The 2010 Census Count: Marketing to Latinos

Many marketers are waiting for the results of the 2010 US Census to learn about the growth of the ethnic/cultural segments they target. That expectation will be met when the Census releases that data by about March 2011.

We can expect to learn about the age, gender, household role, Hispanic/Latino origin, and race of theoretically every person living in the United States on April 1, 2010. We will learn about how many Hispanics there are in the US, and the number is likely to be surprising and revealing even though there are always issues in counting those who do not have documents and others who simply do not want to be counted. Most likely the official number will be around 50 million Latinos. We need to remember that there were many social, political, and economic issues that influenced the residency of Hispanics in the last 10 years, when many decided to return to Latin America and others just did not feel like being counted.

The US Census form was simple and contained only 10 questions. The results of this form will tell us the very important story of how many people of different backgrounds and demographics live in the United Stated. The findings will provide information for the allocation of congressional representation and for the allocation of Federal budgets to States, and will give us an important overall picture of the composition of the country.

But there are many issues that the decennial US Census will not address because of the use of the short form. Thus, many important questions that marketers have will not be answered by this count. Many may not be aware but marketers do not have to wait for decennial census reports to obtain valuable information about their customers. That is because the US Bureau of the Census collects data from very large samples every year the main one of which is the American Community Survey (ACS) that addresses specific issues such as language use at home and ability to speak English.

For many years the US Bureau of the Census has provided 1 and 3 year average estimates of many measures based on the ACS. The most recent ACS data currently available is for 2009, which for practical purposes is pretty much as good as it will get for a while. Yearly estimates do not vary dramatically. Marketers are encouraged to become familiar with the data available from the ACS as it can make important contributions to their decisions. And again, these data come out every year with about a one year lag. Not bad at all.

In doing some analysis of the 2009 ACS data I came up with some figures that are quite interesting regarding language use. For example I found out that California, Texas, Illinois, and Colorado, each respectively have 26% of Hispanic household that can be considered linguistically isolated. That means that in those households there is no person age 14 years or over who speaks only English or who speaks English "very well." These are households who likely depend on Spanish language communications quite substantively.

Further, in doing more digging I found in the 2009 ACS that approximately 70% of Hispanics speak Spanish at home. The amount of time they speak Spanish is not known but this is an important figure that has been relatively stable over many years. Perhaps more surprising, estimates from the 2009 American Community Survey show that about 54% of those who speak Spanish also speak English “Very Well” or “Well.” And that approximately 77% of all Hispanics Speak only English or speak it “Well” or “Very Well.” Now, remember, these are not households as in the case of linguistic isolation but individuals. The implications are quite interesting in that they confirm that targeting Hispanics in English is increasingly more feasible. This, however, does not mean that the cultural insights that will resonate with Latinos can be ignored. In fact, it is perhaps more important now than ever because connecting culturally is probably the most powerful tool available to marketers in an environment where language is not as determinant a differentiator as it was some time ago.

The moral of the story is that the 2010 Census will be very important but that many of the details about consumers are now available every year and that a 10 year wait is not necessary, or even possible because the decennial Census contains just 10 questions. Further, it is important to dig deeper in these data since numbers out of context can tell a story that is just not the complete story. Our upcoming book "Hispanic Marketing: Connecting with Latino Consumers" will address many of these issues and it is expected to be published by August 2011.

Latinos Online And The Theory of Telepresence

As mediated communications increase in their importance, the question of how cultural differences may influence how people relate to each other in mediated situations becomes salient. Some time ago I published "A Theory of Electronic Propinquity" which basically states that the degree to which people are comfortable communicating via phone, teleconference, etc., varies with the degree to which there is a feedback mechanism in the channel, the complexity of the information being communicated, the skills of the communicators, the rules imposed on the communication, and the availability of alternative channels for communication that may be preferred over the current choice. A colleague Joe Walther at Michigan State University has done important research on the theory, but no one has done a cross-cultural comparison.

In particular, now that Hispanics are distinguishing themselves by embracing social media and online communications to a larger extent than other cultural groups in our society, cross-cultural comparisons are relevant. My hypothesis is that one of the reasons why Hispanics are eager to embrace social media, blogs, and other mediated online communications is because many of these media provide the feedback mechanism needed for satisfaction with the medium. This is because Latinos seem to rejoice in obtaining immediate feedback. That is, a fluid and spontaneous interaction. Further. As we have been raised with the expectation that we will be part of a close knit social group, we tend to have more skills to interact, even when the communication is mediated by technology.

