Fingerprinting: Targeting Latinos

 WHAT'S HAPPENING

• Brands depend on U.S. Latino-focused Spanish-language advertising to spread the word about their products and services. Dollars spent on Latino-directed advertising keep growing, reaching $2.87 billion the first six months of 2007, a 2.3% increase over the previous six months (MediaWeek.com 11.6.07). What's it buying? Spanish-language broadcast and spot TV, spot radio, cable TV advertising, national magazines and local newspapers. Add Internet, out-of-home and other traditional channels and we're seeing the utilization of a growing set of media sources by brands trying to connect with the Latino consumer. Increasingly added to that mix is a tactic whereby brands take media matters into their own hands.
• Global and national companies create, produce and distribute mainstream and alternate media vehicles — magazines, radio and TV segments and Internet programming — that not only promote brand offerings directly to the consumer, but are maximized to connect with Latino lives and passion points.
• Allowing Latinas to better fulfill the dream of raising their kids and living in the U.S. is the motive behind Qué Rica Vida (What a Delicious Life), General Mills' controlled media platform. The initiative includes a magazine, website and community events as ways to provide Hispanic-dominant Latinas with information on health, wellness and education, while also distributing product ads and recipes.
• Unilever, too, delivers product and lifestyle information via its branded media program ViveMejor. The bilingual ViveMejor magazine and website provide shopping and beauty tips to Latina homemakers, as do branded segments during Univision's Despierta América. The initiative's Pasa La Belleza campaign utilizes its own website featuring styling tips and guides, video testimonials and opportunities to share secrets at Beauty Charlas (chats), events organized by partner Las Comadres Para Las Americas.
• Telenovelas are a way of life for Hispanic-dominant TV viewers. Give Unilever additional props for taking product placement to another level, partnering with Univision.com to create an online telenovela to promote a Caress body wash line. Using footage from on-air soap Destilando Amor (Distilling Love), the product received front and center attention via six episodes of Mi Adorada Malena (My Beloved Malena).
• Kimberly-Clark shares and spreads cultura with a custom-created website, community events and radio promos which serve to spread the use of dichos — homespun proverbs Latinos use to punctuate everyday conversations. The aim of the multimedia Comparte tu Dicho (Share your Proverb) campaign is to compile the world's first 'dichonario,' or dictionary of Spanish-language proverbs. The marketing hook:  users download Scott product coupons from the dedicated website.
• Reaching toward young bicultural Latinas, Mercury's Milan presented an interactive, online reality series competition called Fashionista. Twenty budding fashion designers appeared in AOL Latino webisodes and created their own Web pages using the site's social networking services. Online voters chose Chicago's Anna Fong to design a gown for actress Dayanara Torres and be featured in People en Español.
• Cutting across brands, social networking and user-generated content, SiTV's two community websites —  [Si] Entertainment and [Si] Trends — are designed as digital talent incubators, showcasing Latino artists and content creators. Verizon Wireless, AOL Latino and Payless ShoeSource have signed on to utilize the talents of some of these emerging artists, who'll be paid to help spread their brand messages online.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO BUSINESS

• While traditional media buys can target Latino consumers on scales ranging from broad to narrow and everywhere in between, there are emerging methods to reach and also teach them. Brand-created and -controlled media, offered by a small but growing contingent of savvy companies, offer content that speaks to Latino lives, delivering relevant messages that entertain, educate and empower while communicating brand attributes that are ultimately also important to bottom lines.
• Brand-created and -controlled media break down the divide between the product or service and the consumer. Putting messages in entertaining and informative brand-created forms allows marketers to control not only the content, but also to better control and understand the distribution and reach.
• Latino consumers want to interact with brands on their own time. For the consumer, pocket-sized, brand-created pubs picked up at corner stores or public events are palatable options for saving and reading at home between work, household chores and caring for the kids.
• Online video breaks down the divide between the brand and the consumer. Short, snappy online videos with personable hosts and compelling story lines keep attention focused on the entertainment, while integrating the product as a primary character in the narrative drives home the benefits.
• Beware packing the content with too many brand references, overshadowing the educational or entertainment aspects of the media. As with any consumer, Latinos can see right through heavy-handed pushes for specific products and will toss out well-meaning but poorly executed presentations.

MARKET FACTS

• Unilever's ViveMejor marketing effort follows a first-of-its-kind study of Latino shopping behavior the brand conducted in 2006 looking at 3,600 shopping trips by more than 800 consumers. The study found Latino shoppers generally appreciate being communicated with in Spanish in stores, and are more receptive to in-store meal suggestions and recipes than the general population. That led to ViveMejor magazine being distributed in stores. - AdAge.com | 5.21.07
• "Qué Rica Vida is an amazing initiative. It allows us to really connect with Latino moms at a different level. We teach from them, from their needs, their families, their aspirations ... we have a dialogue. We strive to inspire them. The vision ... is to provide Hispanic women with great information and products that allow them to better fulfill the dream of raising their kids and living a life in this country." - Ursula Mejia-Melgar, manager of multicultural marketing at General Mills, Comida News | 11.1.07
• "We want to interact with the Hispanic market, and we want to hear them talk. We don't want to talk at them. We want to give something interactive and relevant to the Hispanic market." - Odette Hasbun, director of client services for MASS Hispanic Marketing, the agency behind Comparte tu Dicho (Share your Proverb) campaign to compile the world's first 'dichonario,' or dictionary of Spanish-language proverbs, MarketingYMedios.com | 8.30.07

SEEN AND HEARD

• Dozens of Hispanic-dominant Latinos circled the kiosk in the middle of Plaza Olvera in L.A.'s historical center, waiting for their chance to recite their favorite dicho (proverb) in hopes of being videotaped to appear on Kimberly-Clark's Comparte tu Dicho website. While some fumbled with the precise wording of the homespun homilies, others confidently shared a bit of their precious family culture. All were rewarded, however, clutching coupons for Scott products as they departed.

RESOURCES

Que Rica Vida
ViveMejor
Scott Dichonario
AOL Latino
SiTV

The New New Trends of Latino Culture published by Critical Mass Media

SOURCES:  "How You Might Use It" sections of each story are Copyright 2007, Critical Mass Media. Individual articles, unless otherwise specified, are Copyright 2006-2007, Iconoculture, and are used by permission of the copyright holder. No further distribution or publication of Iconoculture material is permitted.