I think this is a fantastic example of what a lot of forward-thinking professionals in Hispanic advertising have been pushing for many years - truly integrated marketing programs to reach the Hispanic consumer. For too many years, and at too many agencies, Hispanic media strategies have been staid and flat - 360 advertising all too often has meant doing a TV buy coupled with radio and maybe some out-of-home.

Kudos to Zubi and their media team for developing an integrated media buy (albeit only one network/publisher) that includes both traditional (TV, radio) and new media such as online and mobile. I imagine the cost savings they are generating for their clients (such as Ford and American Airlines) will be significant. Hopefully they will continue to pursue additional integrated buys across other media properties.

These types of deals show that the future of Hispanic advertising is bright for agencies and clients willing to push the envelope and the accepted best practices. I hope everyone is taking notes.

Webinar Topics to include:
- Introduction to Accessibility, Section 508, and Universal Design
- Overview of the market for Accessibility
- How to make your Web site Accessible

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/512765525

1. Section 508 and Universal Design initiatives expand beyond the Federal government
2. Increasing numbers of aging Baby Boomers going online
3. The 2010 Census

Since 2005, pretty much every Federal agency and all of their departments have made their Web sites Section 508 compliant. In case you’re not up on Section 508 compliance, it basically means that a Web site is built in such a way that it can be used just as easily by someone who is disabled (and their assistance technology like screen readers for the blind) as someone who is not. However, more and more non-Federal entities are embracing the basic tenets of universal design embodied in Section 508 requirements. The ITTATC defines universal design as the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. I know we are seeing more and more clients request accessibility as a requirement during Web site redesign projects.

Another big trend that is increasing the market for accessible Web sites is the increase in the aging Baby Boomer population that is going online. In 2006, the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation turns 60. Moreover, 60 million U.S. baby boomers that will use the Internet this year (eMarketer “Baby Boomers and Silver Surfers: Two Generations Online,” Dec 2007) In fact, the over-60 online population will be a large and growing segment , going from 17.7 million Internet users in 2006 to 25.3 million in 2011. Considering that the 2000 U.S. Census found that 41.9% of adults 65 years and older identified themselves as having a disability, there is a growing mass market for accessible Web communications.

Finally, the 2010 Census will undoubtedly bring to the forefront fresh new data on both the disabled and aging populations, as well as their technology usage. What is now a niche area of communications and technology strategy will undoubtedly become a front-page story, with a mass of government and commercial organizations rushing to service this new “demographic” online.

These trends all point to need for organizations to take an integrated approach to their accessibility strategy now, that includes the disabled, the aging market, novice technology users and even non-English speaking audiences. Those organizations that start thinking and planning for this coming “wave” of information supporting the importance of universal design will be positioning to reap the benefits and expand their reach and/or customer-base.

To find out more about universal design and Section 508 compliance, check out a free Webinar by my agency making Web sites Accessible – http://webinar.sensisagency.com

Thank you very much for your comments on the Special Report I researched, reported on and authored for Hispanic Market Weekly. I invite other industry leaders, movers and shakers to read the piece for themselves.

While I’m pleased to say that we are moving in the right direction in terms of our digital and internet coverage, I was saddened to read that you were “more than a little disappointed with the report.” I was even more disappointed that your note about our special report was not send via e-mail to our editorial team but was posted in a public Blog. The link was dutifully sent to my email address by an astute reader.

The truth of the matter is large brands embracing the internet by creating their own websites is still underreported by the mainstream media and, with all due respect to my editorial team, was the *first* time Hispanic Market Weekly devoted an entire report to the subject. Previous years’ internet special reports offered the same-old, same-old with respect to portals. So again, I think we are certainly moving in the right direction with our editorial coverage of Hispanic media initiatives.

Frankly, I see no other trade publication devoted to the Hispanic market (subtracting, of course, those that post press releases or simply offer links to other news organizations’ work) that has covered Hispanic internet development in a similarly detailed way.

“Is building a branded Web site considered news in 2008?” You ask.

Well, to any company that simply translates their site into Spanish without doing any research into making it relevant to Hispanics, I’d argue the answer is YES.

While you say our report is vanilla, I can tell you that there are still many, many categories that are behind the curve when it comes to online activity. Only some are catching up right now. And to call the piece “a disservice” is something I can’t quite understand - wouldn’t this send the message to a CMO at a company considering a jump into internet branding and advertising that maybe such an initiative makes sense?

Aside from the consumer-focused website and microsite, there are indeed initiatives with respect to social media, e-mail marketing, search engine marketing, and mobile. But that wasn’t the focus of this report. And with MySpace Español still ramping up, the traditional English-language MySpace a bit overambitious with its advertising goals and real results and such things as e-mail marketing and search engine marketing still on the periphery of our industry, the discussion will be there in the months and years to come.

In the case of this special report, we simply couldn’t devote focus on the subject we decided was indeed relevant … and not “inane.”

“Inane” is the small piece of the advertising pie that goes to Hispanic media and, of that, how many of the ad dollars go to the four Spanish-language broadcast networks. “Inane” is the fact that Hispanic internet gets a percentage of a percentage of ad dollars as it is.

