Hispanic digital media spend will surpass print and radio, as in the general market. Digital media spend in the Hispanic market will continue to remain far behind TV, radio and print (approximately 5% in 2011). With all the talk about increased spending on Hispanic digital by agencies and marketers alike, we will look back on 2012 and see digital spend stayed well below double digit territory and is nowhere near surpassing radio or print (as we saw in the general market in 2011).

Hispanic ad spend will stay flat in 2012. If there is one prediction you can take to the bank, it’s this one – Hispanic media ad spend will grow in 2012 (compared to 2011). While there is still concern over a double-dip recession in 2012 (particularly as things unravel in Europe), the 2012 elections and the juggernaut that is Univision will assure growth in the market. Portada recently released a report projecting 4-5% media growth in the Hispanic market based on a survey of Hispanic marketing professionals. I think this is conservative.

Marketers will increase their budget allocations to the Hispanic market. Although the previous prediction would logically lead most to believe that marketers will increase their Hispanic budget allocations (the percentage of their overall marketing budgets directed at the U.S. Hispanic market), the sad reality is that things will remain status quo when it comes to the approach most marketers take to allocating budgets to the Hispanic market. Most of the growth in Hispanic ad spend in 2012 will be driven by new entrants into the space – led by political advertising (not just candidates – but the also super PACs – all of whom are finally paying attention to Hispanic voters). Existing Hispanic advertisers will continue to maintain their Hispanic spend in the same range as in 2010.

Mainstream digital publishers will stop launching English-language “Latino” Websites. The last 2 years have seen major media companies jump into the Hispanic digital space – targeting the oft discussed bicultural and English dominant Latino, including FoxNewsLatino.com. NBCLatino.com, and The Huffington Post Latino Voices. Some might assume the space is now crowded, or that competing with media powerhouses like News Corp, AOL and NBC Universal is futile. Well, I see more of these “Latino” extensions coming in 2012. Why? The barrier to entry is so low. With digital, unlike the offline world of broadcast or print, there is very little capital costs (if any) associated with launching a new publication. Sure, a good Website infrastructure is not cheap, and producing quality content is not easy (or inexpensive), but compared to the printing and infrastructure costs of launching a new Spanish-language daily or the licensing fees associated with launching a new Spanish-language radio station, the costs are marginal and worth the risk. One interesting ramification of this new media growth will be that there will be many more options to reach English-speaking Latinos than ever before.

Mobile will finally become a key part of the Hispanic marketing mix for most advertisers. “2012 will be the year of Hispanic mobile marketing.” I’m sure you’ve heard or read this somewhere. With all the data on Hispanics’ heavy use of mobile and major growth in general market mobile marketing, it stands to reason that Hispanic mobile will come of age in 2012. Unfortunately, this is a major case of all bark and no bite. I see a couple of problems with these naïve predictions. # 1: Where will the money come from? With most mobile media programs funded out of digital media buckets, and Hispanic digital media spending in the 5-6% range, mobile marketing programs will be hard pressed to find funding in an already dry well. #2 With so much of the growth in mobile activity being driven by mobile Web browsing and tablet use, I do not anticipate significant investment on the part of marketers into Hispanic mobile- and tablet-optimized sites (when most hardly keep up their browser-based Hispanic Web and microsites) #3 Hispanic mobile and social media are inextricably intertwined, and Hispanic social media is still in its infancy (see below).

Clients will continue moving their Hispanic advertising to general market shops. As the economy slowly starts improving in 2012 (I’m an optimist), I expect there will be less pressure on marketers to consolidate their general market and Hispanic advertising programs in one ad shop. Equally important, many veteran Hispanic marketers who consolidated will likely miss the attention to detail and specialized resources they got from Hispanic ad agencies compared to the Hispanic divisions of general market shops. Finally, I think general market shops are less excited about investing in Hispanic capabilities and divisions after experiencing how little budget is actually allocated to these programs. 5% of a client’s marketing budget is not too exciting when you already have 95% of it.

Hispanic social media will become a major force in the industry. Again – lots of buzz, but very little substance to back it up. While 2010 and 2011 have seen a lot attention placed on engaging Hispanics in social media, with the establishment of two rival Hispanic social media organizations and countless blog networks touting thousands of influential Hispanic bloggers, the space is still in its infancy and will take a while to catch up to the general market in scale and sophistication. While I applaud the efforts of organizations like LATISM, Hispanicize, and Latina Bloggers Connect among others, large reach and national marketer scale is still missing from the space. Specifically, as more and more Latinos start blogging and building large networks on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, there is a key missing ingredient –an audience of millions of Latinos consuming their content. Until that happens, Hispanic social media will be a niche within a niche.

