This is a guest post by Amanda Belo, media researcher at Cision.
In an article written for the Cision Navigator, Belo researched diverse marketing efforts, specifically with the digital Hispanic audience in the United States. This post is an extension of the interviews she conducted, featuring words of wisdom from three communicators who work with multicultural markets.
From 2000 to 2010, the Hispanic market had a 43 percent growth rate, according to The Nielsen Company. First-generation Hispanics say ethnicity is an important factor when products are marketed to them, yet 1 in 2 Hispanics feel like most marketing doesn’t target them, a study by Yahoo!, Mindshare and Added Value says.
We talked to three professionals who have worked in the Hispanic market to get their take on successfully deploying an outreach initiative and understanding the platforms and messages that resonate most with this demographic.
Greg Aguilar, director of intercultural student life at Augustana College, has worked in both the credit union industry and higher education with a focus on Hispanic outreach. He suggests three main steps to achieve success with a Hispanic audience: buy-in from the top, brand awareness and community outreach.
“Commit to capital, staff and support of reaching out to the market. If there is not buy-in, you could waste a lot of time and money on an effort that could be destroyed internally,” he said.
Using cultural concepts to introduce the brand and using Latino advertising themes – such as larger families, the Spanish language and traditions – will help raise brand awareness, Aguilar says. However, he warned that branding in a new market should not sacrifice the overall branding of the company and its products.
Portada publisher Marcos Baer says it’s important to understand Hispanics are a very diverse group and each subset of this group has a different figuration.
“In general, appealing to culture and to the heart works with Hispanic audiences,” he said.
Being authentic and having consistent messaging will also resonate with this group, said Alex Perez, team leader at Phelps Total Market.
“There is no better way to reach and engage Hispanic audiences than being authentic, staying faithful to the brand pillars and communicating them with the same marketing diligence and consistency as used with the general market,” he said.
Perez also gave several more advisory ideas to keep in mind when tackling campaigns for this market segment, including allocating larger budgets based on achieving specific goals, using mobile tactics as part of a marketing strategy and strategically working with those who understand the Hispanic consumer. In addition, take into account internal knowledge of Hispanic culture.
“People often assume the U.S. Hispanic market is a large homogenous group that speaks Spanish,” said Perez. “In reality, Hispanics come from over 20 countries. While united by language, each has its own culture, brand preferences and levels of assimilation.”
Perez also noted the importance of message consistency through every communications vehicle because Hispanics are sharers of information. He also offered the idea to create online platforms and content that is produced in Spanish, as opposed to Spanish language advertisements that redirect to an English language platform.
Since strong communities are a part of Hispanic culture, Aguilar recommends “hitting the streets and social media so Hispanics have a personal connection to the brand, or at least those selling it.”
Along with that, Perez says that once brands reach an ethnic group in their domestic territory, awareness will inevitably catch on to those connected to that group in other places.
“Globalization is a force to be reckoned with, especially with regard to Hispanic and ethnic markets,” he said. “It’s essential that brands interested in establishing a multicultural and multimarket global presence understand that marketing to Hispanics in the U.S. will eventually impact/reach their counterparts in other countries and vice versa.”
