Latino Youth

From a recent report on the Association of Hispanic Ad Agencies´ 23rd semi-annual conference held in New York, Ad Week put out an article detailing the two driving themes: cultural relevancy and (not surprisingly) Latino youth. The purpose of the conference this year was to kick start Hispanic ad agencies like Lapiz and Circulo Creativo to create “Not (just) great ideas for the Hispanic market, but great ideas that happen to be created by a Hispanic agency in Spanish and in English.”

Aldo Quevedo, conference co-chairman and Dieste Harmel & Partners president and CCO, put it simply, “The difference between Hispanic agencies and those in the general market will be cultural relevancy.” The key is to evolve with the market, and as it turns out, ‘Latino Youth’ is the force behind the whole thing. The ‘Latino Youth’ (12-34) segment of the market is not only the fastest growing, but often the most overlooked; “Their speedy wealth creation and high consumerism are at odds with the neglect of investment across most advertising and marketing categories” according to Laura Sonderup, director of Heinrich Hispanidad.

This group is dynamic, bi/multi cultural, bi-lingual and creating a new, unique identity of what it means to grow up in America. The U.S. Hispanic market is comprised of subcultures from over 20 countries in Central and South America, the Caribbean and Spain, with a wide variety of culture, beliefs, opinions and consumer behavior patterns, as a result of differences in their native countries’ geography, indigenous ancestry and colonial origins. The Spanish language is the single unifying force, and fluency, both cultural and linguistic, will prove invaluable in capturing the loyalty of this critical market segment.

Marketing to Hispanics

Earlier this year, the 2010 Census figures were released. It was reported that the United States is now home to over 50 million Hispanics. That’s a 43 percent increase over the previous ten years. This year has also marked the fact that Latinos now account for $1 trillion in annual spending power. Those are some staggering statistics if you really think about it; I would assume that companies of all shapes and sizes would want to get involved in marketing to the Hispanic community. Yet, more than half of all companies consider this market to be undeserving of their advertising dollar.

You might ask yourself, “How could this be?” California, the state in which I call home, has a population in the range of 37 million people. Would any company in their right mind ignore advertising to the people of California for one reason or another? The answer is obvious. Companies can not assume that they are reaching the Hispanic market solely by advertising to the general market. There are many Hispanics who are educated, high-income earners, whose preference is to watch Spanish language television and browse Hispanic-themed websites. Hispanics have been known to be brand-loyal and companies that are not currently marketing to Hispanics would be wise to acquire their loyalty. It would only make sense that we eventually see this come to fruition, instead of talking about this same issue years down the road.

Spanish vs. English language advertising to Hispanics, presented by New Link

Time for Spring cleaning

Funny thing about the turning of the seasons, no matter how hard you fight them or try to ignore them, they always mean change. Always have. Always will. That’s not a bad thing, but sometimes we just aren’t ready. Or we don’t think that we are. Spring in some ways is different from the other seasons, however. Spring always represents renewal and growth. We do spring cleaning. Exercising changes from the Winter drill to the Spring Training. We dig up old gardens and plant them anew. The list goes on. Oddly however, it isn’t uncommon for advertisers and their marketing handlers to somehow overlook the need to do some Spring cleaning and renewal with their ad campaigns.

Depending upon the particular business, product or service, spring might just be the optimal time to review, refine and otherwise optimize everything in your marketing and advertising program. Are ads outdated, inaccurate or just plain not performing? Is your plan working at optimal efficiency? Do you know? Maybe it is time to conduct a thorough inventory and assessment and see if there isn’t some new life to be swept into your efforts instead of sweeping badly performing ads, media mixes, or measurement practices under the couch like Super Bowl-party pizza crumbs. So break out the cleaning gear for your brain and make sure every dollar you spend on marketing and advertising is working optimally. It will be summer before you know it!

Looking for a sign

There already was a lot of unnecessary churn in advertising and marketing long before the current recession. Too many media companies were arrogantly in denial about the true nature of the beast. Too many posers, too, tried to position themselves as “gurus” with some new magic to change everything. Hell, we even called it “New Media.” That distinction seems hilarious now. I mean, does New Media work with “Old Business?” Business is business. And business means addressing the bottom line. There is nothng mysterious about that. So the hope is that we will all quit pretending and get down to business and align our marketing, advertising and media offerings with good business practices. Become “true” partners with our advertisers and companies that have goods and services to sell. No fluff. No bull. Now “that” would be a miracle.