We won’t see any new Hispanic advertising agencies open their doors in 2012. No matter how challenging or competitive the Hispanic ad industry gets, it always amazes me that new Hispanic ad agencies, PR shops, and other marketing agencies are launched every year. I don’t have an official count, but I know of at least a dozen or so shops launched between 2009 and 2011 (in arguably the most challenging 3 years the industry has faced). It’s quite a testament to the resilience and constant innovation within the industry that optimistic entrepreneurs see opportunities to make a better mousetrap in our business.

I think 2012 will be a good year for our industry – filled it’s fair share of challenges, but more importantly, opportunities to grow and prosper, as Hispanics become a bigger and more integral element of the American corporate and cultural life.

(an edited version of this article originally ran on MediaPost’s Engage Hispanic blog on January 5, 2012)

Everyone knows that Hispanics are heavy mobile users, but…
We have all seen multiple charts and statistics that show that Hispanics are at the forefront of mobile device adoption and usage. We are aware that they have the highest penetration for mobile phones (eMarketer, 2011), that they over-index on smartphone adoption (Nielsen, 2011), and that they are more likely (vs. the general market) to use their mobile device to download music, play games, and access social networking sites (Scarborough, 2010). Unfortunately, most of the research out there regarding Hispanics and mobile technology focuses on basic penetration and usage data.

While this is great for establishing that an opportunity exists to reach Hispanics via mobile, it does little to provide actionable insights to help marketers leverage this channel to integrate mobile to their marketing mix in order to connect with this segment. So the question remains: how should a CPG brand target Hispanics via mobile? How should a major retailer take advantage of the millions of Hispanic customers with smartphones in hand that enter their stores daily? Other than making sure your existing Hispanic (digital) marketing is mobile-friendly, there is very little to go on.

The reality is that more and deeper data is needed. We would all benefit from insightful, well-conducted field qualitative research, which would provide a better understanding of U.S. Hispanic mobile users’ needs (in terms of information and interaction), as well as of the underlying psychographics.

A good place to start: In-store retail
At any given moment, 45% of Hispanic shoppers at any retail location have their smartphone with them (Nielsen, 2011). A good place to start learning more would be to explore in-store mobile engagement. More specifically, identify opportunities for retailers to connect with Hispanic shoppers through innovative, mobile-driven experiences in stores. Considering the fact that Hispanics’ discretionary spending surpassed $129 billion in 2010 (Experian Simmons, 2011), and that 7 of the top 50 Hispanic advertisers are big box retailers (AdAge Hispanic Fact Pack, 2011), it appears that it would be highly rewarding to better understanding how to engage Hispanic consumers in retail environments.

For example, language aside, what specific opportunities exist for creating an in-store mobile engagement strategy that appropriately reflects the norms and cultural priorities of Hispanic populations? What are the relevant differences between Hispanics and non-Hispanics in their use of smartphones (for shopping purposes) that shed light on their different in-store mobile experiences?

Do differences in ethnicity play any significant role in shaping in-store mobile experiences, or are the commonalities greater than the differences (i.e., Mexican-American vs. Puerto-Rican)?What are new ways to leverage in-store mobile engagement that will have special appeal to Hispanic shoppers?

Conversely, what are the risks in creating an in-store mobile strategy that fails to account for these norms and priorities? Are there any ways, apart from language, in which Hispanics find in-store mobile experiences designed for non-Hispanic audiences deficient?

These are all great initial questions for big box retailers and marketers alike to ask. Nonetheless, looking at in-store mobile engagement opportunities is just the beginning. There is no doubt there are countless opportunities to better understand Hispanic consumers in the context of their advanced use of mobile technology, and to create tailored user experiences that result in loyal customers with a high lifetime value.

(an edited version of this article originally ran on MediaPost’s Engage Hispanic blog on 12/1/2011)

• Hispanics are early adopters of new technology, especially within the social media realm (we’re basically dealing with an “early adopter” consumer segment)
• Traditional Hispanic marketing is fairly predictable with clear steps to execution and predictable outcomes (you create a print ad and if you get it into the publisher before a certain date it will run it in a magazine with a certain circulation and will be viewed by x number of consumers)

So essentially, Hispanic social media marketing, even more than traditional social media marketing, is highly unpredictable. It is realm chock full of unknowns. An experienced social media marketer will tell you that they never know what will work before they’re actually in market, so it’s a game of trial and error. You have to be willing to fail before you succeed.

Unfortunately, the way most marketing programs (including social media programs) are planned, developed, launched, measured and optimized is based on a linear model that depends on the accuracy of numerous assumptions and emphasizes the planning artifacts (usually in the form of documents like “strategic plans”, creative briefs, and media plans). It is “waterfall” sequential process (as its described in the software development world):

By contrast, over the last few years, a new, more flexible approach to marketing, based on the tenets of Agile methodology (again, an approach pioneered in software development), has been evangelized by many organizations that stresses speed to market, rapid iteration, and embraces the notion that marketers don’t know what works before they’re actually in market. Because of the unpredictable nature of the Hispanic consumer and their use of digital media, and the “wild west” nature of social media marketing, an agile approach is critical to success.