So perhaps telling the CMOs, media buyers and ad planners to invest more money by starting big and going from there still is a relevant conversation.

It’s as simple as thinking multicultural.

Adam Jacobson
Associate CMO Editor
Hispanic Market Weekly

Online Creative A/B testing is based on the classic model of testing against a control. For example, one basic element in a banner ad creative is changed to enable an apples-to-apples test. Alternate versions of the same creative with that one element changed are produced and tested to determine which performs best under normal circumstances. The most effective creative then becomes the control to insert back into the cycle.

While it is common to do A/B testing for refining online creative, I don’t think a lot of agencies or advertisers are using this methodology for testing overall campaign creative before going offline into more expensive media.

Online media, particularly SEM (Paid Search) and CPM display advertising, is very inexpensive. What better way to test creative before going out to more expensive traditional media such as TV, radio or OOH? You can test copy, art/visuals, and overall concepts without burning through a lot of media budget.

While I am thrilled that leading industry publications like HMW are writing more and more about the Internet and digital advertising to the U.S. Hispanic market, I was more than a little disappointed with the report.

The entire article focused on how many large brands are embracing building Hispanic-focused branded Web sites. This is great… but my goodness, is building a branded Web site considered news in 2008? As a person who works primarily in digital advertising, I find such vanilla pieces a disservice to our broad and deep industry. With the breadth of disciplines and vehicles - such as social media, email marketing, search engine marketing, and mobile to name a few - currently being utilized by brands in both the general and Hispanic markets, why are we still talking about microsites?

Come on - let’s elevate the conversation. Let’s find some brands and agencies that are pushing the new media envelope. They are out there.

Once we do that, we’ll help move our industry forward, as opposed to holding it back with circa-2000 discussions of inane online tactics.

Overall, the conference was well attended with very good break-out panels. I thought it was particularly notable that more than 25% of the sessions focused on digital marketing. In fact, there were very interesting sessions on mobile marketing, Web analytics, and social media (yes, social media was a central theme of 8 sessions at a direct marketing event!).

The Directo Day Hispanic day at DM Days was not quite as in-depth as I had hoped. Hopefully next year Directo Day will expand and deepen.

I am definitely looking forward to their DMA08 Conference in Las Vegas in October.

My 8 Universal Truths of Email Marketing are:
1. Email Marketing is about creating a clear value exchange with recipients
2. Email is an integral part of people’s lives
3. Email is a proven marketing vehicle
4. Email programs need to be measured
5. Content is king!
6. Take care of your email list
7. Partners are critical to success
8. Email integrates well with other channels

So how do these Universal Truths apply to Hispanic email marketing? And are any other best practices that are unique to the Hispanic email marketing world?

As to how these truths apply to the Hispanic market, while they are all relevant, four (4) stand out as being particularly important when marketing to Hispanics.

Email is an integral part of people’s lives - eMarketer data shows that of the 20.2 million Hispanic Internet users, 79% use email.

Email is a proven marketing vehicle - Recent Mintel Comperemedia data shows that Hispanics are more likely to open an e-mail marketing message than other consumers.

Content is king! - A recent report from JupiterResearch posits that the right personalization and segmentation will aid e-mail marketers looking to reach Hispanics.

Email integrates well with other channels - that same JupiterResearch report states that Hispanic e-mail users are more likely to make an offline or in-store purchase influenced by e-mail.

Lastly, there is one best practice that is unique to Hispanic email marketing - what I am calling the “9th Hispanic Email Marketing Universal Truth.” This truth is that fulfillment needs to be consistent. What this means is that often, Hispanic email programs are developed that are not consistent with the entire user experience online. For example, a CPM email drop with unique Hispanic creative, when clicked on, may take a user to an inconsistent landing page or Web site (which were not optimized for the Hispanic market). Often times there are language disconnects - the email creative is in Spanish, and the landing page is in English, etc.

More to come on this topic after my presentation.

I’ll be back in July.

DA

There was one topic that was discussed in a few panels and kept coming up in my conversations at the various networking breaks and parties - what will the ad agency of the future look like?

This is a question that I think about all the time - I guess you could call it the “thing that keeps me up at night” (although my 16 month old daughter Maya holds that title most nights). I run a multicultural interactive agency - a niche within a niche. There were panelists at ad:tech from a handful of Hispanic-focused interactive agencies… another niche within a niche. One of the principals at one of these Hispanic interactive agencies made the case that interactive will be integrated within traditional ad agency capabilities in the future.

I had a similar conversation with the CEO of a large general market interactive agency who asked me “do we have to expand into traditional in the future?”

Someone even brought up the question of whether multicultural advertising will inevitably have to be integrated into general advertising as the U.S. population becomes more and more diverse (we already see this happening in places like Los Angeles where “minority majorities” are causing clients to hire multicultural ad agencies as their lead agencies).

This is a big question that I making some bets on. I am very curious what some of you out there think? Here are some interesting thought starters?

1. Will there room for specialists interactive agencies like Hispanic interactive agencies?
2. Will traditional agencies need to have specialty digital capabilties like SEO and mobile?
3. Will traditional agencies continue buying interactive shops or will the opposite start to happen?