| Year 2003-2004 News
& Magazine Articles
The
race is on to win America's Hispanic consumers
By
Malcolm Beith
Newsweek International
Nov. 22 issue
Nov. 22 issue - Four
Latinos—a Dominican, a Mexican, a Cuban and
an Argentine—walk up to the bar. Each asks for
the best beer in the house in his own colloquial Spanish,
and the bartender—the maestro de idiomas,
or master of languages—serves up Heinekens.
No, this isn't the beginning of a bad joke; it's one
of the hottest Hispanic ads of the year, lauded as
a masterpiece in marketing circles for its ability
to appeal directly to distinct Latino subgroups in
the United States. "It celebrates the differences,"
says Tony Ruiz of the New York-based Vidal Partnership,
the ad agency that produced the spot. "It gives
consumers a chance to see themselves, and connect
on a higher level."
Prior to the 2000
U.S. Census, Hispanic marketing was little more than
an afterthought to most of corporate America. "When
companies considered Latinos, they thought, 'Sombreros
and no money'," says Isabel Valdes, a California-based
Hispanic marketing expert. But over the past four
years, corporate America has come to realize both
the diversity and power of Hispanic consumers—and
the need to connect with them in more sophisticated
ways. The stereotypical Latino may still be the poor
Mexican immigrant. But in reality, Latino consumers
now range from Argentine investment bankers in New
York to Nicaraguan salesmen in Alabama; from English-speaking,
teenage Cuban mall rats in Florida to Mexican NASCAR
dads in Kansas. "The sheer growth of the market
is an undeniable, in-your-face message," says
Rochelle Newman-Carrasco, head of a Los Angeles Hispanic
advertising agency called Enlace Communications.
The numbers speak
for themselves: America's 39 million Latinos spent
nearly $700 billion last year and are the fastest-growing
consumer group in the country. By 2008, Hispanic consumer
spending is expected to top $1 trillion, according
to the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic
Growth. Faced with these astounding figures, the U.S.
business community has made unprecedented overtures
toward Latinos since 2000, changing the way the mainstream
United States sees its largest minority—and
itself—in the process. "The sleeping giant
ain't sleeping no more," says Valdes.
For more than two
decades, Hispanic marketing consisted mainly of U.S.
ad agencies translating their mass-market, English-language
ads and TV spots into Spanish. But U.S. businesses
now realize they need creative strategies aimed at
specific Latino subgroups. To do this, they've turned
to Hispanic ad agencies that employ what Valdes calls
"in-culture" marketing techniques. That
means using key values and cultural traits—family,
music and food, for instance—to connect with
Puerto Ricans who live along America's East Coast,
or Mexicans in the American Southwest. The broad-brush
approach hasn't entirely disappeared; the use of Latino
celebrities to tout products has become commonplace.
In the past year, both Kmart and Hershey's have successfully
teamed up with Mexican singer Thalia to peddle clothes
and chocolate.
Ironically, language
isn't such a key issue any more. In a 2002 Pew Hispanic
Center poll of third-generation U.S. Latinos, 78 percent
of the respondents said English was their primary
language. "It doesn't matter whether you deliver
the message in English or Spanish," says Ruiz.
"You could even do it in French or Chinese, as
long as it appeals to the heart and mind of the Hispanic
consumer."
Hispanics—who
originate from 19 Spanish-speaking countries, plus
Puerto Rico—naturally share common linguistic
and cultural traits. But marketers nowadays favor
highly targeted campaigns. Chivas Regal, the spirits
company, uses salsa music in Florida promotional shows
to appeal to Cuban-Americans but switches to merengue
to target Dominicans in New York. Instead of relying
on the neutral "universal" or "Walter
Cronkite" Spanish commonly found on Spanish-language
television and most nationwide Hispanic ads, companies
like Sprint PCS, Toyota and Heineken, among others,
now often use regional accents and slang, depending
on where their target audience both lives and comes
from. "It makes it come home to the consumer,
who thinks, 'These people are like me'," says
Manuel E. Machado, president of the Association of
Hispanic Advertising Agencies. Take Heineken's "Blackout"
ad that aired in the northeastern United States in
August 2003. In it, two Dominicans—speaking
in distinct regional accents—stumble through
their New York apartment during the blackout while
trying to decide what to make room for in their cooler—milk
or Heineken? The cerveza, of course. "It was
a great spot," says Machado. "They reached
their regional market. In the eyes of many experts,
Heineken's "Maestro de Idiomas" ad was even
better, appealing to four separate sub-groups with
one spot.
Such innovation will
only become more commonplace as research exploring
Hispanic consumer trends grows in sophistication.
One eye-opener is this: Hispanics now spend more time
online per week than any other American group. Hispanic
e-spending, which hit $8.1 billion last year, has
prompted companies like AOL and Microsoft to invest
more heavily in their Hispanic marketing initiatives.
Automakers are likewise fine-tuning their Spanish-language
sales and customer-service sites. Steady increases
in viewership of Spanish-language television networks
like Univision have helped boost Hispanic TV advertising,
while sales of leading Spanish-language magazines
People en Espanol and Latina fueled a 24 percent rise
in Hispanic print-media ad revenue in 2003. "We
can no longer be ignored as just part of the melting
pot," says Machado. "From Congress to migrant
workers, we are an important part of the American
infrastructure. We are everyday people." Corporate
America obviously agrees.
© 2004
Newsweek, Inc.
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