So what does this approach look like? It helps to contrast it to the way most of us have gone about developing marketing programs (and ironically, the waterfall method I proposed in last year’s Hispanic Social Media Guide)

So how do you get started with this new agile approach to Hispanic social media? Follow these simple steps:

#1 Assemble a small team and assign roles – Focus on “doers.” If you planning on producing a lot of Spanish content, get a Spanish copywriter on board. If you will be building an app, get a developer on the team. Give everyone clear roles and make sure you have all the resources to execute on your program.

#2 Decide on the duration of the first project (or “sprint”) – Emphasize short cycles, ideally 2-4 weeks. Anything longer than that means you’re overplanning or don’t have the resources you need to build what you want.

#3 Set goals for the first project / sprint – Flesh out your goals from a user perspective in the form of “stories.” E.g. “I want Hispanic moms to visit the Facebook page, ‘fan’ us, and download a printable recipe.”

#4 Set regular project/sprint meetings – Set short (10-30 min) meeting daily or a couple times a week to discuss the stories, review tasks and estimate time requirements.

#5 Project / sprint retrospective – After you’re in market, evaluate and discuss with the team what went well and what went didn’t.

#6 Start project/sprint planning again (for the next project/sprint) – Go back to step #3 and start again.

This approach to Hispanic social media isn’t about discarding all planning, but instead about condensing into short cycles, where documentation and assumptions are replaced with living programs and actual results (and data).

While I wouldn’t suggest this agile approach for all Hispanic marketing programs, particularly those with hard deadlines and highly defined deliverables (like event marketing, direct mail, or print/OOH advertising), it’s perfectly suited to social media marketing. Social media provides near instant feedback – you’ll know within a few days or weeks whether a program is working. Social media is also relatively inexpensive (particularly of the hard costs of media necessary with most traditional advertising), allowing for easy testing and learning.

One final note: agile Hispanic social media marketing is perfect for companies that are just getting started in the Hispanic market. Success in the U.S. Hispanic mark often requires investments and changes in other aspects of a company’s operation – such as customer service, human resources, and product / service development. Trying to predict them all upfront would be difficult if not impossible

If you haven’t read it, give it a once over (it’s re-posted at the end of this blog)

As we near the end of 2011 (isn’t that crazy?), it seems like as good a time as any to reflect on whether any of my predictions panned out.

I could make a pretty strong case that predictions #1-#4 were on point. Not seeing much movement on prediction #5 though.

What do you think?

—————————————–

I made the bold prediction almost a year ago today that Hispanic marketing was in for big changes in 2011. I have to admit I think I will be proven wrong.

I think 2011 will result in even more changes than I boldly forecast last year. In fact, I think by the time 2012 rolls around, we’re barely going to recognize the Hispanic marketing space that has seen tremendous growth (more people, more media companies, and more agencies) but changed very little since 2000. Here are my revised, emboldened predictions for Hispanic marketing in 2011:

Prediction #1 – The death of the Hispanic advertising agency
2010 was most definitely the year of the full-on assault on Hispanic advertising agencies (starting with the Home Depot controversy in April, Crispin Porter’s absorption of Burger King Hispanic in August, and the ANA Multicultural Conference controversy in September). 2011 will no doubt see a continued push by general market agencies into the Hispanic market. Not only will they continue this push by staffing up on Hispanic advertising talent, but also through acquisitions (I have firsthand knowledge of at least a few such acquisitions plans from some big ad agency players). Moreover, marketers, particularly those in “minority-majority” markets such as Los Angeles, will begin to follow El Pollo Loco’s lead and consolidate their Hispanic and General Market advertising accounts. Add in the fact that Hispanic ad agencies have been painfully slow in building digital capabilities (they’ve made a valiant “too little, too late” effort during the last 12-18 months), and the writing is on the wall – the start of a slow death for the Hispanic advertising agency model as we now know it.

Prediction #2 – Hispanic PR officially becomes Hispanic Social Media
2010 was also the year that Hispanic PR agencies took the plunge and fully embraced social media as the future of their industry. The success of the inaugural Hispanic PR & Social Media Conference and the LATISM Latino2 tour highlighted the coming of age of Hispanic social media. Hispanic bloggers and social media influencers are establishing themselves as the key centers of influence in the Hispanic community. This was coupled with the continued decline in Spanish print media (magazines and newspapers), which has started to feel the decline in readership resulting from consumer’s shift online and the recession. Looking ahead at 2011, I see a continued decline in Hispanic print coupled with an equally sharp rise in niche and “long-tail” Hispanic digital publishers (whether they are bloggers, Facebook influencers, or small Websites) – with what were formerly “Hispanic PR” agencies and professionals positioning themselves as the expert guides of this growing and increasingly prominent Hispanic social media space.

