While working on this project, I got to wondering about what really is new in multicultural advertising. Is there a difference between what’s new in advertising and what’s new in multicultural advertising? With the trend of general market shops getting more multicultural work, particularly in media, many of the new strategies being applied to multicultural advertising are what is being used in the general market. On top of that, agencies like ours work tirelessly to stay ahead of advertising trends and bring new tools and tactics to multicultural advertising. So are there new developments in advertising that inherently apply to the multicultural market?

I have ideas on this, and I have already heard some interesting ideas from our panelists. Now I want to hear your thoughts.

So tell me, what’s new in multicultural advertising? What does the future hold for multicultural advertising? Are these any different from advertising as a whole? How do you differentiate between the two?

Doesn’t it seem like all the articles, conference presentations, and news around the Hispanic market focus on tactics and the status quo these days (and for that matter the last 5 years)?

It seems like the 2010 Census figures have only added to this trend, with an unending stream of articles and webinars rehashing variations of the “wow, Hispanics now total 50 million – that’s a lot… pay attention” script. No in-depth analysis – no critical interpretation of what companies should be doing.

I’m very disappointed, because when I first got into this business 13 years ago, the industry was vibrant and the dialogue was thought-provoking.

I know there are a lot of very smart people still working in Hispanic marketing. I am even more confident that there is a new generation of professionals working in Hispanic advertising that have great ideas and are more than ready to question the status quo.

Let’s elevate the discussion. Let’s question paradigms. Let’s look at the Hispanic market with a fresh perspective and throw out all the assumptions. Let’s imagine the possibilities that technology and population growth can create for a new Hispanic market – one that possibly looks nothing like the one we’ve seen the last 20 years.

And may I suggest if you’re reading this and have big ideas – start a blog. Let me know (so I can link to you) and let’s upend this industry in a good way!

More importantly, I promised an attempt at the billion dollar question of how marketers could successfully utilize social media to reach Hispanics. In anticipation of an answer to that question, we need to start with the right research and approach. In an article I wrote last September I noted that “our industry needs more robust qualitative research and behavioral models… to smartly ‘go to market’ with Hispanics in social media.” I think personas might just be the right framework.

Personas are user archetypes that help guide decisions about product features, navigation, interactions and visual design. Since their introduction in the late 90s, they have grown in use from being a tool used mostly in the software industry to becoming a central planning tool within the Web and digital advertising community. Personas, in their traditional form, are synthesized from ethnographic research with real people and then summarized in one- to two-page descriptions that include behavior patterns, skills, attitudes and environment combined with a few fictional personal details to bring the personas to life.

I think personas provide an effective tool that can be evolved to include psychographic data (among other types of qualitative research) to help brands effectively navigate the Hispanic social media waters. It is for that reason that our team at Sensis undertook what we are calling the Hispanic Persona Project.

The Hispanic Persona Project is a primary research effort aimed at creating personas that represent the U.S. Hispanic Internet population. The project methodology consisted of over 60 ethnographic interviews with Hispanics across acculturation levels, geographies, and nationalities. Understanding the inherent complexities of clustering 30 million diverse Hispanics into 4-5 personas, our goal was to introduce a new framework to guide Hispanic marketing across the POEM (Paid, Owned, Earned Media) spectrum. We also wanted to start a robust discussion about new market research and planning tools to use in a world of over 50 million Hispanics, more than half of which are U.S. born.

We will be unveiling the results of the Hispanic Personas Project during a live, interactive session at the 2011 Hispanicize Conference in Los Angeles, CA. In addition to publishing a report with the Hispanic Personas at Hispanicize, we will be providing attendees with a unique opportunity to interact with the personas, via an interactive panel of live consumers representing each of the Hispanic personas.

In advance of unveiling of the formal research, I can share information on three of the Hispanic Personas we have created:

As you can see from these high level personas, they focus on digital behavior and mindsets, not demographics. While personas have historically been used only to plan digital “experiences” in owned platforms – such as Websites, kiosks or apps – they clearly provide important texture to plan earned media initiatives, particularly in interactive and two-way social environments.

