In many ways Hispanicize has become the epicenter of Hispanic media and marketing innovation – an annual gathering of Hispanic social media innovators, brands investing in new ways to tap into the Latino market, and industry thought leaders discussing the future of the business of Latinos, Inc.

Latinos, Inc. is the name of a seminal book published in 2001 by Arlene Davila that provides an in-depth look at the history and state of Hispanic media and marketing and the corporate interests driving the very big business of media, marketing, and selling to Hispanics living in the US. The term “Latinos, Inc.” appropriately and powerfully conveys the large and powerful interests that have helped create a multi-billion industry – namely the big media companies, the Hispanic advertising agencies, and corporations that drive the industry. Hispanicize 2012 got me thinking about the future of Latinos, Inc.

What impressed me the most about Hispanicize 2012 was the people I had the chance to meet. At most marketing industry conferences (which I go to my fair share of), you’ll meet a lot of industry-types, most of which are employees working at large brands, agencies, or media companies. But the crowd at Hispanicize 2012 was decidedly different. While there was a fair share of the aforementioned industry types, my anecdotal experience was that the majority of attendees were entrepreneurs. New media entrepreneurs – “Emprendedores” – comprised of Hispanics and non-Hispanics alike who are passionate about their future vision of Latinos, Inc.

To give you a better sense of the “Emprededores” I met in and around Hispanicize 2012, most fit into one of the following categories:
• Bloggers who were committed to making blogging their business
• New media publishers – people launching some type of digital content play
• Curators and aggregators
• Hispanic original content producers and creators – filmmakers, webisode producers, etc/

The commonality was that all these “Emprededores” were focused on new media, content or creative platforms for engaging U.S. Hispanics. And interestingly, most were not focused on Spanish language — but instead the powerful and oft discussed issue of culture.

As a seasoned entrepreneur myself, I understand the grim market reality that many of the “Emprendedores” I met will not survive. However, the sheer number of them, and their passion, made me think that they will have a huge impact on what Hispanic media and marketing will look like in the near future. They will change Latinos, Inc. in profound ways.

I’ve written about this before – particularly from the perspective of how the Hispanic media landscape will look radically different from the Univision-Telemundo or TV-Radio duopolies we’ve come to know and expect embody Latinos, Inc. Being the geek that I am, I got to thinking of a formula to illustrate the “Emprendedores” impact on Latinos, Inc. I came up with the following formula:

(Growth in Hispanic population + digital technology)   X   number of Emprendedores   = fundamentally transformed Latinos, Inc

I am very interested to see if my formula will turn out to be accurate. I’ll definitely be at Hispanicize 2013 to see firsthand.

“Chapter 1: Social Shopping” is the first of 3 reports that present Sensis and White Horse‘s findings and recommendations – you can download the full report at HispanicMobileReport.com. It addresses the more pronounced dimensions of Hispanic experience relative to the general market: the importance of social shopping, i.e. having shopping companions.

The Pew Hispanic Center report provides an in-depth review of the reasons for this marked drop, which include the weakened U.S. job market, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations, the growing dangers associated with illegal border crossings, and changing economic and demographic conditions in Mexico.

While the report does not try to forecast the future, it’s fairly safe to assume that the conditions that have led to this drop in immigration since 2007 will continue for at least the next few years. We are then looking at a potential and sustained 10 year drop in immigration by Mexicans to the U.S., not only the single largest group of Hispanic immigrants, but of U.S. immigrants overall.

As someone who works in the Hispanic marketing industry, this report and the likely sustained trend into the future got me thinking about the implications for the business of U.S. Hispanic marketing. This data points to a very different U.S. population in 2015 and beyond than we have seen from 1980-2010.

It’s unlikely that the U.S. Hispanic population will decrease anytime soon (by soon I mean the next 20 years), because demographic trends among the existing U.S. Hispanic population (higher birthrates, large youth cohort, etc) will negate any negative impact by negative net immigration. However, this negative net Mexican immigration trend points to all sorts of scenarios that will change the U.S. Hispanic landscape in the 2 decades:

• U.S. born Hispanics will continue to grow as a percentage of the overall Hispanic population – further driving the importance of this more acculturated segment
• A relative decline in the percentage of Hispanics that are of Mexican descent – further diversifying the already diverse U.S. Hispanic population (this assumes sustained net immigration from other Latin American countries)
• Potential downward revisions for Hispanic populations estimates issued by the U.S. Census for 2020 and 2030 – it may take a lot longer to see Hispanics making up 25% of the U.S. population
• A decline in Mexican net immigration could lead to more mixed race marriages in the future – and a continued growth in the rapidly growing “2 or more” race segment in 10-20 years.