Prediction #3 – Digital leap-frogs “Hispanic”
During the boom years of Hispanic digital (2005-2008), the Hispanic digital media market looked a lot like the Hispanic traditional media landscape – a handful of prominent Spanish-language portals / mega-publishers that owned the market (e.g. Batanga.com, Univision.com, Terra.com, and Starmedia.com), surrounded by a lots of smaller upstart ad networks (e.g. Gorilla Nation, HispanoClick, Consorte Media) and a handful of general market publisher extensions into the Hispanic market (e.g. ESPNDeportes.com, CNNEspanol.com, etc.) that got the scraps. During the last 12-18 months, the Hispanic digital media market has fragmented, led by technology such as behavioral targeting, demand side platforms (DSPs) and ad networks with immense scale and reach. While the Univision.com’s and Terra.com’s of the Hispanic digital media market will not be going away anytime soon, their days as “market makers” are numbered. Looking ahead, as Hispanic digital media consumption becomes more social (Facebook) and personal (mobile), and mirrored Spanish Websites /microsites become a relic of the past (recent AOL research and Best Buy’s well chronicled experience shows that Hispanic consumers have come to view Spanish sites as inherently inferior to “main” English language sites), the Hispanic digital marketing space will be unlike anything veteran Hispanic marketers have grown accustomed to seeing in their analog Hispanic world.

Prediction #4 – The multicultural mainstream becomes a reality
Multicultural consumers already make up 35% of the entire U.S. population. Guess what will happen to that percentage when the 2010 Census numbers come out this spring? Welcome to the new “multicultural mainstream” – a new America where close to 40% of the overall population is multicultural (Hispanic, Black, Asian and multi-racial). DMA’s like Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, and Washington, DC are already “minority majority” markets (Hispanics, Blacks and Asians combined make up more than 50% of the total population) – expect cities like New York and Chicago to join the list in 2011. This will only put more pressure on advertisers, particularly regional ones, to re-assess how they allocate marketing resources to ethnic groups like Hispanics. My theory is more of the “El Pollo Loco” phenomenon from Prediction #1 – as advertisers consolidate their Hispanic (and other multicultural marketing efforts) with their general market ad agencies.

Prediction #5 – The birth of the Hispanic Youth Market
The last few years have seen a steady increase in dialogue, events and attention among marketers about the Hispanic youth market (Hispanics under the age of 24). The statistics are already mind-boggling:
• In 13 years, 50% of Americans under 18 will be minorities (Source: U.S. Census Bureau)
• 80% are US-born (Source: University of California, San Francisco)

I predict that the 2010 Census figures regarding Hispanic Youth will be the most unexpected… and growing. Yet the Hispanic youth market represents a conundrum for Hispanic marketers – a growing market that increasingly identifies and shows pride in its Hispanic heritage but consumes very little Spanish-language media and sees the world through color-blind lenses. This will be the toughest nut to crack for marketers and advertising professionals of all stripes – general market, Hispanic, digital, direct response, social media and everything in between. Yet I see Hispanic youth as the biggest marketing opportunity to come out of 2011.

Think of 2011 as the year of creative destruction in Hispanic marketing – some things will die, a lot will change, and brand new opportunities will sprout from the ashes.

Moreover, my colleagues and I at Sensis have published a primary research effort we’re calling the “Hispanic Persona Project” – aimed at creating personas representing the entire U.S. Hispanic Internet population. I encourage you to download the free report at www.HispanicPersonaProject.com.

However, in this last installment of a 3-part discussion on Hispanics, social media and personas, I want to take the final results of the Hispanic Persona Project and apply them in the real world of online Hispanics. A “how-to” guide to using Hispanic personas specifically and personas more generally.

Establishing a Primary Persona

The first step in using personas is to identify your primary persona. We developed 4 personas as part of Hispanic Persona Project, and generally speaking, organizations create 2-4 personas. But personas are not meant to be weighted equally – they are most effective when a primary persona is identified that will take preference and priority over the others. There are different ways to identify a primary persona, but a good rule of thumb is to select the persona whose needs most overlap with the other personas.

Now the fun part –using personas to plan marketing programs. Let’s apply Hispanic Personas across three dimensions: 1) Paid Media, 2) Planning interaction and 3) Planning experiences.

Planning Paid Media

Paid media planning is a good place to start using personas. Starting with targeting, we can utilize context. For an example, let’s look at the Carlos, the “Nostalgic Newbie.” We know from his persona that connecting with his home country is a key element of his behavior. U.S. geo-targeted digital media buys on Latin American Websites and ad networks will be highly effective. However digital media offers even more advanced targeting capabilities, such as behavioral targeting, that can help us plan paid media programs. Using Ivan, the “Tech-fluential” as an example, it would be very difficult to “target” him based on his media consumption in a scalable way simply by buying the handful of Websites he visits that are different from his general market counterparts. However, behavioral-based media buys, where you target him on mainstream sites based on his “long-tail” behavior visiting smaller Hispanic sites and blogs can be powerful. Finally, recent research from Yahoo! shows that factoring in mindsets can have a big impact on the effectiveness of paid advertising – advertising has to be contextually relevant when people are engaging in online passions, while users connecting with friends or consuming entertainment will be much more amenable to “unexpected” offers and ads.

