Archive for the ‘communications’ Category
Friday, March 26th, 2010
By David Henry, President & CEO
Working in the PR industry for more than 20 years has giving me an opportunity to see a variety of communications programs. In addition to my corporate roles, I have been honored to serve as a judge for industry awards like the PRSA Silver Anvil Awards, the PR Week awards, the PRSA-NY Big Apple awards and others. So, you could say that I’ve had many opportunities to work with and evaluate some of the best work in the industry.
One of the most significant changes in our business is the a growing trend that the expectations from some PR programs are somewhat unrealistic, and that some clients expect coverage for product or corporate stories that don’t make sense, or are highly inflated. I’m also noticing that sometimes there’s not even a story or news event worth publicizing.
I read an article today with a headline that, at first, had me angry: “Six Reasons Not To Hire A PR Firm.” My initial impression from reading the title only was that the author was misinformed. Then, I read the article.
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Tags: HispanicPR, metrics, PRSA, public relations, Results
Posted in HispanicPR, News, Results, communications, metrics, public relations | 8 Comments »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Hispanics are more active than the general population in almost every category of mobile phone activity, whether it’s talking, texting, downloading, or browsing the Web. Compared to the general market, Hispanics use more minutes and own more phones despite having generally lower incomes. It’s been found that 87% of Hispanic households have multiple mobile phones, and use them more than any other form of personal or handheld technologies on the market today.
Age is one important factor in explaining the high use of mobile among Hispanics. Hispanics are the youngest segment of the American population, with an average age nine years younger than the average for Americans overall (27.2 versus 36.2.). Currently, 58% of America’s K-12 grade students are non-white minorities, and of that group, the largest minority is Hispanics.
Besides age, another important factor is the strong presence of mobile technology in Latin America. 40% of the Hispanic population in the U.S. is foreign-born, and in most Latin American nations, as in much of the world, mobile phones are becoming more common than landline phones.
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Tags: AT&T, culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, mobile, mobile communications, Population
Posted in AT&T, Census, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, communications, culture, immigrant, language, mobile | 7 Comments »
Friday, November 20th, 2009
Following is the third and final part of the interview with Kimberly Bow Sundy, manager of PR and multicultural marketing for General Mills.
TeleNoticias: What trends do you see in Hispanic PR?
Kim Sundy: For us, the trends here are really all about engagement. The trends are all about how can we continue to evolve with an evolving consumer segment. Again, it’s all about youth marketing. How do you continue to have relevant dialogue? I think one of the big challenges is that many of the consumers we deal with are acculturating to life in the United States and their kids are first-generation Hispanic consumers. Those are two different consumption patterns, two different habits.
How are you relevant to mom and her kids when they’re in two different places? Everything we go out with has to have that dual marketing strategy: conversations with acculturating moms and with their bicultural kid, who one day will be a first-generation consumer. It’s about continuing to evolve your marketing in a way that’s relevant to their dynamic needs.
TN: How does that complexity impact what you do?
KS: We look at different marketing levers for different levels of acculturation, and I think PR is a truly phenomenal lever for people who are acculturated. Public relations really provides you the opportunity to educate a consumer. Our brands are not widely available in Latin America or countries of origin for many of the people who are acculturating. So PR is really the most efficient and effective tool for educating consumers about our brand, and the points of difference that they may have against other products that exist in the marketplace.
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Tags: Acculturation, Brand, culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, public relations, Que Rica Vida
Posted in Acculturation, Brand, General Mills, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Multicultural, Que Rica Vida, Social media, communications, culture, public relations | 10 Comments »
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
This is the first in a series of discussions with public relations and corporate communications professionals and executives who are having a major impact on shaping and influencing Hispanic public relations. Our objective is to give them a platform to share their views, experiences, achievements and outlooks while providing useful information to our blog followers. Hispanic PR is changing rapidly and having “insights for today’s leaders” will go a long way to helping all of us approach and address the importance of the Hispanic market. We hope you find this series helpful and interesting and that you too will share this blog with your business associates and friends.
