Archive for June, 2009
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
It’s sometimes said that Hispanic consumers are more brand loyal.
One often-cited source is Nielsen HomeScan’s study of Hispanic shopping behavior. Nielsen found that 70 percent of Spanish language-preferred Hispanic homes chose one cola consistently to the exclusion of others: in English-language only or English-preferred homes, that figure dropped to just 33 percent. That wide gap continued across purchases for many other food items and household goods, from cereal and beer, to detergents and toothpaste.
Why the difference? Researchers have put out a few theories: Hispanics may come here having had bad experiences in their home country with products. If they then come here and find something of higher quality, they stick with it, because it’s comparatively better than what they had before. Then there’s the corollary to that: good experiences with a product from home could lead to loyalty here, because it reminds them of home.
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Tags: Brand, Buying power, culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino
Posted in Brand, Buying power, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Uncategorized, culture | 6 Comments »
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
The latest news about Univision dominance in the 18-34 year-old demographic is another reason to be paying attention to the Hispanic market, if you’re not already doing so.
For the week of June 15, Univision beat out all other broadcast networks, English and Spanish, for ages 18-34 on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday nights. In the highly coveted Thursday 10 pm slot, Univision’s “Mujeres Asesinas” (“Ladykillers”) beat out the top English competitor CBS by 72% for adults ages 18-34. For primetime, Univision was #1 on Friday among adults ages 18-49. This week wasn’t the first time Spanish programs have beaten ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and the CW. In fact, Univision has been #1 on 33 Fridays during the 2008-2009 television season! Yes, 33 times!
Spanish-language programming has dominated ratings in the past, but it is happeing more frequently and its current success is a stark contrast with other major networks.
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Tags: Census, Hispanic, HispanicPR, language, Latino, public relations, ratings, Spanish
Posted in Census, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Network, Spanish, language, public relations, ratings | 12 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 »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
This week, the AARP released a survey looking at older Hispanics in the U.S. workforce, and the survey provides a good example of the difficulties of doing survey research on Hispanics. The AARP asked older Hispanics, age 50-69, about their job satisfaction, and found that despite higher levels of physical activity on the job, lower wages and less job security, Hispanics ages 50-69 reported less stress and higher job satisfaction. At least, that’s what they said for the survey.
The AARP admits in the report that there’s a cultural issue here: Latinos feel more of a need to respond positively when asked questions in surveys, and are less likely to complain so as to be polite.
This problem was taken on in a great piece last year by Ricardo Lopez of Hispanic Research, a NJ-based Hispanic market research firm. Lopez has been in this business for over 20 years and he says that while glad that more companies are looking to do Hispanic research, the old methods will not work with un-acculturated Hispanics. Just as culture’s a factor in our marketing, it’s also huge in our market research.
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Tags: Focus Group, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Research, Spanish
Posted in Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Research, culture, language, translation | 6 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 »
Friday, June 5th, 2009
It’s almost impossible, if not insulting, to try to speak of a generic Hispanic culture in the U.S.: Hispanic culture is inherently dynamic and hard to classify. There are constantly new waves of Hispanic immigrants, more than 20 different countries represented, and huge differences between generations. Anyone who seeks to market to this audience needs to appreciate its complexity.
First, let’s discard with stereotypes. Most Hispanics are not recent immigrants to this country: in fact, the majority of Hispanics in the U.S. – three out of five – are native-born citizens. The last census showed that the biggest group in the Latino population is Generation Y, those between 5 and 24 years old.
As you might expect, there’s a stark contrast in English ability between Hispanic immigrants and their native born children. Among Hispanic immigrants, Puerto Ricans and South Americans are most likely to claim English proficiency, while Mexicans are the least likely. According to a Pew Hispanic Center Report, only 1 in four Hispanic immigrants report being able to speak English well. But that number jumps to 88% for US-born Hispanics 18 and over.
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Tags: bicultural, culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, language, Latino, Spanish
Posted in Census, Hispanic, Hispanic 101, HispanicPR, Latino, Population, Spanish, Uncategorized, bicultural, culture, language | 5 Comments »