Planning Experiences (Owned Media)

Personas also provide useful texture to identify and optimize owned digital experiences, such as Websites, mobile pages, and social media platforms (Facebook pages, YouTube channels and Twitter skins, etc.). Looking at Sandra the “Social Techie,” it’s clear that we need to establish consistent, yet customized experiences available across multiple devices – such as browser-based Websites, mobile Websites, and potentially destinations accessible via new devices such as tablets. We can also use personas to prioritize features and functionality. Whereas an electronics company might provide Ivan the “Tech-fluential” with links to online retailers where he can buy their product, they would emphasize price comparison information and product specifications with Armando the “Utilitarian Explorer.”

Planning Interaction (Earned Media)

Personas arguably provide the most value (vis-à-vis other planning tools) when we begin to plan digital interaction that generates the type of earned media that is the holy grail of social media marketing programs. How do we get someone to “like” a brand page on Facebook? How do we motivate a small percentage of Hispanics to share content with their online network? What motivates someone to create content that is favorable to your product or service? Looking at the 4 Hispanic personas we created, it’s clear that two of the personas represent the majority of the opportunity – the “Tech-fluential” and the “Social Techie.” In this sense, if your campaign is emphasizing social interaction, you will probably want to prioritize and focus on one of these personas. Digging deeper, you can establish your social media campaign objectives based on their behavioral profiles. If your target is Sandra the “Social Technie”, then you can realistically expect sharing of content and establish KPIs around that kind of interaction. However, if Armando is your target, you should manage expectations to focus on impressions and “time spent” metrics.

Where the rubber really meets the road with personas is in their ability to help organization understand what motivates users. In social media this is critical, as motivation will drive online behavior and interaction. With Ivan, the “Tech-influential,” that motivation is influence – this persona places a high value on being “in the know,” so offering him social functionality, like the ability to retweet content or influencing the opinion of a prominent blogger he follows will be highly valuable. With Sandra, the Social Techie, the motivation is popularity, staying in touch, and being heard. She will be highly influenced by the behavior of her peers and giving her the ability to easily share portable content will pay big dividends.

Takeaways

While this article was a hypothetical application of broad personas, the value they provide only amplifies when you create your own personas (Hispanic or not) and focus your application on a specific industry, product category or segment. Moreover, personas are dynamic planning tools that are meant to be “enhanced’ with additional data points. After going to market, you should regularly optimize your personas with Web analytics data, digital media tracking results, and social media monitoring outputs from past campaigns.

(an edited version of this article originally ran on MediaPost’s Engage Hispanic blog on 5/5/2011)

I made the bold prediction almost a year ago today that Hispanic marketing was in for big changes in 2011. I have to admit I think I will be proven wrong.

I think 2011 will result in even more changes than I boldly forecast last year. In fact, I think by the time 2012 rolls around, we’re barely going to recognize the Hispanic marketing space that has seen tremendous growth (more people, more media companies, and more agencies) but changed very little since 2000. Here are my revised, emboldened predictions for Hispanic marketing in 2011:

Prediction #1 – The death of the Hispanic advertising agency
2010 was most definitely the year of the full-on assault on Hispanic advertising agencies (starting with the Home Depot controversy in April, Crispin Porter’s absorption of Burger King Hispanic in August, and the ANA Multicultural Conference controversy in September). 2011 will no doubt see a continued push by general market agencies into the Hispanic market. Not only will they continue this push by staffing up on Hispanic advertising talent, but also through acquisitions (I have firsthand knowledge of at least a few such acquisitions plans from some big ad agency players). Moreover, marketers, particularly those in “minority-majority” markets such as Los Angeles, will begin to follow El Pollo Loco’s lead and consolidate their Hispanic and General Market advertising accounts. Add in the fact that Hispanic ad agencies have been painfully slow in building digital capabilities (they’ve made a valiant “too little, too late” effort during the last 12-18 months), and the writing is on the wall – the start of a slow death for the Hispanic advertising agency model as we now know it.

Prediction #2 – Hispanic PR officially becomes Hispanic Social Media
2010 was also the year that Hispanic PR agencies took the plunge and fully embraced social media as the future of their industry. The success of the inaugural Hispanic PR & Social Media Conference and the LATISM Latino2 tour highlighted the coming of age of Hispanic social media. Hispanic bloggers and social media influencers are establishing themselves as the key centers of influence in the Hispanic community. This was coupled with the continued decline in Spanish print media (magazines and newspapers), which has started to feel the decline in readership resulting from consumer’s shift online and the recession. Looking ahead at 2011, I see a continued decline in Hispanic print coupled with an equally sharp rise in niche and “long-tail” Hispanic digital publishers (whether they are bloggers, Facebook influencers, or small Websites) – with what were formerly “Hispanic PR” agencies and professionals positioning themselves as the expert guides of this growing and increasingly prominent Hispanic social media space.

