Score a Gooooooooool

By: Roberto Ruiz, Senior Vice President of Brand Solutions at Univision Communications Inc.

Univision was recently invited by Major League Soccer to take part in the “Multicultural Marketing” panel at the MLS Partner Summit, an invite-only meeting for the league’s broadcast, digital, agency and corporate partners, as well as club and league executives. I was privileged to participate with U.S. Hispanic marketing leaders like Ernest Bromley of Bromley Communications, Carlos Santiago of Santiago Solutions Group and Javier Farfan of PepsiCo.

The conversation about marketing to the Hispanic community is extremely important today as U.S. companies struggle to find new, untapped ways to deliver growth. Fifty three percent of the growth of the U.S. population is going to come from Hispanics over the next decade. And since Hispanics are on average, a decade younger than non-Hispanics, winning with 18-34 year olds is vital. Consider this staggering statistic: every 30 seconds a Hispanic person turns 18 years old while two non-Hispanics hit retirement age.

I loved what I heard recently from an IDEO executive at a conference; he told the audience that to be an effective marketer today, you need to be an anthropologist and truly understand the consumer’s values. Marketers need to understand that more than Spanish fluency and more than English fluency, cultural fluency speaks to Latinos. Even second-and third-generation Hispanics maintain strong cultural ties to Latin music, food and sports. We say Hispanics are acculturating, as opposed to acculturated, as the process does not have an end and is additive. In the words of a bicultural Latina, she told us she felt as a 200% person: 100% Latina, 100% American. Companies need to embrace these cultural attributes and create campaigns that speak to them directly.

Part of understanding Hispanics is embracing one of their biggest passion points: futbol or soccer. The sport transcends gender and age and is played in school yards, parks and backyards across the country.

Soccer’s popularity is only growing. Just recently, the FIFA U-17 World Cup final between Mexico and Uruguay brought Galavisión the highest ratings ever in the history of any Spanish-language cable network. The CONCACAF Gold Cup final between USA and Mexico also broke records as the highest-rated primetime sports broadcast on Univision across all key demographics. It was watched by nearly 8 million people.

The most multicultural sport on the planet, soccer is one of the few activities that unites people from around the world, across every culture and continent. The growth of soccer in the U.S. and the success of the MLS will only help us as a country in having more to share with the rest of the world. Marketers cannot win in the next decade if they are not speaking to Hispanics directly, in culture, and around key passion points like soccer. Soccer strikes a gooooooooool in the hearts of the young and thriving Hispanic consumer and helps all of us in the United States become more inclusive of the global village we live in.