Clearly, the complexity of the information is a limitation in that complex interactions are more difficult when mediated. Still, social media allows for broad bandwidth, or ample amount of information. Thus, social media is more acceptable in some situations than even face-to-face communications.  The rules for interacting in social media are flexible and it is precisely the lack of rigid protocol that is likely to entice Latinos to find satisfaction in modern online communications.

In other words, I have reasons to believe that new media allows Hispanics to recreate the village where everyone knows everyone else and where interactions are spontaneous. This cultural tendency towards going back to the village, but now in a global metaphor, liberates Latinos and other cultural groups. These are groups that have thrived in environments where interaction is free and enriching of everyday life. Environments where the satisfaction of life is found in social coexistence. Societal norms have stifled human communication but the emergence of online communications appear to be breaking them. That is why Latinos embrace these technologies, because they are technologies of liberation.

Clearly, we need to study these trends and consumer behaviors in much more detail. Still, the observable evidence is that the small village of our ancestors is now back online.

The Hispanic Population Numbers Surprising Marketers Again!

We are all waiting for the Census numbers. According to the official schedule we will not know the official number of US Hispanics until April of 2011. Nevertheless I took the time to look at some sources of data to figure out what the growth of US Latinos is likely to be in the next few years.

First I consulted the Geoscape projections for all the US population and Hispanics in 2015. These projections are based on Census data. The projection is that the total population of the US will be close to 323 million people and that of US Hispanics will of about 56 million people then. Well, I was expecting something like that. Then I looked at the Geoscape total population projection for 2010, which I found to be very close to the current count of the US population according to the http://www.census.gov population clock. Both sources said that there are about 310 million people in the US now. I looked at the latest Census data again and found that the US Census Bureau projection for Hispanics in 2009 was 48.4 million. Geoscape projection for 2010 is of close to 50 million people.

I started doing some simple arithmetic and rounded up numbers for simplicity. Let's assume there are 50 million Hispanics in the US now, and there will be 56 million in 2015. The difference is 6 million. Then I substracted 310 million from 323 million for the entire population in 2015. That means that the total projected growth of the US population by 2015 will of about 13 million. If these numbers are anywhere close to accurate, the growth of the US Hispanic population will account for almost half of the total growth of the population of the United States.

These numbers left me thinking about how important Hispanics are to US marketers. A cultural group that accounts for half the growth of the population should make an important part of strategic planning. This is a cultural group that can be addressed by connecting via common denominators in a common culture. Numbers can have some interesting implications.

Use of Social Networking Sites Among Diverse Cultural Groups in the US

Social Media Marketing depends on the popularity of social networking sites. In the study referred to in my prior Blog we also asked our large multicultural sample of respondents to "please indicate the social networking sites you visit regularly." We listed MySpace, HI5, QuePasa, Habbo, Orkut, FaceBook, Friendster, Bebo, Classmates, WindowsLSpaces, Xanga, Flixter, Tagged, Netlog, Reunion, Broadcaster, Cyworld, MyHeritage, Friends, Reunited, Linkedin, BlackPlanet, and SecondLife. We also provided the option "none."

The chart below illustrates the preponderance of use of MySpace and FaceBook among these emerging minorities:

The first observation is that Non-Hispanic Whites, as in the prior blog, show a lower incidence in visiting these sites regularly when compared with the other cultural groups. Interestingly both popular sites fare best among Hispanics who prefere English and Asians than among anyone else. Hispanics who prefer Spanish and African Americans, however, are still more likely to visit these sites than Non-Hispanic Whites. Again, it is emerging minorities that are leading the future of the digital era in the United States.

The following Chart illustrates that culturally targeted sites do better among specific cultural groups:

Sites that have a preponderance of particular cultural groups, or who target specific cultural groups appear to do well with them. The International Site HI5 and QuePasa do realtively well with Hispanics who prefer Spanish. Friendster, populated by a larger number of Asian Americans does relatively well with Asians as compared with other cultural groups. African Americans are more frequently regular visitors of Black Planet. Thus, cultural targeting seems to have great potential among those who strongly identify with their culture. Interestingly, none of these sites seemed to do particularly well with Hispanics who prefer English or with Non-Hispanic Whites. In the case of Hispanics who prefer English this may be because there are few sites specifically catering to them.