Prediction #3 – Digital leap-frogs “Hispanic”
During the boom years of Hispanic digital (2005-2008), the Hispanic digital media market looked a lot like the Hispanic traditional media landscape – a handful of prominent Spanish-language portals / mega-publishers that owned the market (e.g. Batanga.com, Univision.com, Terra.com, and Starmedia.com), surrounded by a lots of smaller upstart ad networks (e.g. Gorilla Nation, HispanoClick, Consorte Media) and a handful of general market publisher extensions into the Hispanic market (e.g. ESPNDeportes.com, CNNEspanol.com, etc.) that got the scraps. During the last 12-18 months, the Hispanic digital media market has fragmented, led by technology such as behavioral targeting, demand side platforms (DSPs) and ad networks with immense scale and reach. While the Univision.com’s and Terra.com’s of the Hispanic digital media market will not be going away anytime soon, their days as “market makers” are numbered. Looking ahead, as Hispanic digital media consumption becomes more social (Facebook) and personal (mobile), and mirrored Spanish Websites /microsites become a relic of the past (recent AOL research and Best Buy’s well chronicled experience shows that Hispanic consumers have come to view Spanish sites as inherently inferior to “main” English language sites), the Hispanic digital marketing space will be unlike anything veteran Hispanic marketers have grown accustomed to seeing in their analog Hispanic world.

Prediction #4 – The multicultural mainstream becomes a reality
Multicultural consumers already make up 35% of the entire U.S. population. Guess what will happen to that percentage when the 2010 Census numbers come out this spring? Welcome to the new “multicultural mainstream” – a new America where close to 40% of the overall population is multicultural (Hispanic, Black, Asian and multi-racial). DMA’s like Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, and Washington, DC are already “minority majority” markets (Hispanics, Blacks and Asians combined make up more than 50% of the total population) – expect cities like New York and Chicago to join the list in 2011. This will only put more pressure on advertisers, particularly regional ones, to re-assess how they allocate marketing resources to ethnic groups like Hispanics. My theory is more of the “El Pollo Loco” phenomenon from Prediction #1 – as advertisers consolidate their Hispanic (and other multicultural marketing efforts) with their general market ad agencies.

Prediction #5 – The birth of the Hispanic Youth Market
The last few years have seen a steady increase in dialogue, events and attention among marketers about the Hispanic youth market (Hispanics under the age of 24). The statistics are already mind-boggling:
• In 13 years, 50% of Americans under 18 will be minorities (Source: U.S. Census Bureau)
• 80% are US-born (Source: University of California, San Francisco)

I predict that the 2010 Census figures regarding Hispanic Youth will be the most unexpected… and growing. Yet the Hispanic youth market represents a conundrum for Hispanic marketers – a growing market that increasingly identifies and shows pride in its Hispanic heritage but consumes very little Spanish-language media and sees the world through color-blind lenses. This will be the toughest nut to crack for marketers and advertising professionals of all stripes – general market, Hispanic, digital, direct response, social media and everything in between. Yet I see Hispanic youth as the biggest marketing opportunity to come out of 2011.

Think of 2011 as the year of creative destruction in Hispanic marketing – some things will die, a lot will change, and brand new opportunities will sprout from the ashes.

As the U.S. Hispanic market steadily grows, it is inevitably starting to look like a microcosm of the entire U.S. population – in terms of both demographic diversity and distribution. More importantly, the notion of Hispanics as a monolithic group of lower socio-economic, Spanish-speaking, recent immigrants concentrated in the southwestern and northeastern U.S. is crumbling.

Yet as the Hispanic market continues to grow and diversify, and the U.S-born and acculturated proportion of its population expands into a majority of the overall market, they continue to show a strong tendency to stay connected with the culture of parents or grandparent’s home country. It continues to be very hard to argue against looking at the entire U.S. Hispanic market (both U.S. and foreign born, acculturated and non-acculturated) as a distinct market segment, important for marketers to understand and uniquely cater to.

As this distinct Hispanic market continues to grow and evince demographic diversity similar to the overall U.S. population, so to do the opportunities for all brands and companies to engage them profitably. Whether its luxury consumer brands (e.g. automotive, retail, financial services) targeting affluent consumers or B2B companies targeting business-owners and industry decision makers (e.g. software makers, computer hardware, travel), all have opportunities within this growing and diverse Hispanic market.

Unfortunately, the Hispanic marketing paradigms of the last 40 years, have and continue to be, irrelevant to all but a few mass market brands such consumer packaged goods (CPGs), mid-to-low-end retailers, and large telecoms. What this is paradigm? Spanish-language ads run on mass market Spanish-language TV and radio (nationally or regionally). This may sounds overly simplistic, but a quick look at the entries and winning spots at any AHAA (Association of Hispanic Advertising Agency) AdAge Creative Awards program (all Spanish language spots) or the most recent AdAge report on Hispanic media ad spending (78% of all Hispanic media spend went to TV and radio) supports my point.