Kimberly Bow Sundy, manager of PR and multicultural marketing for General Mills, is our inaugural interview discussion who will give us good insight into the company’s Hispanic outreach. Kim provides an overview of General Mills history in multicultural outreach, their approach, successes, how they measure results and her views on the future of Hispanic PR. Kim’s discussion is divided into three blog posts; the following is part one.
TeleNoticias: Kim, thanks for agreeing to leadoff our series. To start, can you talk about your role and the importance of Hispanic Marketing at General Mills? For which areas are you responsible?
Kim Sundy: I have a twofold function here at General Mills. I am responsible for our external communications with communities of color, so I manage all external public relations with the African-American and Hispanic communities. Beyond that, I also manage our external relationships from a community relations perspective.
I am the day-to-day contact for big nationally influencing organizations like National Council of La Raza, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Congressional Black Caucus Institute, and the National Urban League. I manage our external relations with both influencers and consumers.
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Tags: Add new tag, Brand, culture, General Mills, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Multicultural, public relations, Que Rica Vida, Spanish
Posted in Brand, General Mills, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Multicultural, Que Rica Vida, Spanish, communications, culture, language, public relations | 5 Comments »
Friday, October 16th, 2009
Hispanic health has been in the news recently as General Mills has started the second year of their Hispanic nutrition program, Mente Sana en Cuerpo Sano (Sound Mind in Sound Body). The program provides practical advice to Hispanic families looking to eat healthy, while preserving their food traditions. Meanwhile, Oldways, a national food issues think tank, is celebrating Latino Nutrition Month until October 15th, with bilingual nutrition materials and a “Latin American Food Pyramid.”
Oldways and General Mills have tailored their messages to fit the Hispanic culture. Other companies that want to reach out to Hispanics on health issues similarly should keep in mind cultural and social factors. It’s important to be aware of the key role Hispanic women play in family health, and the challenges to eating healthy, such as the high prices of organic and fresh produce. Likewise, companies promoting adult exercise need to consider the time commitments of Hispanic families.
Some studies have suggested that Hispanic women think of themselves as responsible for the health of their family. In a study done by Accent Marketing of women’s opinions on health, Hispanic women spoke about their health using the word “we” rather than “me.” They put their own health in the context of their children and husband, and the common challenges facing them all.
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Tags: culture, exercise, Health, Health information, Hispanic, HispanicPR, language, Latino, obesity, Population, Public Health, shopping, Spanish
Posted in Health, Health information, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Population, Public Health, Spanish, communications, culture, exercise, language, obesity | 45 Comments »
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
Reaching the Hispanic market requires more than a change in language: it requires a change in approach to match the Hispanic culture. This week, Daniel Marrin, an associate at TeleNoticias, shares a success story of a business that changed its approach to reach the Hispanic audience.
Years ago, I worked for St. Charles Catholic Church, in Arlington, VA, a socially progressive church where I organized aid to the poor and advocacy on political issues. Our congregation was full of community activists, young and old, and we regularly held discussions on poverty, Iraq, interfaith dialogue, and many other topics.
Though we had a thriving Spanish-language mass, overcrowding our pews and filling our hallways, our talks attracted very few members of our Latino community. It wasn’t just a matter of language either, since many of our Latino congregants were bilingual.
Our pastor became concerned that our Latino congregation was being divorced from this aspect of our parish life. So, he called for talks just for the Latino community, on issues concerning them.
These Latino talks were organized the same way as all others: a list of topics was generated, based on current affairs; speakers were called; and events were scheduled for after the Spanish mass.
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Tags: culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, language, Latino, Spanish
Posted in Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Spanish, bicultural, communications, culture, language | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
(Originally published in the July, 2009 issue of PRSA‘s Public Relations Tactics.)