This trend is particularly ominous for the Spanish-language media industry. As net Latin American immigration to the U.S. decreases, they will start to see decrease in demand for their products in the next 5-10 years.

What do you think?

In addition to unveiling this in-depth research, we are also excited to have Luis Caballero, Director of Marketing at RadioShack, provide the retailer perspective on our report findings.

For those of you who have seen or heard our presentation on the Hispanic Persona Project (at SXSWi or Hispanicize 2011), you will find an interesting intersection around “digital behavior” with our in-store mobile research.

If you’re at Hispanicize, please stop by, it should be a very interesting conversation. If not, I encourage you to follow the online discussion via Twitter with the hashtag #hispz12mobile on April 12 at 1:45pm EDT / 10:45am PDT.

The full report will also be available for download, for free, at www.HispanicMobileReport.com on April 12.

So what exactly are these multi-brand platforms? Simply put, they are efforts by companies that own and market multiple brands (think Proctor & Gamble) to collectively market a suite of brands together. We’ve all seen ads for Cheerios on TV. The multi-brand platform approach is when General Mills (the owner of Cheerios) pools all their major brands – such as Betty Crocker, Green Giant, Hamburger Helper, Nature Valley, Progresso, Yoplait and Cheerios – under a big umbrella brand. Sometimes that umbrella brand is the corporate brand – e.g. Kraft, Nestle, or S.C. Johnson. However for most of the Hispanic market efforts, the trend is towards creating a culturally relevant, unique Hispanic umbrella brand – such as Orgullosa or Que Rica Vida.

So what is the opportunity and benefit afforded by a Hispanic multi-brand program? The two biggest opportunities are cost-efficiency and cultural relevancy. Since developing unique brand platforms can get expensive, pooling marketing resources is a very attractive option for brand portfolios (one the reasons brand portfolios exist to begin with). This is particularly important when it comes to Hispanic marketing, where budgets are often limited (or non-existent). In particular, a multi-brand platform provides an opportunity for smaller brands (with smaller or no budgets) to share resources with larger brands. By pooling brand marketing resources, many companies are able to invest the resources necessary to create a truly relevant cultural platform to connect with Hispanics. Since most individual brands do not have the budget to develop a large integrated cultural communications platform, the multi-brand approach provides the resources necessary to do it right.

The multi-brand program concept was originally rooted in in print and experiential environments, as pioneered in the Hispanic market by Sears Todo Para Ti in the 90s. Yet as digital (the Web, mobile and social media) has assumed a central role in these platforms, a natural question arises: do these multi-brand platforms make sense in the digital world?

The answer is a resounding YES. A central tenet of these multi-brand platforms is to focus on providing valuable and culturally-relevant content as a way of building brand awareness and affinity and ultimately product sales. The Web and social media are perfect mediums for content-focused marketing programs. A website, particularly one leveraging a robust content management system (CMS), is a potent publishing platform. By artfully integrating social media, brands have a potential of the most widespread distribution system we’ve seen to date to syndicate that content.

However, most of the Hispanic multi-brand platforms in market today are not fully leveraging their potential. This is manifesting itself in limited traffic levels, low levels of user generated content, and content that is not quite providing the utility they could to Hispanic digital users. Most importantly, while some offer English-language content, they have not been able to connect as effectively with acculturated Hispanics.

Where most of the multi-brand platforms are still not fully leveraging the opportunities afforded them digitally:

User-centered design – One of biggest missed opportunities with most of the Hispanic multi-brand platforms is a lack of user-centered design. User centered design principles prioritize the needs of the end user, providing content and functionality that meets user goals. Most of the platforms are organized around the companies categorize their brands, not necessary the way Hispanics use them.

Content Strategy & Utility – All of the multi-brand platforms offer high quality, professional content that is culturally relevant. However, is the content useful and meeting an unmet Hispanic consumer need? I did some very basic Spanish keyword volume research, and most of the multi-brand platforms fail to offer content that is relevant to the most popular search terms. Similarly, users are increasingly demanding and expecting video content online. These platforms should start to embrace a video-first content strategy.

User-Generated Content – Getting users to contribute meaningful content on a consistent basis to a commercial marketing program is never easy. Getting Hispanics to contribute content is arguably a bigger challenge. However, I still believe there is a big opportunity to multi-brand platforms to creatively embrace and encourage community content. The potential for engagement and content utility is enormous.

Responsive Design – As more and more data points to Hispanic mobile web browsing and Hispanic tablet adoption expected to outpace the general market, it is imperative that all Hispanic digital programs embrace responsive design. Responsive design is a form of website visual and user experience design where the layout of website adapts to the viewing environment – one website that adapts to the screen size of a desktop browser, tablet or mobile phone.