There are a lot of brands and companies who are not currently investing in the U.S. Hispanic market (just 9 industries make up 43 of the top 50 current ad spenders in the U.S. Hispanic market). It’s not because there isn’t a market opportunity – I would argue that just about every company in the U.S. has an existing or potential Hispanic customer base. The problem lies in the irrelevant “mass marketing” tools currently used by most high profile Hispanic advertisers.

Let’s use an example to illustrate my point. A luxury auto manufacturer with a significant U.S. presence looks at some data on the U.S. Hispanic market, and realizes that there is a large, and growing, affluent segment. In fact, 2009 U.S. Census data shows that approximately 1.8 million Hispanic households (17%) have income of $100,000+. A very attractive segment for this luxury auto brand. Would developing a “paid media”-heavy Hispanic ad campaign revolving around Spanish language creative running on Spanish TV and radio make sense? Probably not, since data shows that only a small percentage of those 1.8 million households are bilingual or Spanish-dominant, and their consumption of TV and radio closely mirrors the general market. What’s a brand like this to do?

The answer is to take a completely different approach to advertising in the Hispanic market. The answer is precision marketing.

Precision marketing starts with throwing out “mass marketing” tactics and looking at advertising differently. Much like direct response advertisers have been doing for years (and many companies are successfully pioneering in the Hispanic market today), precision marketing involves thinking very quantitatively about your target, and focusing on reaching the individuals that are most likely to purchase your product or service, with the most relevant message, as cost-efficiently as possible. This isn’t about reaching all Hispanics with a message the works broadly with all of them – it’s about reaching the right Hispanics with a highly customized message.

Precision marketing is a 3-step process.

1. Precision Insights – effective advertising is based on sound and relevant consumer insights. The difference with precision insights is narrowing your market to a very tightly defined audience (think back to the example – Hispanic male head of households making $100K+/year). What motivates these consumers to buy your product, what makes them unique from their mainstream market counterparts? Language alone will not cut it (and will probably be irrelevant for many segments of the Hispanic market)

2. Precision Framework – a marketing framework is the simplified model of the complex real world used to predict and plan what specific target consumers will do before buying your product or service. The most popular marketing framework used heavily in direct marketing is the funnel (awareness ? purchase). In today’s world of social media driven consumer empowerment, social and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) frameworks might make the most sense. You need to define this precision framework, making sure it’s tightly related to the precision consumer insights.

3. Precision Media – lastly, with precision insights and framework in hand, it’s time to move away from mass media channels and buying tactics, and leverage the ever growing world of precision media. Digital (Web, mobile, social) will be a big part of this (utilizing behavioral, contextual, and profile targeting), but traditional media (TV, radio, print, OOH) is increasingly providing more opportunity to precisely target specific Hispanic segments (via day-part targets, advanced analytics, etc.). Whenever possible, utilize performance pricing to structure your media buys. Your media placements need to tightly align with a very specific Hispanic segment, not broad audiences of Spanish speakers

The $1 trillion Hispanic market has grown and matured to the point where it’s an opportunity for just about every company. The marketing tools and techniques are available to reach the right Hispanic consumers relevant to your product/service. The practitioners just need to catch up.

Hispanics and e-commerce is a fascinating topic. A topic that has been covered in almost every major research report on Hispanic Internet use since 2000, yet it is rarely given more attention than a small section of a larger white paper or a one-off report from some research firm tangentially involved in the retail space. Why is that?

It’s not because it doesn’t represent a viable market opportunity: U.S. Hispanics (according to the limited research on the topic) spend quite a bit online – $12.8 billion in 2008 with projections to reach $21.6 billion next year (JupiterResearch, 2007). That’s 11 percent of all e-commerce purchases (not too far below Hispanics’ percentage of the U.S. population). I think that Hispanic e-commerce doesn’t get the attention it deserves not because it isn’t a large, growing market, but because it is a complex subject, where the opportunity for retailers is amorphous and not very clearly understood. Furthermore, I would posit that there are not a lot of experts with actual experience in the arena of Hispanic online shopping (at least at the large retailer level). That theory is validated when you scour the Internet for case studies on the subject and find only the well publicized Best Buy and Home Depot cases.

Whenever I start looking at Hispanic e-commerce, four big questions continually come up. We can answer the first three fairly quickly:

1. Do Hispanics buy online?

Yes. The JupiterResearch data I reference above shows that Hispanics represent a vibrant component of the growing e-commerce market. While a significant percentage of Hispanics do not shop online due to various obstacles, it’s clear that English-, Spanish-speaking and bilingual Hispanics shop online in varying degrees.

