Hispanic Market Trends to Look Out For
The previously ignored Hispanic market is continuously proving to be a growing force in the U.S. Between 2010 and 2015, statistics showed that the Hispanic population consisted about 50 percent of the entire U.S. population growth. While these numbers might mean something else in other professions, to marketers, this means that the U.S Hispanic consumer is slowly but surely growing to become a cornerstone in the growth initiative of most, if not all, industries in the U.S.
Some Quick Insights:
Mobile Market
Hispanics prefer mobile devices to desktop devices because of the convenience. Companies should, therefore, center their marketing strategies on location-based applications and similar innovations.
Social Media and Interactive Content
As a result of the mobile device convenience, social media is also becoming a huge trend among Latinos, but unlike other consumers, Latinos value interactive content. Sure, they skim through segments on the internet, but they yearn for quality information that truly reaches out to them.
Place of the Youth
All this points to another important insight – the role of the youth. The U.S. born Latinos are mostly under 18 years of age. One might think that these are not viable consumers, but they influence the market in a huge way. Latino families, especially immigrants, rely on their youths to educate them on American culture, market trends, and other relevant sectors.
Prioritizing Culture
The Hispanic millennials are very bilingual and live in two different worlds. This means that they value their culture, traditions, religion, but at the same time, they are 100% American. Marketers need to understand this bicultural domain that they live in. The youth might not be spending the money, but they are pulling strings.
With these trends in mind, companies hoping to invest in the Hispanic market should be able to survive the high stakes, while staying ahead of the competition.
The Trends
According to Nielsen’s report, a Hispanic will spend eight hours or more watching online video while an American will spend less time than this. From the same report, we find that an average of 10 million Latinos watches mobile video for six hours or more every month. The same group of Hispanics is more likely to access the internet via their mobile devices and not their desktop computers. Skiko will tell you that this consumer base values nothing more than having the best technology within their reach, but instead of going for the new laptop, the Hispanic consumer will instead upgrade their mobile device, or buy a new tablet.
Let us hear it from a successful company in the industry; Universal Pictures. The Hispanic market makes up for about 80 percent of Universal’s annual consumer base. The vice president of the company, Fabian Castro, said it himself; “the digital space is one of my favorite areas to market to this audience.” Because of the extent to which the Latino customer uses the digital space, Universal Pictures markets to them through their dedicated channel on YouTube where Hispanics can go to get custom content made just for them. Look at HBO; this network has been around for decades, yet its customer base seems to have stagnated. Now consider MiTú; a bilingual network that has been around for less than ten years. MiTú’s customer base is already reaching one-third of HBO’s customer base because unlike the single channel network, MiTú appeals to the Hispanic consumer- a consumer that is clearly influencing America more and more.
Hispanics access these online videos and social media sites through their smartphones. A Latino’s mobile device is their primary screen, so if you can reach them there, you can reach them anywhere.
It is not enough that you can speak two words of Spanish, you need to dig deeper. Hispanics want more than information that has been translated into their language, and while this might be the first step, it is not the only step. The Latino consumers are diversified in themselves, and having been bred by two cultures only makes them more complicated. You cannot make your consumer settle for what you think is right, so give them the choices and let them make the decision on their own – Darles más opciones. Hispanic marketing does not mean Spanish marketing. Create English versions, Spanish versions, and bilingual versions of your campaign and throw it all out there.
In as much as you get the choices right, you still need to create interactive content for your audience. Target behaviors, location, lifestyle- basically anything that reaches the consumer on a personal rather than a Hispanic level. The good news is that you have digital marketing to help you reach even the most stubborn of consumers, the rest is up to you.
Have some cultural relevance. Target their music, their values, their religious beliefs, and their food, then make sure your product appeals to it. Language can only get you so far. Going back to Universal Pictures and their movie Despicable Me 2, you will find that this movie is very culturally relevant and it appeals to the Hispanic market in more ways than one. The dialogue is in English, but when El Macho, the Mexican villain is unveiled, the Latino audience starts to notice. This movie is created on the theme of family and career (when Gru has to choose between being a father and being a supervillain).
This theme fits perfectly into the Hispanic family values, and even the music was carefully selected to suit the Latino viewer. The movie targeted Hispanic viewers without the rest of the consumers ever knowing it. To get your message across, make sure it is relevant, in some way. Don’t just speak their language. Speak their culture.
Most Hispanics under the age of 55 are bilingual, and as new generations continue to grow, the bilingual gene will only continue to mature. From this Nielsen Report, 40.6 million Hispanics aged 5 and above are fluent in English. Bilingual Hispanics account for 55% of their population, with 27 percent being English dominant and only 19 percent of them being Spanish dominant. Most of the Spanish-speaking population are aged over 35, and only 4 percent of this population are under the age of 18.
This brings us to another fact concerning Hispanics. The older generations might want to maintain quiet lifestyles, but the Hispanic Millennial wants to be noticed. The younger generation embraces both American and Latino culture, and even as they continue to be engulfed by the American ways, the youth in this community maintain very close ties with their family and their culture. The young as guiding the old in this changing world, so if you want to market a new television channel to the older Latino generation, make sure the younger generation knows about it because chances are that they are the ones who will have to explain it to their parents and grandparents.
The world is slowly being redefined, and even as you read this, the United States continues to change. U.S. Hispanics are increasingly acquiring the American culture without abandoning their own, but having understood this is not nearly enough. To truly reach the Latino Market, these are the trends to pay attention to.