Finally, I’ll leave you with some interesting topline results from our research:
• U.S. Hispanics are heavy social media users – almost all of interviewees noted that the first thing they do when they go online is check email and Facebook – very often from mobile devices.
• “The young teaching the old” – younger Hispanic ‘super users’ are teaching the late adopters how to use new technology and introducing them to new digital trends.
• Evolution from old social media platforms to new ones – U.S. Hispanics have migrated from Hi5 and MySpace into Facebook. The only people who are still on MySpace are artists and musicians.
• Online Advertising – Interviewees mentioned they are likely to click on online ads if they are relevant to their interests or contextually relevant, particularly hyper-targeted Facebook ads.
• Mobile Internet – most interviewees had smartphones. Those who do not have one are considering buying one.

In my last installment of this 3-part discussion, we’ll take the final results of the Hispanic Persona Project and talk about applying them in the real world of Hispanic social media.

Let me clear the air.

First, I was not criticizing the “Digital Divas” event, belittling the panelists, or in any way questioning the quality of the event.

Second, I was not writing an article summarizing the particulars of the event, as a reporter in a newspaper would, nor leading anyone into thinking that I attended the event. I am not a journalist nor have I ever attempted to present myself as one. I simply provide my opinions and musing on the world of multicultural marketing.

The post was an honest expression of my reaction after reading about the well publicized event (which was sponsored by HPRA-NY, and hosted by Porter Novelli – an immaterial fact I omitted from my original post)

The purpose of my post, like everything I write about, is exactly to foster a healthy debate about the issues affecting multicultural marketing and communications. While I did use the word “traditional” in a vague and confusing manner, what I was trying to express is that the panelists represented media companies in the traditional sense – run by editors and hierarchical in their structure. I assumed, wrongly, that a panel entitled “digital divas” would be centered around individual, decentralized Latina social media influencers. The fact that all were involved in online publishing instead of offline publishing was not my point, it was that they were all representing conventional “top-down” publishers.

I did not pass judgment on these “top-down” publishers as somehow irrelevant or inferior (I don’t believe that). I just expressed that my perspective is such that if asked, I would define “digital divas” as independent, decentralized social media influencers and bloggers. That my perspective is different, and that I suspect I might not be alone.

I was hoping to spur a debate about these two models of media – because I know Hispanic PR professionals have some interesting and sometimes conflicting opinions about whether the “groundswell” cadre of Hispanic bloggers and social media influencers are ready to take a seat at the table with the conventional Hispanic publishers and media players.

Now everyone, step away from the ledge and let’s debate…

Hispanic social media continues to be one of the hottest topics in the business of Hispanic marketing. More and more data comes out every week about Hispanics and how they use social media. A steady flow of conferences, panel discussions, and interest on the part of marketers and their agencies has kept the subject top of mind for the last 18 months. I wonder if all this excitement is missing the mark because we’re still looking at the opportunity from the lens of Hispanic marketing circa 1990?

It’s helpful to take a step back and think about why the Hispanic marketing industry exists. Hispanic marketing exists primarily for 3 reasons: Language, Population size, and Culture.

The Spanish language was the original nexus for this industry, and even today, most Hispanic advertising is in Spanish and runs in Spanish language media. The size of the Hispanic population has elevated it above other ethnic groups in a country of immigrants – its population growth continues unabated into 2011. Cultural (behavior and beliefs) differences between Hispanics and mainstream Americans have created challenges for all series of organizations looking to tap into the opportunity of this perpetually emerging market.

