• 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.

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!

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)

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.

This is not to say that there is no Digital Divide, as Hispanics do have lower education and income levels, such that these socioeconomic factors do cause lower technology adoption among Hispanics. It’s just that, in the words of the report, “Hispanics and whites who have similar socioeconomic characteristics have similar usage patterns for these technologies.”

Other interesting information from the report:

– 91% of Hispanics with at least some college education use the Internet
– 90% of Hispanics ages 18 to 29 used cell phones
– 85% of Hispanics ages 18 to 29 use the Internet
– 81% of US-born Hispanics use the Internet
– 81% of English dominant Hispanics use the Internet
– 74% of bilingual Hispanics use the Internet
– Internet use by Spanish-dominant Hispanics rose 30% from 2009
– Hispanics and whites are roughly equally likely to access the Internet from a cell phone, but Hispanics are much more likely to access the Internet on a phone instead of on a computer, lending credence to the idea of Hispanics leapfrogging the home computer and going straight to the mobile Web.

There is a lot more excellent information in the report. These are just some highlights.

Futurecasting is a heuristic technique that helps envision future consumers, products, industries, competitors, challenges, or opportunities; by combining forecasting and imagination to model future states. Web Personas are commonly “futurecasted” by digital agencies to help plan out long-term digital investments – such as large-scale Websites with enterprise functionality (e.g. e-commerce, personalization, etc.) – so they are adaptable to changing user behavior and motivations. Futurecasting is a flexible business modeling tool and can be applied in various ways. I have found that Futurecasting can be particularly useful when “disruptors” are factored in – exogenous shocks or changes that cause a significant change in trend lines. A classic example is World War II and the resulting “baby boom,” a disruptor that changed U.S. demographics for 50 years when thousands of GIs returned home and started having larger families.

One of the most dynamic segments of U.S. society and business is the U.S. Hispanic market. The last 10 years in particular have seen significant growth, driven by a rapidly growing population and its effects on American culture and business. An interesting question that I think about a lot is how the U.S. Hispanic market will look in the future… in 2, 5 and 10 years for example? One way to think through this question is to futurecast the U.S. Hispanic market.

The first step in futurecasting is to start with basics trend lines and see where things are heading. Let’s look at the Hispanic market across four broad trend lines: Population, Acculturation, Media Consumption, and Technology usage.

Population – The 2010 Census figures coming out in a few months will not doubt show a continued upward trend in Hispanic population. The only question is how close the final Hispanic population figure will get to 50 million (up from 35 million in 2000 and 45.5 million in 2009). We also know that Hispanics have spread out from traditional gateway states in the Southwest into the Midwest and South in increasing numbers. I expect those population dispersion trends to continue, and potentially accelerate, with states like California, Nevada and Arizona still reeling economically from the current recession. We also know that Hispanics are getting younger – currently 50% of all U.S. Hispanic are under 26. In fact, the largest age cohort among Hispanics is ages 2-11 (making up 21% of the population). There is no reason to think that Hispanic birthrates will slow down, particularly with a growing population base. So we can assume more Hispanics that are younger, and spreading out living in other parts of the country.

Acculturation – The Hispanic market has generally been viewed thru the prism of the 3-part acculturation model (acculturated, partially acculturated and unacculturated). Currently, roughly 50% of the market falls into unacculturated, 30% are acculturated, and 20% are partially acculturated. Moving forward, with such a large and young U.S.-born Hispanic population, trends point to a redistribution towards partially acculturated and acculturated. Looking into the future we can assume more acculturated and partially acculturated Hispanics, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the population.

Media Consumption – Hispanic media consumption has begun to change with the overall growth and increased adoption of digital media, albeit slower than in the general market. One result of this gap (in 2009 only 58% of Hispanics had access to the Internet vs. 71% of those in the general market), is that there will be a “catch-up” effect, particularly as the price of electronics and broadband access continues to drop. Looking towards the future, we should see a dramatic shift in Hispanic media consumption – either by increasing the overall time they spend with media (by adding digital media) or as a shift away from traditional media.

