Think Multicultural

I got both of these headlines in one email newsletter today:

Spanish-Language Ad Spending Grows, Thanks to Cable TV

and

Online Ad Spending to Reach $42B by 2011 - Budget Shift to Accelerate

Hispanic media and advertising continues to be a good place to be. How long can it continue? New Hispanic media outlets continues to spring up every day, and most of them seem to be doing very well. This is in part due to the increasing Hispanic population and affluence of that population. It’s also due in part to the current advertising boom, particularly in online advertising. Right now a rising tide is lifting all boats.

But what happens if the good times stop?

Ad Forecast 08: Cautious, With Scattered Gloom

The short term trend could be ugly for the next year. Hispanic websites could be in for a rough patch along with all other kinds of advertising-dependent media. Those that do not have good traffic and/or are poorly or overly aggressively managed will have a hard time making it. There could be a shakeout, with some Hispanic websites (and newspapers and other traditional media vehicles) failing.

However, the long term trend remains. Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in the US. Hispanic spending power is strong and getting stronger. Hispanics are adopting the Internet at twice the rate as their general market counterparts. Online ad spending is growing.

My favorite illustration of business cycles is the children’s story of The Grasshopper and The Ant. Those who enjoy the good times but don’t sock something away for the bad times are going to fail. What the children’s story doesn’t tell you, is that in the spring the ants come back stronger and more prepared for the next season, and are much better off without the grasshoppers around.

In the long run, Hispanic marketing, and particularly online Hispanic marketing, is a good place to be. In the short run, there could be some room for belt tightening.

PS: Predicting economic cycles is fiendishly tricky. A downturn could come next month or in three years. The point remains that one will come, and when it does it’s best to have a little something stored in the ant hill.

eMarketer has a new report out called Hispanic Americans Online: A Fragmented Population. It is 31 pages of information, figures, and charts describing the Hispanic market and the online habits of US Hispanics (and it isn’t cheap).

The figures in the report showing the number of Hispanics online, in both absolute numbers and relative to the general market, are low compared to other data that has come out recently. As with all statistics and figures, take them for what they’re worth – general indicators of a market. But for marketers, with regard to Hispanics online, the importance isn’t the exact size of the market, but that the market exists and should be reached out to.

Some of the more interesting data from the report:

• The Hispanic market online is fragmented, not one large homogenous market. One approach won’t reach all online Hispanics.
• 89% of Hispanic college graduates are online.
• Although the proportion of US Hispanics that are first generation is dropping, it is dropping very slowly, going from 40.8% in 1990 to 34.0% in 2020.
• Internet usage among Hispanics increases greatly with household income. 39% for households with less than $30,000 annual income. Over 70% for households with greater than $30,000 annual income.

That’s all the figures I’ll pass along for now. That’s a good sample of some interesting information, and eMarketer has to make their money.

A new Harris Poll released on Monday found that 80% of US adults are online. More interestingly, it found that Hispanics make up the same proportion of the online population as they do the total population.

So according to this poll, you’re as likely to find Hispanics online as you are to find them anywhere else in US society.