By Jake Beniflah
The U.S. Hispanic marketing industry has been growing at an average of 10 percent since 2003, as more clients are spending more money targeting this segment. But when it comes to online marketing, not all clients are online, spending only $132 million or roughly 3.5 percent of the total Hispanic media advertising expenditures in 2006. An overview of Hispanic online marketing and a look at why companies are spending relatively little in this area are the central topics of this month’s issue of In Perspective.
Redefining the Hispanic Market
Despite the commonly held belief that the U.S. Hispanic market can be effectively reached by a Spanish-language marketing effort, marketers today have to deal with a different, more nuanced Hispanic marketplace.
As discussed in previous columns, the U.S. Hispanic market is culturally and linguistically diverse. Forty percent of the Hispanic population is foreign-born and predominantly Spanish-speaking, while 60 percent is second- and third-generation and largely bilingual and English-speaking only (Suro and Passel, 2003). Sixty-four percent of the segment is Mexican, 15 percent Caribbean, 9 percent Central American, 8 percent South American, and 4 percent Other (Spaniard, etc.). As we will see, the diversity in the Hispanic market composition will have significant implications on what marketers do to target U.S. Hispanics effectively in the future.
Online Marketing Findings
In 2001, the Pew Internet & American Life Project conducted a study on the Internet activities of English-speaking Hispanics in English. In the summer and fall of 2006, the Pew Hispanic Center conducted a follow-up study in English and Spanish, talking to more than 6,000 Hispanic adults regarding their online habits in the United States. The results were quite interesting.
The most important finding in this study was the online penetration of U.S. Hispanics. The study found that 56 percent of U.S. Hispanics use the Internet, compared to 71 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 60 percent of non-Hispanic blacks in this country.
Much of the difference in Internet usage between Hispanics and non-Hispanics is explained by socio-economic differences. These factors are often times intertwined, especially in the Hispanic foreign-born population, making it difficult to isolate one variable from another. However, the study concluded that two factors—education and language—were important in explaining the gap in Internet usage between Hispanics and non-Hispanics in the United States.
Source: Hispanic Business
Filed under: Culture, Marketing | Tagged: hispanic, internet, Latinos, Marketing
