Older Latinos want blogs and smart phones

In the last 20 years the marketing industry keeps talking about Hispanic youth as the promised land of opportunity. No question that Latinos are fundamentally characterized by their youth because their median age is 10 years younger than that of the overall US population. Still, there are older Latinos, and surprisingly they are a fast growing subpopulation of people 50 and over in the United States. That is not hard to understand since everyone ages and Hispanics are the fastest growing cultural group in the United States.

Florida State University DMS Insights Multicultural Marketing Research Project of 2011 suggests that there is ample opportunity to capitalize on 50 plus, Latinos because their aspirations are high.

For example, among those who are online who do not currently have a blog, one can see that those who prefer to communicate in Spanish are more likely than anyone else to say they are planning to have a blog within the next year, and those 50 and older are the most ambitious in this respect than anyone else in their age group. 

Another example is the aspiration to have a smart phone. 50+ Latinos who prefer to communicate in Spanish are more likely than anyone else to say they are planning to have a smart phone within the next year.

These older Hispanics are likely to be very interested in furthering their communication with others and marketers should facilitate this aspiration. Now, the reason why Hispanics who prefer English are less aspirational is because they already have these technologies. Now it is the turn of their Spanish speaking counterparts.

Source: Marketing Trends in a New Multicultural Society, blog by Felipe Korzenny. “Older Latinos: An Underestimated Marketing Opportunity” ,July 29, 2011.