This Week in Hispanic Marketing

Hello readers! Once I again, I plan on mixing things up for today's post. Instead of analysis of a specific topic, I'll include links and summaries of this week's Hispanic marketing news so you can stay up to date on what's happening! 

Attracting the Hispanic Voter (or Consumer)

Glenn Llopis of Forbes discusses Obama's "win" of the Hispanic voter. Llopis argues that it was likely not his success at relating to this group, but Romney's failure, that led to this lead. His recipe for success in reaching the Hispanic voter, or for that matter the Hispanic consumer? Pay attention to their motivations and cultural differences as opposed to their impact on the bottom line-- success will follow.  Companies are making a big mistake by targeting Hispanics separately as an entirely different demographic unconnected from their brand or their standard consumer base. Instead, the growth in the Hispanic population should be reflected in creative strategy and in brands themselves. Instead of jumping through all these hurdles to make an irrelevant brand or message meaningful to Hispanics, why not make brands and messages inherently relevant to this demographic from the get go?

Head & Shoulders to Woo Hispanic Males

The Creative Department writes of Head & Shoulders' attempt to target young, Hipsanic males through use of football player, Lionel Messi, as a spokesperson. The article points to the increased use of Hispanic symbols and icons to target this group.

Rolling Stone Targets Acculturated Hispanics

Perhaps one of the most interesting articles on this subject was written by Andrew Adam Newman of the New York Times. Newman discusses the trend away from outlets using Spanish language in exclusively Hispanic contexts. In particular, this month's issue of Rolling Stone features Hispanic rapper, Pit Bull, on the cover and includes articles written in both Spanish and English. Instead of writing the same article in two separate languages, each segment covers new material. This has the effect of allowing acculturated Hispanics to consume media as they do in their personal lives, often in Spanish and English simultaneously.

This Election Season, Spending on Spanish-Language Ads Increased....a Little

Veronica Zaragovia wrote for Fronteras about a recent report released by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, detailing ad spending this election season. The report found that spending across the country was extremely disproportionate-- while not a single dollar was spent in Arizona to target Hispanics, "$3,897,404 was spent in Las Vegas alone (Zaragovia, par 2)." Further, while spending on Spanish language ads increased overall, many experts believe it did not increase enough to account for the growing Hispanic electorate. The majority of spending on Spanish-lanugage ads took place in Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, Orlando and Tampa. While I am not surprised that spending would be high in Floridian cities, I would think at least one Texan or Californian city would make the list. This finding is further evidence that both campaigns seemed to concentrate their efforts on swing-state Hispanics, leaving the population as a whole feeling misunderstood and neglected.