However, when we look at social media, do these distinctions between Hispanics and the rest of the U.S. apply? Starting with population size, the market opportunity in social media does appear to be as compelling as in the analog world. Large percentages of Hispanics are online and using social media – so there is scale to justify the attention. And there is a lot of data pointing to the fact that Hispanics tend to have more friends, followers, connections, etc. – a direct translation of their larger offline social networks. But size alone does not make a market – a large group of people with Latin surnames using Facebook, Twitter or YouTube is not in itself a marketing opportunity

So we turn to language. Most online Hispanics are comfortable reading and writing in English. We know half of all U.S. Hispanics were born in the U.S., and with a large youth population, we can infer that more and more Hispanics will be able to navigate their digital lives in English. Moreover, since social media is in essence an amalgamation of content created by consumers, there are no Spanish-language versions of social networks, micromedia, or video sharing sites. There is no channel 34 of social media.

Lastly, are there cultural – behavioral and belief – differences between Hispanics and the mainstream market that result in different social behavior? Can we say that large swaths of 20-30 million Hispanic who are online exhibit some distinct social media behavior that would create an opportunity to connect with them? Do they update their status differently on Facebook or create different tweets? Do they join different groups on LinkedIn or not enjoy watching kitten videos on YouTube as much as everybody else? Do Hispanics view social media differently- Do they read or write blogs for different reasons?

I wonder if these mostly demographic distinctions, which were the basis for the modern Hispanic marketing industry that started in the 1960s, are the right way to approach Hispanic social media? In an environment that empowers consumers to create content and connect with others who share common interests, passions, and experiences – maybe we need to reframe the discussion?

Are we missing the boat by focusing on Hispanic demographic and behavioral distinctions? Is Hispanic social media really all about psychographics – and tapping into digital psychographic communities?

Let’s look at what is distinct about Hispanics in social media? An easy one is that Hispanics are organically part of Hispanic communities online. Stated another way, if you’re Hispanic and using social media, you’re more likely to have friends, connections, followers, etc. that are Hispanic. So what? Well, there is a network and amplifier effect – reaching a Hispanic in this environment has the potential to virally reach other Hispanics who are connected to each other.

Digging deeper, there is something even more distinct and powerful about Hispanic social media use – the ability to connect with others who share similar life experiences and interests. What is the quintessential shared experience among all Hispanics? I would argue that it’s the fact that we live in two worlds – our ethnic world defined by either our or our parents/grandparents’ home country and our mainstream, American world. This cuts across the Hispanic acculturation spectrum. If you believe that we are the sum of our life experiences, then there is a potentially powerful connection among tens of millions of Hispanics living in the U.S. that social media has the potential to tap into.

Lastly, social media has provided Hispanics with the ability to find and create content that matters to them – highly niche content beyond the cookie-cutter “Hispanic” content created by Hispanic TV, radio, magazines, and newspapers that was designed to be all things for all Hispanics. Remember, Hispanics are a highly diverse group in the U.S., from 22 different nationalities, who now live across this varied country, who speak differently, eat different foods, and have very different passions. The long-tail world of social media content has created a conduit for these hundreds of Hispanic sub-groups to connect with each other digitally.

So how can marketers and brands successfully utilize social media to reach Hispanics? I will delve into that subject through new research on our Hispanic Personas project. I am going to be unveiling this groundbreaking Hispanic Persona project that will delve into the psychographics of social Hispanics at the Hispanicize 2011 Conference in Los Angeles on April 7.

My next MediaPost article will introduce some toplines of that research, but the full research will only be available at Hispanicize 2011.

While there was nothing that jumped out as particularly “earth shattering” and surprising, I found the importance placed on online “window shopping” to be interesting. You have to figure that a lot of that type of activity was related to clothing, electronics, and other “lifestyle” categories, and a lot of that time was likely spent on sites like Amazon.com and BestBuy.com.

Needless to say, some interesting food for thought for a lot of brands in those lifestyle categories, especially after the 2010 Census figures come out. I anticipate some big, surprising numbers on the Hispanic youth market this spring.

Last week, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) held its annual Multicultural Marketing Conference, and despite a heavy-hitting agenda focused on the importance of targeted and relevant communication to drive growth in the multicultural segment, many attendees and reporters walked away with the misperception that a singular insight focused on cultural commonalities should guide marketing strategy. That one-size-fits-all marketing approach doesn’t deliver multicultural consumers. In fact, some of the country’s top marketing thought leaders at the conference cited case studies in which specific multicultural insights, which reporters erroneously called narrowcasting, indeed were the cornerstone of their profit-building campaigns.

