- Author: MediaPost.com by Erin Conrad, Columnist
According to a recent Google study that surveyed a select panel of senior-level marketers to see if the U.S. Hispanic audience was on their roadmap, most saw 11 to 25% of their company's growth coming from this demographic in the next three to five years. Still, many brands surveyed didn't have a marketing strategy for engaging this audience.
I can't be the only marketer that finds it baffling how the U.S. Hispanic market can be the most attractive and yet one of the most underserved at that same time. Working in Hispanic marketing for over a decade, I have heard over and over from marketers about the importance of this consumer group, but in 2016 very few are working towards a strategy to specifically and meaningfully reach us in a culturally relevant manner.
Here are two reasons why:
1. The “Total Market” Syndrome
With the development and rise of “Total Market” strategies over the past few years, corporations and marketers have found an excuse to generalize strategies to reach the diverse US market as a whole. Essentially, Total Market refers to a melting pot of marketing strategies that are intended to speak to universal truths while gaining efficiencies.
These efficiencies, however, inherently ignore an important fact: Hispanics are greatly influenced by strong and distinct cultural values that guide their thoughts, actions and, ultimately, motivations to buy. Implementing a total market strategy may save money, but often leads to a less engaging message that lacks in authenticity and leaves the Latino consumer asking “what's in it for me?” The brands that understand this and are making an effort to foster genuine connections based on key cultural differences are winning Hispanic consumers' loyalty and dollars compared to those who take a one-size-fits-all approach.
2. No Hablo Español (or Language Matters)
As marketers spend more time investigating the Hispanic market, they have come to understand that the majority of this group's population recent growth comes from U.S. births—meaning more and more of the population is proficient in English. The problem is that half of marketers believe that Hispanic marketing means marketing solely in Spanish. The other half assume that since the Hispanic audience is bilingual or English-dominant, they can be effectively reached through the same advertising and strategies developed for general market audiences.
Neither is the correct approach; marketers end up overlooking the important role that cultural ties and community connections play to this Hispanic consumer. Cultural nuances are often more important than language. While language can be a trigger, culturally- relevant content and messaging can engage the entire spectrum of the Latino audience.
I often compare targeting Hispanics versus the general market to the differences in targeting men and women. Marketers would not likely use the same piece of content to reach and connect with a male as they would a female (just ask Dollar Shave Club). The voice, experience and reasons to buy can be completely different. The same goes for the Hispanic market.
Source: Published originally on MediaPost.com Why Brands Still Don't Have a True Hispanic Marketing Strategy , by Erin Conrad, December 29, 2016.
- Author: Latinpost by Claudia Balthazar
Recent studies prove that spending power by the Hispanic demographic is growing faster than that of non-Latino groups.
The number of Hispanic households is growing faster than ever, making a larger consumer group. This also means that there is a higher spending power among Latinos in America that businesses will model some of their strategies toward.
Between 2012 and 2015, Latino households represented about 40 percent of the growth in spending for household equipment. In the same time period, Hispanic households accounted for 25 percent of the growth in spending for new cars and trucks.
Data for Latino Household Aggregated Spending
Latino household accounted for double-digit shares of growth in aggregated expenditures:
- 20 percent growth in furniture expenses
- 18 percent growth in major household appliances
- 17 percent growth in audio-visual equipment and services
- 16 percent growth in small appliances
Data for Latino Household Use of Financial Services
In the past 10 years, Latino households have accounted for the rapid growth of a wide selection of financial services. Hispanic households have spent more on financial services than any other demographic in the U.S.
Hispanic Contribution to Growth in Financial Industry
Between 2005 and 2015, the use of credit cards by Latinos have grown 11 times faster than it did in non-Latino households. Data shows that it grew by 44 percent, whereas other households only grew by 4 percent.
In the same time period, there were 5.1 million more Latino credit card holders which accounted for about 49 percent of the growth in the total amount of consumers using credit cards.
Hispanic Consumer Trends Impact Foodservice Industry
Not only are Hispanic consumers contributing to the growth of the financial industry, the demographic also makes a huge impact on the foodservice industry.
A recent Hispanic Foodservice Consumer Trend Report says that Latinos are expected to make up nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population. What that means is that, the Latino demographic will shape the growth of the industry because as the population grows, so will its usage of food.