Technology Usage – Acculturated and partially acculturated online Hispanics already show a strong propensity to be early adopters of new technology. However, as AOL’s 2010 Hispanic Cyberstudy discovered, less acculturated Hispanics are actually more likely to be early adopters of new technology. Looking into the future, there is no reason to expect that behavior to change, particularly with falling technology prices.

Put these trend-lines together and we start getting a pretty interesting picture of Hispanics in the next 2-10 years:
• A younger population, that is more acculturated
• A geographically diverse market – that is quickly growing in the South and Midwest
• A group of consumers that is spending more and more time consuming digital media (in many cases for the first time)
• And a consumer base that is pushing the technological envelope, leading the adoption of new devices such as tablets, 4G smartphones, and emerging gaming platforms.

But things get really interesting when we start looking for potential disruptors and the resulting shifts and opportunities. Here are a few for you to ponder:

Retro-acculturation – The retro-acculturation trend within the Hispanic market is nothing new – 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics actively reconnecting with their Hispanic heritage and culture by learning Spanish, listening to Latin music, and looking for authentic “Latin” experiences. Just look at the growing cottage industry of Spanish-language children’s books to get a sense of what’s happening. Now consider a huge US-born “Hispanic” millennial population that is starting to have their own children. I can see retro-acculturation splintering that nice and clean 3-part acculturation model. I could imagine at least one additional segment appearing (“retroacculturated”) – maybe more. This disruptor could also have a profound impact on what kind brand experiences these future Hispanics look for. A desire for Latino authenticity seems like a natural next step, which could threaten some established “cross-over” brands that are no longer viewed as real (think of popular Mexican food chains or shelf-brand salsas).

Changing Diets – If you don’t think American’s are changing what they eat, just visit your local McDonald’s – greasy egg sandwiches are giving way to granola and fresh fruit. As Americans as a whole become increasingly health conscious, the trend will likely reach all segments of the Hispanic population. What happens when those high fructrose corn syrup filled tortillas and preservative –filled canned frijoles don’t cut it for Hispanic consumers? Hispanics may not start flocking to Whole Foods tomorrow, but there might very well be a need for something in between that and the discount Hispanic grocery chains that dominate the market today.

Mixing of new cultures – What happens when Mexicans and other Hispanic groups start settling in places in like Tennessee, Ohio, Alabama, and Georgia? I think that the potential changes would be more significant than the appearance of new Spanish language media in those markets (especially over 5-10 yearsCan you imagine the inevitable fusion that results when guisados meets soul food? Imagine country and Spanish boleros forming new genres – it’s actually already starting to happen. How long before soccer becomes a popular sport outside of the Southwest and East Coast? Lots of new products, genres, and demand for products and entertainment that probably don’t exist today.

A “Hispanic Baby-Boom” – Finally, there is a potential “baby” baby-boom coming from within the Hispanic market that could have a profound effect on the Hispanic and overall U.S. population. With close to 20 million Hispanics at or entering child-bearing age over the next 10 years, the potential for a new baby boom is real. The resulting demographic shifts could reverberate across U.S. culture and commerce for the next 50 years.

Regardless of whether some or all of these disruptors come to pass, futurecasting paints a clear picture of a fundamentally different Hispanic market than the one we know today.

As digital continues to turn the advertising world on its head, you’ve no doubt heard digital marketing evangelists talk about the need to “lead with digital.” What they are typically referring to is 180 degree change away from the common marketing approach of starting with traditional marketing programs and then extending them to digital channels. The argument being that as digital media (including Web, social and mobile) takes a larger piece of consumers’ media consumption pie and fundamentally changes how they interact with advertising that advertisers must fundamentally change their marketing strategies to align with new digital realities.

There are countless and growing examples of marketers embracing this philosophy – including extreme cases where marketers have completely forgone traditional channels in favor of digital or brands have hired digital agencies as their lead (or only) agency of record. Less extreme examples can be seen in trend towards traditional creative (TV and out-of-home for example) that looks and feels increasingly like online banner / rich media ads or the trend towards driving to the Web or mobile as the primary call-to-action on direct response offline campaigns.

