Years ago, it used to be that marketers pointed to a group of three recurring data points to substantiate a strategy to reach the Hispanic demographic: market size, economic growth/over indexing and brand loyalty. The discussion has since evolved quite a bit, and today, we focus much more on acculturation, segmentation and other crucial characteristics that truly impact consumer and audience behavior. Good thing the approach has matured. This week, Nielsen came out with consumer insight that brand loyalty shows a decline depending on acculturation. Anyone who has visited the home of a Latino family can attest to that. With acculturation, language, media, affluence and other influences penetrate a household at different levels. And loyalty needs to be attained from each member of a household. Just last year, Yankelovich’s annual multicultural marketing study* found that 58 percent of Hispanics thought it risky to buy a brand they did not know. This is where segmentation becomes critical since the more acculturation comes into play, different members of a home have different brands to call their own.
If brand loyalty slips while the two other data sets of years before stay, perhaps one of the leading considerations for approaching the market is understanding the need for ‘connectedness’. This remains to be true and spans all segments. On the literal side, Hispanics do speak more on the phone, using both more long distance and wireless than their peers. The Nielsen research covers, that — and for my peers who follow telecom — a recent study from Florida State’s Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication looked at Hispanic and other consumers use of old and new media and found that the Hispanic group that spends the most time on the phone is the 36-45 year old Spanish-dominant set (almost 11 hours per week for those who want to know). Aside from the literal, ‘connectedness’ also relates to culture and the set of characteristics that ‘feel’ Hispanic. Think music, food, softer traits such as ambiance, colors, cosmogony, life philosophy, values and language. In other words, a loyalty to roots still exists– according the Yankelovich study, it’s in an uptrend from 5 years ago.
We often get requests for data and research that size up the Hispanic market opportunity, and luckily, a lot of such stats abound today. But the truth is to effectively reach this segment, we need a deep understanding of the demographic so we are loyal to the reality of the market and the community.
(*The 2007 version of this annual study is scheduled to come out in October.)
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