Forty-one percent of Hispanic consumers account for the usage of foodservices twice a week.
Family style eating places benefit the most from Latino consumers since Hispanics generally like to eat meals with their families.
Franchises will benefit from the growth in Latino spending power should they add popular Hispanic meals and flavors to their menus.
Source: Published originally on LatinPost.com Latino Spending Power Reaches All-Time High, Surpasses Non-Latino Groups' , by Claudia Balthazar, August 12, 2016.
- Author: Latimes.com by Melissa Healy
The findings offer some insight into a long-standing demographic mystery: Despite having higher rates of inflammation and such chronic diseases as obesity and diabetes, Latinos in the United States have a longer average lifespan than do non-Latino whites.
The research also helps answer questions about why some people die young while others live to old age, and what chronic diseases have to do with aging.
To get a handle on some of these thorny issues, UCLA bioinformatician Steve Horvath and his colleagues have been trying to devise a biological clock that measures age more comprehensively than simply counting up birthdays. Their method reflects the activity level of the epigenome, the set of signals that prompt one's genes to change their function across a lifespan in response to new demands.
This “epigenetic clock” captures a key feature of aging: that as we grow older, there are complex but predictable changes in the rate at which our genes are switched on and off.
Earlier efforts to devise an epigenetic clock suggested that biological age, and the speed of aging, not only differ among populations and from person to person. They also can vary for a single individual, with some body parts aging faster or slower than others. That may help explain why some organs and tissues are more vulnerable to such age-related diseases as cancer.
In the new study, published this month in the journal Genome Biology, Horvath's team set out to refine and test that clock.
The researchers analyzed blood, saliva and lymphoblastoid samples collected from more than 5,000 people who had participated in a wide range of studies. Those participants included not only black, white and Latino Americans but also Han Chinese, members of the Tsimane Amerindian tribe in South America, a group of hunter-gatherers from a central African rainforest, and another group of African agrarians living in grasslands and open savannas.
To arrive at a single measure of a person's biological age and then compute his or her speed of aging, the researchers measured epigenetic activity at 353 sites in the genome.
The Tsimane, an indigenous people who forage and cultivate crops in the lowlands of Bolivia, offered an especially good test of the epigenetic clock. Since they're constantly bombarded with bacterial, viral and parasitic infections, they typically experience high rates of inflammation, which has widely been seen as a marker for aging. But they rarely show risk factors for heart disease or develop Type 2 diabetes as they get older. In addition, obesity, high blood pressure and problematic cholesterol are virtually nonexistent.
The team's epigenetic clock revealed that the Tsimane aged quite slowly, even compared with Latino Americans. According to the analysis, Tsimane blood looked as if it was two years younger than the blood of Latino Americans and four years younger than the blood of white Americans.
That gap was particularly striking in light of strong evidence that, over the age of 35, a Tsimane's immune system was close to exhausted and his inflammation levels “make him look like a 90-year-old,” Horvath said.
“This result sheds light on what is frequently called the Hispanic paradox,” he said. “It suggests that what gives Hispanics their advantage is really their Native American ancestry, because they share ancestry with these indigenous Americans.”
Horvath emphasized that Latinos' slower aging rate cannot be explained by lifestyle factors such as diet, socioeconomic status, education or obesity, because researchers adjusted for the influence of such factors.
The study may also shed light on a different demographic oddity: that once African Americans have reached the age of 85, they tend to live longer than whites of the same age. Using the new gauge of biological aging, the researchers found that older African Americans indeed age more slowly than do whites of the same chronological age.
The measure also found that women age more slowly than men, and that aging accelerates in people with less education and slows with higher educational attainment. These results bolster long-standing observations that women live longer than men (despite suffering more illnesses) and that more education is linked to longevity.
The study results offer some validation of the epigenetic clock because they track nicely with a host of baffling demographic patterns.
Several other studies have begun to validate the clock's accuracy and reliability, testing it in populations known to age differently from the norm, including people with Down syndrome, HIV infection and Parkinson's disease. In three studies, the clock has been found to accurately predict mortality from any cause in large populations, even after researchers adjusted for chronological age and a range of factors that can erode health and hasten death.