What if a rebellious brand led their Hispanic marketing efforts with digital? The prevailing wisdom in the Hispanic marketing world has always been that digital is important, but not that important, what with a majority of Hispanics still digitally divided or lacking tech sophistication. What would be the fate of such an anti-establishment brand? What would “leading with digital” even look like in the Hispanic market? Let’s deconstruct a Hispanic ad campaign and see some examples of what a digital-driven approach might look like:

Campaign Planning

Campaign Objectives – During the “Mad Men” era of advertising (which I would argue continues to this day in Hispanic advertising), campaign objectives were always a “one-way street” – with objectives like increasing awareness or same-store sales. Digital made advertising a two-way game, and as such, effective advertising has to do so much more. Yet most Hispanic advertising objectives are still about being the loudest megaphone. If a Hispanic campaign started with digital, objectives such as interactivity, engagement, utility and word of mouth would inevitably take center stage (this is not the case for most Hispanic advertising today.) This new set of digitally-relevant marketing objectives lends themselves well to marketing frameworks, such as marketing funnels or consumer journeys, with corresponding metrics and the ability to establish pre-launch campaign projections.

Research – Every good ad campaign, regardless of target audience, starts with sound research. Yet most Hispanic ad campaigns start with analog research (traditional focus groups, consumer research panels, etc). Are their purely digital alternatives? I would argue that there is an incredibly powerful insight “fountain” currently available using social monitoring tools like Radian6 to listen to Hispanic consumers online. Think of it as the world’s largest focus group, except completely organic. With Hispanics heavily engaging in social media, there is a real opportunity to uncover powerful and actionable Hispanic insights. Unfortunately, it’s more work that just hiring a research firm to recruit participants for 4 focus groups or subscribing to a research tool. Taking it one step further, if you can build an online community of Hispanics tied to your brand that you nurture over time, you have the potential to continually tap into a new kind of focus group indefinitely (at a much lower cost)

Concept & Copy Testing – One of the biggest benefits of leading with digital is the ability to make quick and inexpensive mistakes. This is particularly important for brands or companies that are new to or have been out of the Hispanic market for some time (and will need to fine-tune their initial Hispanic programs). While copy testing is anything but new, utilizing text-based ads targeted to Hispanics (by market if appropriate) on Google, Bing and Facebook can provide quick and cheap feedback on concepts, copy and keywords that will resonate with Hispanics. Taking this approach further, creative testing using multiple iterations of banners can provide art direction feedback from a real-life “lab” of online Hispanics. If focus groups are a must, online versions provide valuable qualitative results at a fraction of the time and expense.

Campaign Development

Content Development – A sound digitally-driven Hispanic marketing campaign with objectives such as engagement, utility or word of mouth activity requires a different approach to creative development. A perfectly executed .30 second TV spot combined with a series of radio, print, and out-of-home ads will not be enough to achieve such interactive goals. Instead, creative production must be replaced with content development – a different approach that emphasizes multi-form creative that can live in various formats and lengths that tells a longer story. The content development approach emphasizes producing all forms of content (video, imagery, textual) that can deepen Website experiences, drive social engagements and spur viral communication – all while still providing for TV, radio and print ads. This nuanced, by significant change in approach, is akin to brands thinking like publishers and media companies.

Campaign Launch

Changes in how brands and companies launch and manage Hispanic ad campaigns represent the biggest opportunities in this digitally-led approach.

Digital Pre-launches – Most Hispanic advertising starts offline and then migrates online. Why not do the opposite? Digital creative typically takes less time to produce and digital media can be quickly planned, bought and trafficked, so why not launch pilot campaigns online before extending offline to more expensive, time-consuming and inflexible channels like TV, radio and out-of-home?

Digital pre-launching not only provides an opportunity to test concepts and copy as noted above (including all important questions of language – Spanish, English or both?), but can also provide invaluable data that can inform Hispanic campaign objectives, market selection, and media plans, both offline and online! Pre-launches can be run from a few weeks to a few months, but the benefits can be significant.

Digital Measurement – Most Hispanic marketing programs are evaluated post-mortem: “that network TV buy performed well in Phoenix” or “that print ad failed to drive call-center activity.” Taking a digital-driven approach means prioritizing real-time measurement tools such as third-party ad serving, Web analytics, and social media tracking tools to impact and influence campaign decisions mid-stream. This approach yields info on which top performing digital creative that can influence creative placements and rotations. Web analytics data on campaign microsites and landing pages can provide important geo-market results that can impact media weighting offline.

