3-19-2014
It?s 2014, and for at least three years now, we?ve been waiting for the tipping point. When will marketers really sit up and take notice that the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population is Hispanic? It should have been in 2011, when the latest census was released. Or maybe it should have been 2013, following a year when it became clear that no one will be elected president without connecting to the Hispanic segment of the population.
Or maybe it?ll be this year, if marketers pay attention to their competitors who are using Hispanic radio to enhance their success. Don?t take my word for it ? listen to Jason Matt, management supervisor at Saatchi + Saatchi, after a Hispanic initiative he launched with the assistance of Adelante Media Group for the Toyota Dealers Association in and around Salt Lake City: ?Marketers are excited about the growing purchasing power and cultural influence of Hispanics, and as such, the Toyota Dealer Association is committed to this emerging segment. Latinos love Toyotas, and the explosive growth of the Hispanic population will be key to our continued success.?
And it?s more than a quote: Toyota sales across the Wasatch Front were up 25 percent in 2013 over the previous year. And this client has increased spending with us significantly in 2014; they got out in front of the wave and now have an advantage over their competitors.
The migration to making Hispanic radio a part of every advertiser?s radio budget will start with stories like Toyota as competitors notice a decrease in market share and make the decision to incorporate our audience into their target. As an example, a few years ago our Yakima market closed its first dental clinic client. Dental clinics have found Hispanics to be a prime segment for new client growth, and we developed a program for one clinic to reach out to our audience. The program was so successful that they soon opened a second clinic down the road in Tri-Cities, where Adelante also owns stations, and used us again as a marketing arm to great success. Now others have followed, and dental clinics are a large category for us in Eastern Washington.
In another market, the Frozen and Refrigerated Foods Council noticed in their data that Hispanic families were big users of frozen foods. They partnered with Adelante three years ago to reach out into the Hispanic community with their message. The result was increased sales in local grocery stores and a rise in the number of Hispanics using the stores. Residually, Adelante has been able to add a number of the local general-market grocery stores who are members of the council as clients.
In yet another market, a company that specializes in bingo nights noticed that though they have a large Hispanic population around their venue, they drew virtually no Hispanics to the hall despite advertising on general-market radio stations with large Hispanic listenership. We talked with them about using Spanish radio with Spanishlanguage spots, first educating the audience on electronic bingo and then encouraging attendance. Their business increased 20 percent overall due to the attendance of the Hispanic population.
The last example shows one of the true misconceptions among many marketers: There is a belief that you can reach Hispanics using general-market radio stations because they show a strong percentage of their cume is Hispanic. But the fact is that it isn?t about hearing a commercial, it?s about listening to the commercial ? and it is on Hispanic radio and in Spanish that a marketer?s message is truly listened to.
Here?s the example we use to explain: Put a World Cup soccer game on two TVs in a bar that caters to Englishspeaking Hispanics, one showing the English-language broadcast and the other the Spanish-language broadcast. Then observe. Before long, the crowd will be three or four deep around the Spanish broadcast while two or three people will be around the English broadcast.
Once marketers learn to reach this audience in their language and through their culture, the cash register will begin to ring, as the examples above show. Maybe then we will have reached the tipping point
Jay Meyers is CEO of Adelante Media Group.
(3/19/2014 3:13:33 PM)
This is assuming we are talking about targeting a first or perhaps even a second generation Latino segmentation, right?
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