I’m looking for a sign ….

Worship of the body

For those of us working with advertisers and agencies that work with adult beverages, there is a strong familiarity with the self-imposed guidelines of the manufacturers to reach the 21+ age group. This requirement aimed at protecting younger viewers makes sense to almost everyone who deals with the U.S. market.

However, a recent article from Advertising Age notes recent parliamentary action in some European countries that are working to ban the so-called “body worship” category. In Spain beauty and hygiene is the third largest spender in television advertising, accounting for over $700 million in airtime in 2008. As you can imagine, all advertisers in this category are waiting anxiously the results of challenges that will come with these bans.

Have a look at the entire article at Advertising Age.

New Orleans Saints

This is not a sports site like some others named for popular cable channels, we won’t offer much of a critique on the game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. Let’s talk advertising.

Judging by the reaction of the rest of the group I was with in attendance at the Super Bowl party in Lake Tahoe, the winner is Doritos with the anti-bark collar :

There were the traditional Go Daddy Danica Patrick ads, competing commercials from major car companies- with the notable exception of General Motors- and the freaky baby ads of E*Trade. Personally I give a very close 2nd place to the first of the E*Trade ads with the “milkaholic” Lindsey:

Luckily at Ad Age’s Super Bowl ad page and YouTube you can relive the ads, although they will probably be shown more than once in the upcoming months. Only time will tell if the actual value of the $30 million is realized, but it is another diversion for those who may not be as interested in the game.

Well, there are plenty of other first time advertisers looking to make a splash with Super Bowl XLIV. These firms are looking to build on the success of past advertisers such as E*Trade, Go Daddy and Hulu.

An article in this week’s Wall Street Journal discusses some of those already confirmed such as Qualcomm’s Flo TV, KGB and HomeAway, replacing some of the larger companies such as FedEx and General Motors who are not currently planning to participate.

Other first time advertisers planning on joining are Time Warner’s TruTV, Electronic Arts, Boost Mobile and even a conservative Christian group, Focus on the Family, has also purchased airtime. How they will compete with the perennial big budget spots of Anheuser Busch InBev remains to be seen, but as always there is much to look forward to, both on the gridiron and in between advertisers.

Going Digital

Regardless of their size,  all agencies are looking at ways to improve their service offerings  and even expand their service offerings.  This is most evident in areas such as digital, mobile, as well as multicultural.  For larger companies, there is a tendency to think that it will be easy for them to transition, as they have resources that may not be available to smaller agencies; however, in many cases they have significant challenges in reorganizing a larger company structure.  For smaller agencies, the challenge of resources is of constant concern, and hiring and paying the experts necessary can be financially burdensome.

In the article from Advertising Age “A Small Agency’s Guide to Going Digital”, Mr. Gould does an exellent job of sharing his experience with an agency that transformed itself over a period of 10 years to a 100% digital agency.  There are many others who, either based on a client interest or of their own acceptance, decided that they needed to keep up with the emerging media world.

At Alcance Media Group, we are in contact with agencies of all sizes who face similar challenges.  In some cases they are agencies who are looking to improve their knowledge of digital solutions, and in others they are looking to add Hispanic marketing initiatives to their roster of services.  And of course there are many who have some mix of all of the above.

As a digital marketing company focusing on reaching the Hispanic market,  Alcance Media Group is continually working on improving not only our expertise, but also looking for ways to share that expertise with our agency and advertiser partners.   One key way that agencies have used us to help for projects is areas such as reaching the Hispanic market, when more of a one-off client request is the use of contractors and consultants.  With the right combination of in-house expertise and that of a consultant, agencies have been able to quickly ramp up their offerings.  In working with Hispanic agencies, we started to realize that many had a need to incorporate digital services, and we created the Agency Solutions.  In this solution, we have been working behind the scenes to give agencies customized solutions to expand their expertise in the multicultural marketing or digital advertising space.

If you have the budget and the business to support a full scale transition to digital, it is absolutely the best option.  However, in the real world the ability to add experts as needed, quickly, and without the long-term commitment of equipment, training, etc., is very useful for smaller agencies.  This not only gives immediate access to knowledge and trained staff, but when the time comes for an agency to build up its internal staff, the consultants are available to assist and pass on their knowledge.