Think Multicultural

There was a report a couple of weeks ago from Creative Artists Agency and The Intelligence Group that evaluated how companies and brands connected with young Hispanics. The report said that McDonald’s, Pepsi, Univision, and Rocawear are among the brands that do the best job of reaching the Gen Y Hispanics.

One of the more interesting parts of the report was that a majority of the Gen Y who responded to the survey identified themselves as “Hispanic” (56%) rather than “Latino” (19%) or “American” (somethingless%). You sometimes hear Hispanic-Latino-Americans object to the word “Hispanic” because it was created by the US government (the Nixon administration, no less), but apparently with the passage of time, attitudes change. With this demo, “Hispanic” seems to be just fine.

Further, 58% of the respondents to the survey said they have a strong connection with Latino culture. So apparently the erasing of Hispanic identity as younger generations acculturate isn’t too widespread.

I do have one problem with the report, which is this quote: “It’s a mix-and-match lifestyle . . . It’s the same as the person who orders a hamburger, but with jalapeños.” That quote describes anybody from a border state - Hispanic, white, or otherwise. My dad is 65 and white, and that describes him. He’s no Gen Y Hispanic.

Be careful how you describe your markets.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 2:42 pm and is filed under hispanic, research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.