Content Distribution – Anytime any organization or individual starts producing quality content, they should look to syndicate it. The web is an increasingly fragmented environment, and it’s critical for multi-brand platforms to make sure their content is where their users are – and that is often not their websites.

Don’t get me wrong – I think the aforementioned CPGs are way ahead of the game and on the right track. Brands in other categories should take a page from their CPG colleagues: many elements and opportunities of Hispanic multi-brand platform concept can be effectively applied to other industries, such as beverage companies, financial services, pharmaceuticals, and telecom. The first movers have the advantage now, but followers can build on the learnings of the pioneering Hispanic multi-brand platforms.

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

However, does this make sense? Are marketers just taking an old perspective (i.e. that there are distinct ethnic markets that behave differently from the mainstream) and applying it to a fundamentally new medium (social media – content created, consumed, and shared by individuals)? Is targeting ethnic groups via social media a sound strategy?

Is the world of social media significantly organized around ethnicity? I’ve tackled the related topic of whether many marketers demographic approach to Hispanic social media is all wrong. Do ethnic minorities – namely Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians – exhibit social media behavior that is specific to their ethnicity?

Are we all getting carried away by the data that shows multicultural groups are more social and misconstruing that to mean that their social behavior is different, distinct, or non-mainstream?

In many ways, social media transcends the classical lines of ethnicity. People connect – by creating and sharing content, engaging in conversations, and joining communities – around passions. Many of these passions are not tied to ethnicity (e.g. techies, gear-heads, and foodies).

There is no doubt that our social networks are influenced by our ethnicity. If you’re Puerto Rican and living in Chicago, your online social network will likely have a strong representation of fellow Puerto Ricans from Chicago. But would a brand who is trying to engage with you – for instance a consumer electronics maker – be more effective in engaging you around your “Boricuaness” or your love of new technology?

The Hispanic Persona Project provides insights for marketers eager to tap the ever-expanding Hispanic population and its use of digital technology – Web, social media, mobile – to connect with family, friends and extended social circles. Hispanic marketers used customer research for decades to create segments that model the complex demographics of the U.S. Hispanic consumer. Similarly, software developers and digital marketers used ethnographic research to create Personas to understand the behavior and motivations of “users” to create optimal user experiences.

My session will present the results of a comprehensive primary research study combining Hispanic demographic segmentation with digital ethnographic research in the form of comprehensive digital Personas for the U.S. Hispanic consumer market.

In addition to presenting the results of our primary research (and providing visitors with a free copy of the report), we will be sharing in-depth interviews with Hispanics conducted as part of the research.

It’s like your own free focus group session on the coveted Hispanic consumer.

Hope to see you there.

Jose

The three diverse sessions will offer an opportunity to showcase some of our agency’s unique culture and thinking. Our sessions will range from political advertising, to Hispanic consumer research and gay and lesbian issues.

The schedule of presentations are:

Dino Hainline: “Perfect Timing: Evolving GLBT Suicide Prevention,” Friday, 2-3 p.m. at the Austin Convention Center room 10AB. Before “It Gets Better” there was a Trevor Project, an initiative that worked to curb GLBT suicide.

Jose Villa: “Hispanic Persona Project,” Sunday, March 11, 9:30-10:30 a.m. at the Austin Convention Center room 10AB. The Hispanic Persona Project provides innovative insights for marketers eager to tap the ever-expanding Hispanic population and its use of digital technology.

Danny Allen: “New Media Strategies & Insights for Election 2012,” Sunday, March 11, 5-6 p.m. at the AT&T Conference Hotel, Salon B. Danny will be part of a panel discussing the tools that will help shape this year’s presidential campaign.

If you’re going to SXSW, we hope to see you at one of our sessions!

It always helps to step back and think about what a segment means from a marketing perspective. Marketers are always looking for ways to group individual consumers based on dimensions that make them similar. Trying to find elements about them – such as demographic (age, education, income, geography, employment) or psychographic (personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles) characteristics – that can be grouped, or clustered to simplify their world. As marketers, we’re always looking for scale – the ability to group an overwhelming number of unique individuals (often millions) into groups we can target based on shared characteristics.

A commonly accepted form of segmenting consumers is based on ethnicity. There are thousands of people – like me – making a living on this accepted segmentation when it comes to Hispanics. While those of us who work in the area of marketing to various ethnic groups are typically categorized as multicultural marketers, do the consumers we collectively work to reach act, think or behave similarly? For marketers and brands, is there something about how they think about products and services and/or how they consume media that makes them similar? Is there such a thing as a multicultural consumer segment?

