Latinos are Digital Innovators.

We just finished collecting data for our multicultural marketing study (Florida State University’s Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication with the collaboration of DMS Insights). The surprise, again this year, 2011, is that once Latinos are online they are more likely than other cultural groups to innovate in the digital space.

In this new study we found that Hispanics who prefer to answer in English are more likely to have a blog than anyone else, and very close to Asians. Perhaps even more surprising is that Latinos who prefer to answer in Spanish are more likely than anyone else to have a website of their own.

We have found this tendency over the past 5 years, and it continues. It would have been expected that over time, members of other cultural groups would catch up and even out the field. That has not been the case. What that tells us is that Latinos are truly engaged with online technology.

The reasons for these trends are most likely related to the collectivism of these consumers. They want to share their experience with others who are important to them. These findings have strong implications for marketers. If Hispanics are online leaders, who do you approach to disseminate the news about your products? Latinos are the arrowheads into a new era of virtual experience.

This data for this study was collected during March 2011. The online sample was comprised of 500 respondents per segment, for a total of 2,500, based on quotas by gender, age, and geographic location. DMS Insights managed the sample and data collection. Their work is a gift to the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication. This study was conducted by the faculty and students of the graduate Multicultural Marketing Communication course offered by FSU this Spring.

For more information at http://felipekorzenny.blogspot.com/>