertained by Latin international recording artist, Elvis Crespo.

A webcast of the Power of Hispanic Radio symposium will be available on Monday, October 7th, 2002. To view this webcast, or to receive more information on Hispanic consumers, please visit Interep’s website at http://www.interep.com, or at http://www.thepowerofhispanicradio.com.