AHAA announces Study of Latino Cultural Identity.

The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) signed a deal with Simmons Research to conduct the first major primary research study of Latino Cultural Identity. Drawing on Simmons’ expertise in the Hispanic market, the study aims to build on AHAA’s original initiative to explore the complexities of Hispanic consumers and put forth a new model that enriches Hispanic research beyond current acculturation and language segmentation metrics.

These inventive tools will provide marketers, planners and creative professionals with deeper insights into Latino consumers and segments within the Latino market. Latino Cultural Identity modeling will create the basis of a unified measurement of today’s U.S. Latino and a uniform platform that can be embraced by the entire Hispanic marketing and advertising industry, as well as corporate marketers trying to reach this unique target audience.

“This new research is a fascinating outgrowth of the sophistication and evolution of U.S. Hispanic consumers,” says Jackie Bird, chairwoman of AHAA and president/CEO of Winglatino. “For marketers, the Latino Identity Study satisfies the need for more in-depth understanding of the factors that define U.S. Latino’s cultural identity and will allow the possibility of target market segmentation based on these factors. We trust that the study will validate and contextualize AHAA’s model of the multi-dimensional Latino, thus provide participating member agencies the unique ability to incorporate these insights in the account planning process and resulting creative work for our clients.”

Already more than a dozen Hispanic agencies have committed to purchasing the research with interest from nearly a dozen more expected as the research gets underway. “As a leading-edge agency in the Hispanic market, Conill always supports initiatives that bring new light to defining and understanding our consumers beyond conventional measures” says Tom Lanktree, VP/Director Strategic Planning for Conill Advertising. “Given its depth, we believe this project will help bring greater clarity to what drives Latinos, putting our teams in a much better position to create meaningful connections with our clients’ brands.”

To fully address the numerous factors that influence Hispanic cultural identity, Simmons’ research design will combine qualitative and quantitative methods. The key aims of the research will be to:

– Understand and gain insights on the four key “Pillars” that form the core of AHAA’s Latino Cultural Identity model: Interpersonal Orientation

– Time and Space Perception; Spirituality; and, Gender Perception

– Explore other potential cultural identity factors as they relate to specific groups in the U.S. Latino population

– Gather tangible information for developing a standardized platform to gauge individual and collective Latino Cultural Identity

– Increase the expertise and understanding about Latino consumers for the Latino marketing and advertising industry

The qualitative phase of the research is intended to generate in-depth dialogue and ideas on Latino Cultural Identity from the Hispanic consumer. In this truly innovative exchange, consumers will help define what makes a Latino, Latino. The ensuing findings and key learning will serve as a foundation to shape the quantitative work. The quantitative research component will draw on Simmons’ 7,500+ Hispanic sample in the National Hispanic Consumer Survey (NHCS) to carry out a mail-based custom, bilingual survey on Latino Cultural Identity. Data results will be linked back to the NHCS providing research subscribers the ability to use these new touch points to provide a fuller dimension of the Latino consumer. In particular, it will allow users to cross-reference and leverage these new profiles against Simmons’s existing database of 450 categories, 8,000 brands, 600 psychographic and lifestyle statements and Hispanic-only data (i.e., country of origin, nativity, generation, in-language usage and preferences across media platforms).

Focus group testing in Los Angeles is scheduled to begin this month and the data will be made available for the fall 2008 release.