“This effort is very novel and exciting,” said Max Guo, chief of the division of aging biology at the National Institute on Aging, which has funded Horvath's research.
Guo said that ultimately, biological clocks that use large panels of markers — not just epigenetics but other measures of well-being — would probably be needed to capture the complexity of aging. “But this is promising,” he said.
Source: Published originally on latimes.com. Scientists unlock a secret to Latinos' longevity, with hopes of slowing aging for everyone, by Melissa Healy, August 19, 2016.
- Author: Fox News Latino by Rebekah Sager
The theory has always been that the best way to tap into the fast-growing segment of the population, with its $1.3 trillion spending power and increasing political influence, was to do so in its native language.
But a new poll by Fox News Latino turns that theory on its head.
When asked in what language they prefer to get their news, 79 percent of registered Latino voters said they preferred their news in English.
“I'm not incredibly surprised. It reflects a demographic shift as second-, third- and even fourth-generation Latinos, who identify with their culture, but English is their dominant language,” Jessica J. Gonzalez, executive vice president and general counsel of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, told Fox News Latino.
The poll surveyed 803 registered Latino voters nationwide between Aug. 7 and 10. The poll, which has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, was conducted under the direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R).
“This is why our agency has been focused on infusing more people of color into Latino media for years. For a long time, there's been an assumption that all Latinos have been watching news in Spanish,” Gonzalez added.
Following the trend, Univision, which began in 1962 as a Spanish-language news channel, launched Univision News this year with news targeting “English-dominant” Latinos.
In 2010, Fox News Latino launched a ground-breaking website appealing to second- and third-generation Hispanics with national news in English. Fox News Latino launched to fill a gap in the media for Latinos looking for news about their community in English.
According to the Pew Research Center, 62 percent of Hispanics speak primarily English or are bilingual.
"When I was growing up, speaking Spanish was something that people didn't do,” Mark Hugo Lopez at the Pew Research Center told Univision. “People were trying to run away from all those things that were Mexican.”
Aly Colόn, John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Media Ethics at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, said that when you compare Univision with its main Spanish-language rival, Telemundo, you see that Univision is looking more toward an English-oriented audience, which means a younger and more affluent group. In comparison, he said, Spanish-language network Telemundo is looking to reach more recent immigrants from Latin America.
“The news media looks at [their audiences] as one thing, but really it's multiple things. But depending on how they view their audience will determine whether it's in English or Spanish,” Colόn told Fox News Latino.
Gonzalez said she believes the lack of newsroom diversity is the true missed opportunity.
“If you're not serving your audience, they're not going to watch,” Gonzalez said. “At a conference of ours recently, [ABC News correspondent] John Quiñones talked about how he was able to gather news as a Latino that his non-Latino peers could not – because the community was comfortable with him and he was comfortable in the community.”
Source: Published originally on Fox News Latino, Fox News Latino poll: 79% of Latinos prefer to get their news in English, by Rebekah Sager, August 15, 2016
To better document such trends, the Brookings Institution has created an interactive map charting demographic changes by age throughout the nation.
Most striking is the increase in Hispanic population ‑ immigrants and children of immigrants.
As of 2013 in the Houston-Woodlands-Sugar Land metro area, 38 percent of the total population was white, 17 percent black and 36 percent Hispanic. But in the 4 and under age group, Anglo population declined to 28 percent; Hispanic grew to 48 percent. Only in the 50-65 age group did Anglos assert plurality of 51 percent, roughly twice the Hispanic population. Black population varied little when broken down by age groups.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area, demographic makeup for all ages in 2013 was 49 percent white, 15 percent black and 28 percent Hispanic. In the 4 and under age group, Hispanics topped Anglos by 40 to 36 percent. In the San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area, Hispanics made up 55 percent of the total population; 64 percent of those in the 4 and under age group.
In the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area, 60 percent of those 4 and under were Hispanic; only 19 percent white. Whites retained a plurality only among those 50 and older.
Generally, areas in the upper Midwest were less diverse. In the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area whites retained a plurality in the total population ‑ 48 percent ‑ and in the 4 and under group, with 38 percent white, 32 percent Hispanic.
Source: Published originally on The Houston Chronicle as Regions along the nation's 'three coasts' grow increasingly Hispanic, new survey reveals, by Allan Turner, January 5, 2016.