Perhaps even more surprising is that members of all of these online cultural groups visit social networking sites with regularity as the following chart shows:

This last chart illustrates that very few individuals in any of these groups use none of the social networking sites we listed in the questionnaire. This emphasizes the importance that this new social medium has for most online consumers.

Social networking is growing fast and becoming very popular among most Americans. Emerging minorities, however, are leading the trend. Social Media Marketing efforts can capitalize on this knowledge to establish their brands and territories in these social circles.

The moral of the story is: Go market where people are associating with others, and become part of their socio-cultural identity. As culture is rooted in social interaction, brands can become part of these complex patterns of interaction.

Of Hispanic Time, Calendars, and Tradition

Latin American calendars are a cultural tradition that can provide an interesting marketing tool to marketers in the United States. The notion that time has different dimensions for Hispanics than for other cultural groups is relatively well known. There are those who talk about "Latin time" and those who talk about "mañana." "Mañana" or tomorrow represents how many of us, Hispanics, think about what we need to do in life.

Tomorrow is a great time management tool because it allows one to postpone all things that are not emergencies, thus piling huge numbers of activities into a very small tomorrow. Tomorrow presents interesting possibilities as those who expect things tomorrow may forget about them or the activity may have lost interest. Thus tomorrow saves effort because one does not waste time doing things that tomorrow will show are not important.

Now, calendars represent a related but more complex story. Latin American calendars are not just for providing the date and to keep us organized. They are cultural icons that symbolize how we feel about time. Latin American calendars display cultural and historic pictures in their pages. They illustrate the past and the pride associated with it. In many ways, calendars are decorations that we cherish as we try to pile things up into tomorrow. We can see how much more time we have for enjoying the present. Looking at the calendar gives us a glimpse of the past that we respect, celebrate the moment, and look at a "mañana" that is slow to come.

I remember growing up with calendars that the grocery store, the butcher shop, the phone company, the electric company, the shoe store, the restaurant, and others had given my family at the end of the year. These were presents given to us so that we would remember those nice merchants that helped us decorate our walls with so many images of our tradition, our tastes, and our cultural pride.

Traditional Latin American calendars can be of great marketing value in this modern era, where Hispanics are still proudly honoring the symbology of their culture, while most others are just rushing into the future. Large and small marketers can establish an emotional bond with Hispanics by providing them with these traditional calendars as tokens of appreciation. They serve as a continuous reminder that a specific business or brand thinks about us and shares with us the images of our culture.

I have come across http://www.latinworldcalendar.com/. An exploration of this site will provide good examples of the different types of art and motifs that Latin American calendars offer.

While time flies for so many people, it is good to have a traditional calendar that can help us keep time still for just a little while.

Advertising to US Hispanics with Creative from Latin America

I come from a behavioral perspective when it comes to advertising. For me if an ad does not sell, it is not a good ad, regardless of how many awards it gets.

It is interesting that by claiming that there is not enough talent in the United States, Hispanic Advertising agencies are starting companies or subcontracting creative work in Latin America.

That is interesting because the principle of understanding the audience of the message gets distorted with this logic. How can a creative in Buenos Aires know how Hispanic teens in Los Angeles live and feel about themselves? How can a creative in Caracas know how Puerto Ricans in New York enjoy products and services?

Not that these creatives are not good at what they do, but how can they communicate effectively without knowing their audience. Just because they speak Spanish they are not necessarily adept at understanding the specific psycho-socio-cultural characteristics of Hispanics in the US.

I am not trying to say that Latin American creatives cannot get to do good advertising for US Hispanics, but the probability of that being so is not very high. They may get awards and distinctions with their creativity but will they help sell products to an audience they do not know well?

That is why having more Hispanics/Latinos in the US educated in Marketing and Advertising is of great importance. These individuals are more likely to have an intuition for the markets they will serve. Still, the general rule is that being Hispanic/Latino or Latin American does not make someone an expert on US Hispanic consumers. It is the study of the culture and lifestyles of US Hispanic consumers that can contribute to good advertising. Good US Hispanic account planning and creative work requires prior knowledge of the culture and also requires research and understanding of the intersection of the product/brand with the culture.

The moral of the story: Going far away for your messages can get you far away from your consumers