Perhaps the confusion was driven by Ogilvy’s sponsorship of the conference and the launch of their new cross-cultural practice. The unilateral marketing approach may sound appealing to save costs, but mass marketing will wipe out brands…and that wasn’t the message multicultural marketers were delivering.

The conference theme – Multicultural is the New Mainstream – and opening remarks from Gilbert Dávila, chair of the ANA’s multicultural marketing and diversity committee, reiterated the importance of targeted marketing to achieve full business potential. “You can’t target these markets the same way you’ve targeted the general market to date,” Dávila said. “We’ve got to devise creative ways to reach these groups – either in English or in their own native or cultural languages- so that our messages make them feel we are talking to THEM. To not address multicultural groups in culturally relevant ways is a huge mistake too many make.

“In the Hispanic market, we recognize that Spanish language remains the language of the heart and of preference, and is critically important to an effective communications platform. If you take nothing else from this conference, please remember that just because you can speak English to a multicultural audience, doesn’t mean that you can include them in your marketing efforts without taking their language, preferences and cultural cues into consideration. Multicultural groups don’t ask to be included; they expect to be represented.”

Savvy marketers like Betsy Frank, chief research and insights officer at Time Inc., understand that as well. “Because powerful storytelling is at the center of everything we do, our brands need to incorporate the perspective and needs of the multicultural audience into the stories we tell,” Frank says. “We need to tailor marketing and business strategies accordingly.”

That’s the value that a specialized Hispanic agency brings.

Let’s dispel the belief that Hispanic agencies fear general market agencies because GM agencies can do it better than Hispanic-specialized shops. The reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. Our objection is that their approach — a cross-cultural strategy — is one that waters down communication in order to be everything to everybody and waters down the results.

Here’s an example. The journey of our Latina Millennial mom is very different than other cultures. Rather than being the child who was given a trophy for every activity, which would lead her to become more ‘me’ focused; it was the hard work of her parents and the respect that she has for them that has driven her to succeed.

The general market would say, “Ah! Millennials are more ‘ME’ focused and that’s our point of convergence for all moms so therefore we can execute one communication strategy.” However; that approach lacks sensitivity to why the Latina mom is the way she is. Guess what? The more inspirational way of talking to Millennials just may be through the Latina insight.

Clients are demanding a holistic approach to marketing with a single brand voice, but that doesn’t mean sacrificing targeted communication. The goal should be to bring the insight to the strategy, and if the granularity demands a separate communication, so be it. If not, fine; but do the homework! Let the cultural experts help guide the development of the communication.

The event was billed as the first stop in a multi-city tour of California by LATISM. LATISM bills itself as “the largest organization of Social Media profesionals of Hispanic origin. Our members are bloggers, twitters, social network group leaders, e-commerce owners, marketers and more. ”

If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard of LATISM, and maybe the Latino2 tour, but were not really sure what the group is about?

While I have generally been supportive of LATISM, and agreed to participate in the Latino2 LA event as a panelist, I truly did not know what to expect. In fact, whenever people ask me about LATISM, I have a hard time giving them a succinct description of the group (or “movement” if you prefer).

So I attended the entire conference and tried to take it in, observe the attendees, and “listen in” on conversations as much as possible to try to size-up LATISM.

First, a couple of observations about the event:

– There was a decent sized crowd in attendance (I “ball parked” it at around 150-170 people)

– A lot of the attendees were bloggers and social media power users (i.e. people with 1,000+ Twitter followers, etc.)

– 95% of the attendees were Hispanic.