In 2007, researchers at the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia predicted that Hispanic buying power will reach $1.2 trillion by 2012 — nearly 10 percent of consumption in the United States.
Regardless, as David Henry, APR, notes, not enough companies include Hispanic outreach as a core part of their plans. Henry is founder and president of the New York-based TeleNoticias, an electronic publicity and broadcast PR company with a focus on the Hispanic market. Here, he talks to Tactics about the mistakes that marketers make in trying to reach Hispanic audiences, the need to build a Hispanic audience through mobile communications and the importance of targeting Spanish-language media outlets. — John Elsasser
Despite the surveys showing the size and buying power of the U.S. Hispanic population, do marketers continue to overlook this demographic?
Some marketers have strong outreach in the Hispanic market, but many still either overlook or underfund Hispanic marketing efforts. Yet money spent on the Hispanic market often generates better in-market results than comparative dollars in the mainstream market. The companies that give the market proper attention are seeing huge ROI, not only from public relations but in overall response from Hispanic consumers.
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Tags: Hispanic, HispanicPR, language, Latino, mobile, mobile communications, PRSA, public relations
Posted in Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Spanish, communications, culture, language, mobile, public relations | 11 Comments »
Friday, July 17th, 2009
A recent Nielsen Consumer Insight study compared the success of different types of ads in the Hispanic market. Nielsen focused on Hispanic bilinguals, those who reported using Spanish and English “equally”, on the “likeability” of different television ads they saw. First, they compared likeability for Spanish and English language ads for the same product. Spanish-language ads rated 62% on likeability, while English scored 41%. The subjects also had 8% higher brand recall of Spanish ads.
Then Nielsen examined different kinds of Spanish ads. One type they looked at were “translated” spots, where the execution was the same as it had been in English, but dubbed or translated. Translated ads scored higher brand recall than English ads, as you’d expect.
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Tags: Add new tag, bicultural, culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Spanish, translation
Posted in Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Spanish, bicultural, communications, culture, language, translation | 8 Comments »
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Most of the country’s Hispanics are on the Internet. Scarborough Research, a market research firm found that 54% of the Hispanic population was online as of 2008. Hispanics’ access grew 13% from 2004 to 2008, compared to 8% growth for Internet access in the general U.S. market. Researchers at EMarketer project that by 2012, there will be nearly 30 million Hispanics online. A recent study by ComScore found that the Hispanic online market in 2009 is at nearly double the rate of the overall U.S. market in number of visitors, time online and amount of pages consumed.
Among Hispanics, 18-34 year olds are more likely to use the Internet. Recent studies have shown that this age group spends more time on the Net than on television.
Older generations shouldn’t be ignored though. In a February study, market research firm Ipsos found that the majority of middle-aged Hispanics went online at least once a month, along with 42% of Hispanics 55 and older.
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Tags: Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Online
Posted in Hispanic, Hispanic 101, HispanicPR, Latino, communications | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
There are many articles that address the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino”, trying to help people understand the terms, their origin and their correct or acceptable use. There is an article in the “Notes from the newsroom on grammar, usage and style section” of The New York Times today (June 9th) entitled “Hispanic? Latino? Or What?” that tries to address the topic and explain the terms and their use. There are some good points in the article, but it is also a bit confusing.
The term “Hispanic” was coined by the Census Bureau to categorize those citizens who come from Spanish-speaking countries and their descendants. The term “Latino” is technically a term to describe people from Latin America. Both terms have become more generic in describing the overall population segment that hail from Spanish-speaking countries. While they are fine terms to describe the larger group, they don’t apply well to individuals. We think this is the point the Times article was trying to make. Depending on where you are in the country, one term is preferred over the other.
The bottom line is that there is no simple solution or application of either term and that being specific is usually the best way to minimize confusion.
Tags: grammar, Hispanic, HispanicPR, immigrant, Latino, style
Posted in Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Spanish, Uncategorized, communications, culture, language | 4 Comments »