Those of us in the business of marketing to Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians and other non-general market audiences have always been hesitant about this amalgamation. As specialist marketers, it goes against our very reason for existing to combine disparate ethnic segments. Hispanics are unique, and fundamentally different from their general market brethren, requiring unique marketing and communications to reach them. This logic has always carried over to the difference between Hispanics and other ethnic groups – namely African-Americans and Asians.

However, at the risk of sounding blasphemous to my fellow multicultural marketers, I posit it might be time to reconsider the concept of a multicultural segment. As the demographics of the U.S. rapidly change, and a growing Hispanic, African-American, and Asian (among other ethnicities) youth population exhibits characteristics very different from those of previous generations, I see evidence a multicultural youth segment does indeed exist.

This may sound like the “urban” segment popularized in the late ‘90s. Urban was a term used to describe a primarily Hispanic and African-American population of mostly young males living in major urban centers – New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. What I’m seeing is much broader, encompassing more than just Hispanics and African-Americans, with more gender balance, and spread out across a more diverse geography that includes suburbs and cities across the U.S.

This all came into focus recently, when our agency was tasked with the unusual assignment of developing a marketing strategy to reach a pan-multicultural audience of Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, and Native American youth, ages 13-25. We conducted qualitative research – focus groups and ethnographic interviews – with these individuals from each of these groups. Our initial hypothesis was we would find more differences than similarities, and creating a “multicultural” segmentation schema of youth was not going to be feasible. However, we were surprised to find some interesting psychographic similarities. Primary among them was the fact that minority youth shared a similar life of duality experience – they live in both the cultural mainstream and their personal sphere of heritage.

While preliminary in nature, our research uncovered the existence of a shared psychographic profile among these Hispanic, African-American, Asian and Native American youth of belonging to the “other.”
They can navigate between these worlds effortlessly despite differences in language, appearance, or cultural nuance. They live in a multicultural world defining themselves by their likes and dislikes and not race or ethnicity. Whereas the mainstream is racing to understand the meaning of “multicultural,” minority youth feel they are the very definition of multicultural. They still live, however, within specific, tangible groups defining themselves as “other than” or “different from” the mainstream, multicultural as it may be.

More research is warranted to validate our new hypothesis. However, recent data from the Census points to an interesting twist on this “multicultural segment.” According to the most recent 2010 Census, multiracial children are the fastest growing youth group in the U.S. A recent Pew Report also pointed to a rise in mixed-race marriages.

The implications for marketers are significant. First, the efficiencies and scale I talked about would be significant if brands could develop marketing programs that worked across a larger audience of minority groups. The future implications are more pronounced, considering the size of the multicultural youth population in this country and what their coming of age would represent in shifting the overall consumer landscape.

For those of us involved in Hispanic marketing, there is a big question about how this would change how we look at the Hispanic market. Is this just a new segment we need to think about? Since this “multicultural segment” is by definition bigger than the Hispanic-only component, marketers might see some very attractive scale.

Ultimately, I think this is a conversation we as multicultural marketers should lead, no matter where it takes us.

(an edited version of this article originally ran on MediaPost’s Engage Hispanic blog on March 1, 2012)

As an example, just check out the new positioning and branding for one of the oldest Hispanic ad agencies in the industry – Bromley:

If you’ve read any of my articles the last few years, I’ve been making the case that the Hispanic ad business is heading for radical change – driven by the growth and mainstreaming of the Hispanic population (“50 million is too big to be a niche”) and competition by general market agencies. At last year’s AHAA (Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies) conference, agency search consultant Robb High sounded this same warning and he went so far as to recommended that the agency members of AHAA strongly consider repositioning themselves as general market agencies with strong Hispanic capabilities.

It appears that some agencies are heeding his warning.

The big question is whether clients – particularly the major brands that make the ultimate call on any “agency model” – will be willing to hire Hispanic agencies to handle their general market work.

There are examples of this happening recently. Acento (an LA-based Hispanic ad agency) was recently awarded “total market” AOR duties for regional health insurer Health Net. There are many other examples of local clients (in markets like LA, San Antonio and Miami) hiring Hispanic shops to handle all their marketing due to the sheer size and influence of the Hispanic population in those minority majority markets.

I’m curious to see if more Hispanic agencies will adopt the positioning and transformation evangelized by Mr. High and undertaken by Bromley. And if many Hispanic agencies do take this market positioning, will it serve to expand their business / clientele or ultimately hurt them by abandoning the one key differentiator they have relied on for success the last 40 years.