– More interestingly, I would say the majority of the Hispanic attendees were fully bilingual, probably best described as “partially-acculturated”

– The major and most visible corporate sponsors were large technology companies (e.g. HP)

– Local PR firms had a strong presence at the event

Listening to the conversations and discussions both during the formal program and during networking breaks, I noticed a couple of interesting things:

1. There were countless anecdotes about attendee older family members recently jumping into social media (e.g. stories about Spanish-dominant “abuelitas” and older parents recently signing up for Facebook and “friending” them)

2. More specifically, a lot of these stories had an interesting twist – that using Facebook was the impetus for these older Hispanics to begin to use the Internet in general.

3. A lot of the bloggers in attendance started blogging because they felt a dissatisfaction with mainstream media and content that was irrelevant to them. Simply put, they didn’t identify with most Spanish-language media (“it’s for recent immigrants”) and feel that general market media has failed to connect with them culturally.

In summary, the event was best described as a early-stage version of a Hispanic “BlogWorld.” It’s also clear that there is a large and growing Hispanic social media world (bloggers, twitter users, amateur content producers, etc.), and that a lot of growth is coming from older, less acculturated Hispanics.

It’s also clear that a lot of the most vocal members of the LATISM community are looking to fill gaps they see between the traditional media and social media spectrum.

Sounds a lot like the early days of Spanish TV…

An encouraging sign that could indicate the economy is on the mend is increased interest from diverse organizations (Fortune 1000, government, non-profit, etc.) in recruitment advertising and outreach.

One area of significant interest is diversity recruitment. More and more organizations in a variety of sectors are beginning to examine ways their staff can represent the changing face of America. Looking at diversity recruitment, heavy emphasis is being placed on reaching qualified Hispanic talent. A number of organizations have mentioned to me Hispanic recruitment is a strategic priority for the next one to five years – particularly companies seeking specialized talent and skill sets, such as recruiting Hispanic STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) professionals.

I don’t think I will offend anyone by stating Hispanic recruitment has been a fairly formulaic business for decades. In most cases, organizations have managed Hispanic recruiting with three tactics:

1. Attendance at Hispanic career fairs / conferences, such as the National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA) Annual Conference, National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Conference, etc.

2. Participation and sponsorship of Hispanic professional and trade organizations, such as the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA), Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), etc.

3. Placing job postings on Hispanic-focused job boards such as LatPro.com or iHispano.com.

In many cases, these tactics are bundled by one organization – for example, companies recruiting Hispanic MBAs often turn to NSHBMA for sponsorship packages which include a booth at their annual conference job fair and the ability post positions on the NSHMBA job boards.

While the aforementioned tactics remain valid ways to recruit Hispanics, the rapid adoption of digital media – particularly heavy Hispanic social media usage – represents a seismic shift in how companies (and many of the organizations listed above) should approach Hispanic recruitment.

A review of two of the largest social networks in the U.S. – Facebook and LinkedIn – should provide a sense of how social media is changing Hispanic recruitment. Starting with Facebook:

• As of June 2010, Facebook reports they reach 1.4 million Spanish-speaking U.S. Hispanics.

• A quick search of Facebook pages shows there are:
o More than 1,000 “pages” with the word “Hispanic” or “Latino” in their name.
o More than 1,000 “groups” with the word “Hispanic” or “Latino” in their name.
• Facebook ads provide organizations the ability to launch cost-per-click ad campaigns micro-targeted to users based on such metrics as languages spoken, age, likes and interests (e.g. you can reach 60K people ages 30-64, who speak Spanish and have a college degree).

Jumping over to the professional social network LinkedIn reveals equally compelling opportunities:

• Searching “people” with the word “Hispanic” (in their profiles) returns 46,000+ professionals who can be filtered by location, industry, groups, company, seniority level, function and company size.

• There are currently 507 “groups” on LinkedIn with the word “Hispanic” in their name (the largest has 3,602 members).

• There are currently 417 “groups” on LinkedIn with the word “Latino” in their name (the largest has 2,191 members).

• Looing at nationality specific groups, there are as many as 150 Mexican groups, down to two groups for Costa Ricans.