Hopefully you can see from this quick analysis that leading with digital in the Hispanic market is not about irrationally abandoning traditional media channels. Instead, it’s about drastically changing how Hispanic campaigns are planned, developed and managed. Keeping in mind that a large number of Hispanics are still not online, a thoughtfully executed digitally-driven approach to Hispanic advertising can bear significant fruit and take our industry to the next level.

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…

If you’re like me, you’ve probably seen innumerable reports and studies stating that Hispanics are more social.

Most of the data backing up this catchy headline focuses on social media usage. Hispanics are active users of social media platforms, particularly social networks like Facebook, micromedia such as Twitter, and the reading and writing of blogs. Research firms like Forrester have gone further and looked at what type of social media users Hispanics are by understanding where they fit into their well-respected social technographic ladder (“Inactives” vs “Creators”, etc.). Again, the data paints a positive picture that Hispanics over-index the general market in terms of their engagement level. In plain English – there are a lot of Hispanic social media users and they are more active.

All of this quantitative data is sound and the conclusion is pretty straightforward – Hispanics use social media, as much or more than their general market counterparts. That’s great and all, but it doesn’t really help a marketer figure out how to use social media to market to Hispanics.

Why not? Isn’t the data enough to support most brands and companies investing in Hispanic social media?

Unfortunately, the tools aren’t there. Hispanic marketers only have a two-dimensional prism to understand a three-dimensional world. Put another way, all the great data I referenced earlier just confirms that Hispanics are consuming/producing social media, but that isn’t enough information to understand how to engage them in this space Why? Because social media activity cannot be simply filtered as Hispanic unless Hispanics behave differently than non-Hispanics in this environment.

The problem lies in the simple premise at the heart of the multi-billion dollar Hispanic marketing industry – that most Hispanics are culturally and linguistically different from the “general market” and consume different media (i.e. Hispanic media, 90 percent of which is in Spanish). This premise is the reason why two symbiotic sectors exist:
• Hispanic advertising and PR agencies that create culturally and linguistically relevant communications for Hispanic consumers
• Hispanic media that provides Hispanic consumers with linguistically and/or culturally unique content they demand (where Hispanic ad agencies can buy media on and PR firms can “earn” coverage in)

When we talk about reaching Hispanics in social media the aforementioned premise no longer holds true. Specifically, the second part of the premise breaks down – Hispanics are not consuming different media – they are on the same Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other large scale “connected” platforms as everyone else. That is what makes social media so powerful – you can connect 500 million people on the same network, even though they may be in 100 different countries speaking 150 different languages.

The concept of segmenting one ethnic group – either based on language, culture or media consumption – becomes fundamentally more complex when everyone is on the same site, network or platform. You can’t simply cling to differences in the language of media consumption. You can’t look to Facebook “en Español” (ask MySpace how that worked out for them) when the content is no longer asymmetrical – you don’t have a single, centralized content producer (think Univision or SBS) being consumed by large scale masses. The “content-creation-to-content-consumption” continuum is peer-to-peer (with companies/brands mixed in at the same level of peers), so it’s very difficult to depend on only contextual relevance.

What we’re missing is qualitative data about if, and how, Hispanics use social media differently. Do they consume, comment on, or produce social content that is different than the general market?

Language plays a part, but when you are connecting 100s of millions of people on the same platform, there is a lot of cross-language media consumption taking place. More simply, do Hispanics exhibit different behavior on social media? Part of this qualitative question is whether they demand – and therefore consume – different content. But that’s only part of the behavioral equation.

Do they produce different content (e.g. talk about different things)? Do they comment differently (i.e. are they more likely to comment positively than the general market)? Do they exhibit different attitudes towards brands and companies in social media? Do some of the generally excepted models of social media behavior apply “apples-to-apples” to U.S. Hispanic consumers (i.e. does the Hispanic social technographic ladder have different rungs)?

I have anecdotal evidence from client campaigns that they do behave differently, but our industry needs more robust qualitative research and behavioral models to provide the 78 percent of hesitant marketers (according to an Orci report) with the intelligence they need to smartly “go to market” with Hispanics in social media.