2. Are Hispanics relevant to most Internet retailers?

Yes, particularly the larger Internet retailers offering broad product mixes. While there are thousands of niche Internet retailers that are completely irrelevant to Hispanics, a quick glance at the Internet Retailer 500 list would show that most of these sites have broad appeal that crosses over to the 50 million+ Hispanic market. ComScore data on Hispanic traffic to retail websites validates this – they reach 74 percent of online Hispanics (16 million).

3. Are Internet retailers already effectively reaching / selling to Hispanics online?

The answers to questions 1 and 2 show that a segment of Hispanics are already being reached by Internet retailers. However, an inverse look at the ComScore data reveals that there are potentially 36 million Hispanics that are not being reached by the top Internet retail Web sites. That’s a big chunk.

4. Are there differences between Hispanic online shoppers and their general market counterparts?

This is the million dollar question. This last question is actually at the core of how retailers should approach the Hispanic e-commerce opportunity.

Most of the focus of the Hispanic e-commerce debate has revolved around the language of the shopping platform and experience. I would posit that the fundamental question and opportunity regarding Hispanic e-commerce lies in understanding Hispanic online behavior.

There is some data out there that supports my theory:
• Hispanics that are comfortable buying online but will typically go to English versions of e-commerce sites (Internet Retailer/Omni Direct, 2010)
• Online Hispanics generally perceive English language Web sites as more comprehensive, detailed and useful than Spanish-language versions (AOL Cheskin Hispanic Cyberstudy, 2010)
• Concerns about providing personal information online (32 percent) and the desire to touch and feel products before making a purchase (30 percent) were the two leading reasons why Hispanic Internet users refrained from buying online (Forrester, 2008)
• Less than 20 percent of visitors to Best Buy’s Spanish Web site toggle back and forth between the English and Spanish sites (Best Buy Survey, 2008)

Maybe translating an online store and offering a mirrored English-Spanish e-commerce environment isn’t the answer? As someone who has been helping clients large and small build Spanish Web sites for 12+ years, I can tell you I’ve never been a big fan of wholesale Spanish translations of Web sites. Not only are Spanish Web site translations expensive and difficult to maintain, they are usually a strategic “cop-out.” Instead of spending the time and effort to understand exactly what online Hispanic consumers are demanding and focus on addressing those needs, you take a “shotgun” approach to just translate everything to Spanish. I’ve rarely seen this approach work.

Let me suggest that the real Hispanic e-commerce opportunity lies in understanding and addressing other aspects of e-commerce:
• Personalization
• Product offering / Product mix
• User experience / Visual design
• Emphasizing product research over product sales

Furthermore, as technology advances, and Hispanics continue to show a propensity towards early adoption of digital technology and devices, mobile commerce and kiosks might represent interesting new “channels” to sell to Hispanics electronically.

In addition to a solid combination of data and statistics on everything Hispanic advertising, the Fact Pack is full of ads from Hispanic media companies and ad agencies at the center of the industry. I counted a total of 25 ads this year. Of those 25 ads, 8 (about a 1/3) were for digital media companies (3) or focused on digital advertising by the aforementioned Hispanic ad agencies (5). There were even two ads with QR codes!

The irony of this “digital-centricity” comes into focus when you go to the first page of statistics on page 6 – “Hispanic Major Media Ad Spending.”

$6.3 billion of media spent targeting Hispanics in 2009. But wait – only $300 million went online. Yup, that’s a paltry 4.8%.

A lot of talk (and ads) about digital, but no one appears to be putting their money where their mouth is.

The data points tell the story:
– More people in the US (and globally) have a mobile phone than an Internet-connected PC (Limbo Mobile Advertising Report)
– 71% of U.S. consumers anticipate daily use of the mobile Internet within the next two years (Nielson)
– Mobile Internet is growing rapidly in Latin America (Telecom Mgmt Group)

Both the U.S. Hispanic consumer of today and tomorrow (new immigrants will already be mobile, and increasingly mobile Internet, users before leaving their home countries) are ready.

So who will take the lead in this relatively untapped sector of Hispanic marketing? The question is really who will take the lead in creating mobile content and functionality for the Hispanic market?

Some would argue that Hispanic media companies like Univision, SBS, Impremedia, and Terra are best equipped to take the lead, as they are already in the content business, and would just need to continue to evolve their distribution to include mobile channels (which many of them are already doing). However, there is a long way to go to offering the same level and breadth of content via mobile that these media companies offer over the traditional Web, let alone via TV, radio, and print.

Don’t count out ad agencies, with their clients, taking the lead. While agencies and their clients are not content creators in the traditional sense, the growing importance of social media is changing their business models and imperatives, as companies like General Mills with QueRicaVida.com and Kraft with ComidaKraft.com increasingly becoming content creators. Moreover, I would argue that agencies and the brands they represent have the edge in offering functionality via mobile. Think useful applications, like BestBuy and Chipotle mobile apps that extend their product / service experience to the mobile platform via useful and helpful applications.

Whoever does take the lead will benefit from a huge first mover advantage in a growing and increasingly mobile-connected Hispanic audience.