• Linkedin’s Direct Ads platform allows advertisers to target users based on criteria such as age, gender, geography (e.g. a company can easily create ads targeting experienced hi-tech professionals ages 35+ in hi-density Hispanic markets)

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Twitter, custom social networks (on Ning, etc.), and a variety of other social media platforms present equally compelling opportunities to reach even the most targeted Hispanic groups.

There is obviously more to effective Hispanic recruitment than hyper-targeted media channels or leveraging existing online communities. As with any type of advertising program, research is necessary to identify key insights from which to build Hispanic recruitment messaging and creative. In addition, most organizations already have access to the most important asset in developing effective Hispanic recruitment advertising – Hispanic employees. These assets, as well as leveraging key Hispanic insights, should drive the creation of content and creative that will drive awareness.

However social platforms like the ones previously identified, represent an opportunity to drive engagement through paid and earned media activity. This is critical to effectively activating Hispanic talent and getting the most out of the offline partnerships with organizations and event activations that drive highly successful Hispanic recruitment programs.

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the Forrester Marketing Forum. There was one particular discussion, run by Forrester Analyst Sean Corcoran, that got me thinking a lot about the future of Hispanic marketing.

Corcoran’s session, entitled “The Role of Agencies in the Adaptive Era” revolved around the future of agency relationships, particularly digital agencies, in a world where people consume multiple media, trust one another more than they do marketers, social media helps them connect, and consumer determine what is relevant. The session, which referred to Forrester’s March 2010 “The Future of Agency Relationship,” actually went further into an evaluation of the relevancy of today’s “Big 5” agency model of traditional advertising agencies, direct marketing agencies, media planning agencies, interactive agencies and communications/PR agencies. The takeaway: none of these 5 dominant agency types are appropriate for this new era that requires agencies to artfully combine branding, communications, channel planning & execution, creative, technology and analytics. Instead, a new holistic agency model, based on holistic 360 consumer strategies, instead of the old “push” strategies of the 20th century must ensue.

Looking at this situation and based on Forrester’s insights I infer that two trends will ensue. With so many choices (as agencies continue to compete with each other), larger marketers will move away from traditional “Agency of Record” relationships to working with multiple agencies, many of whom will have stand-out capabilities either in branding, communications, channel planning, creative, technology or analytics. These agencies will be given opportunities to work across disciplines, and bring fresh thinking to the old big 5 mindsets. Mid-to-smaller sized marketers will continue to consolidate their work with new “agencies of record” that will “re-bundle” media, branding, creative, technology, analytics and PR to be relevant in this adapative era. New specialties will be organized around industry and vertical expertise, as opposed to capabilities. The big question for big 5 agencies types will be whether to “double-down” and focus on a specialist role or re-bundle to pursue lead agency roles?

What does all this mean for Hispanic marketing agencies, who are also organized around the same big 5 model? Are there other dynamics at work, particularly vis-à-vis the relationship between traditional agencies and Hispanic agencies?

Needless to say, Hispanic agencies will not be immune from the effects of this dramatic realignment of the agency model and industry. However, I feel the end results and decisions facing Hispanic shops will be different. At the top the marketer food chain, larger marketers will continue the recent trend we saw with Home Depot’s recent decision to move their Hispanic duties from a specialist to their general market agency. These large marketers, as they move away from AOR commitments in the general market, will likely give non-Hispanic agencies opportunities to develop Hispanic programs, across all of the 5 disciplines. It won’t be strange to see general market interactive agencies executing Hispanic programs!

Looking at mid-to-smaller marketers, the demand for “re-bundling” will also likely include multicultural market capabilities. In a world where marketing is more pull oriented, it’s difficult to imagine marketers separating multicultural and general market programs.

The common thread in both of these segments of the market will be that Hispanic agencies will need to expand beyond Hispanic capabilities to include other audiences, including the general market, to be relevant. While that decision won’t be optional, they will also have to decide whether they going to be specialists or lead agencies, in a new “rebundled” multicultural agency world.