Portada Magazines' Hispanic Marketing 12 Predictions for 2012

Portada Magazine again published predictions for the 2012 Hispanic Marketing and Media industry.

1. Univision’s IPO will take place in 2012
The investors who took the broadcast media private will want to monetize their investment in 2012 through an IPO.

2. Mobile becomes huge for Hispanic Marketing
Mobile media (Mobile phones, Tablets and E-Readers) will become a major force in Hispanic Marketing and Advertising. That is why Portada is dedicating a special event (The Hispanic Mobile Marketing Forum on Sept. 19, 2012) to analyze this phenomenon. Hispanic Consumers spent more than $5.15 billion during this year’s holiday season on mobile devices, according to the Hispanic Holiday Mobile Survey 2011 by Zpryme.

3. The “SoLoMo” trend will continue
“SoloMo”, or Social-Local-Mobile will be increasingly applied to marketing strategies. Particularly in the Hispanic market, where both social networking and mobile usage overindex. Geolocalization when using mobile media, e.g. checking in on Facebook and/or FourSquare, or in review sites such as Yelp will be driving local consumer marketing and advertising. QR Code integrations in print advertising will play a particularly important role for retail. Online-Mobile Gaming and In-Game Advertising will play an increasingly important role.

4. T-Mobile will end in the hands of a Latin Telecommunications giant
Now that AT&T has officially announced that it is no longer pursuing a T-Mobile acquisition, we know for sure that as “a contractual penalty for the collapse of the merger, AT&T will pay T-Mobile $3 billion in cash, and give T-Mobile at least $1 billion worth of spectrum rights. Portada predicts that Latin Telco giants America Movil and Telefonica have a strong chance to end up acquiring T-Mobile.

5. U.S. Hispanic Advertising Market will grow by 5% in 2012…
As 50+ Hispanic marketing executives said in a recently published Portada Survey, U.S. Hispanic Advertising will grow by approximately 5% in 2012 driven by Auto, Political and Financial Advertising.

6. Hispanic Digital Advertising’s expansion will continue to grow at a high rate
While digital advertising in the U.S. Hispanic market still amounts to less than 5% of the overall advertising pie, compared to nearly 20% for the overall U.S. market, the U.S. Hispanic digital advertising market will continue to grow in 2012 at a very high rate.

7. Online Video will be on a roll
Within digital media Hispanic online video advertising will be growing the most. The rationale is very compelling: Hispanics watch more video online than their general market counterparts. Content providers will be working hard to increase their online offerings, particularly of Spanish-language online video, and satisfy the needs of the online video advertising markets.

8. Hispanics Newspapers will do well overall
Hispanic Newspapers will continue to have a relatively strong performance, particularly when compared to their U.S. general market counterparts. The strong community media element of Hispanic newspapers plays in favor of them. So does the fact that print media continues to be a great way to target Spanish-dominant U.S. Hispanics.

9. ImpreMedia will be acquired
Impremedia private equity backers Clarity Partners, Halyard Capital Fund, ACON Investments and Knight Paton Media as well as Goldman Sachs (who provided a loan) are looking for an exit. The likely buyer is a large general market newspaper chain who wants to place a strong bet on the Hispanic digital and print media markets.

10. Measurable (Targeted) Media will continue its expansion
The rise of digital media and the data about audience reach engagement etc that comes with, is impacting other media. Targeted TV (e.g. Hispanic audiences of general market TV programs) are also being developed and increasingly sold to advertisers.

11. E-Commerce and Online Media will get closer
Content Marketing applied to online media has a lot to do with SEO. Once the content attracts an audience, that audience can be monetized via advertising or via e-commerce. Major companies, who attract millions if not tens of millions of unique visitors, are betting on content production to attract the right audience and then convert readers into buyers. Watch out for more and more CPG’s and retailers hiring journalists and editors to produce and curate content on their corporate (media) sites.

12. Spanish-Language Media will continue to lead
During the last months of 2012 several new ventures, particularly digital media properties, have been launched to target English-dominant Hispanics online. Will these in-culture English-language media be able to differentiate itself enough from general market English-language media and obtain major advertising buys? The jury is still out. In any case, while English-dominant targeted Hispanic media is a great addition to the Hispanic advertising and media landscape, we think that, when it comes to mass media, in 2012 Spanish-language will continue to be the pre-eminent way to market to and reach the U.S. Hispanic population.

U.S. Hispanic Market to grow by 5% in 2012

Despite the economic challenges, the The U.S. Hispanic Advertising Market will grow between 4%-5% in 2012, according to a survey conducted by Portada

The economy is cited as one of the main risks going forward. “As the recession continues, it will force companies to tighten their purse strings and look for efficiencies in targeting the Hispanic marketplace”, says Lateef Sarnor, Industry Practice Head for the Multicultural category at AOL.

Hulu Latino launches

Hulu today announced it has launched Hulu Latino, billed as the "most robust and complete Spanish-language content library available through an online video service in the U.S." per a press release sent to me by Hulu.

As part of the launch, Hulu announced content partnerships with  Azteca America, Butaca, Caracol Televisión, Comarex, Estrella TV, Imagina US, Laguna Productions, Maya Entertainment, RCTV, Todobebé Inc, and Venevision.

Hulu Plus subscribers can find current and classic Spanish-language programming, including the entire current season of primetime TV shows from Univision, Galavision and Telefutura. Users of the free Hulu service now have next-day access to a selection of popular current season programming, including recent episodes of popular favorites like La Fuerza del Destino, Aqui y Ahora, Protagonistas and Noche de Perros. Hulu Plus subscribers will be able to watch all the content available on the free Hulu service through any Hulu Plus enabled device.

Hispanics Are Online, But do Marketers See Them?

eMarketer expects U.S. online advertising spending to reach $31 billion in 2011.  How much of that is spent targeting U.S. Hispanics? Industry figures show it at only $200 million in 2011, a mere 0.65% of the total investment in U.S. online advertising, according to an article in MediaPost's "Engage: Hispanics."

Woefully low, even if you're only targeting Spanish-dominant Hispanics.  This has to change in 2012 as studies continue to show Hispanics prevalence for on-line from both traditional and mobile/tablet platforms.

Playwright objects to Hartford theater's casting of Caucasians in leading role

The Hartford Courant published an article about "The Motherf**ker With The Hat" Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis objecting to Hartford-based TheaterWorks casting Caucasians in the lead roles of the play.

Guirgis, the article states, was most upset that TheaterWorks made no effort to bring in Hispanics for the leading roles of Jackie and Veronica, a dysfunctional and volatile Puerto Rican couple. In addition, he said the casting notice made no reference to the leading characters being Puerto Rican.

TheaterWorks Executive Director Steve Campo conceded the point, saying, "in the future TheaterWorks will certainly seek and take advantage of all available resources to more effectively reach out to Latino theater artists, especially when obviously appropriate roles are available.”

What's also unacceptable, in addition to not making an attempt to cast more credible roles, is the fact TheaterWorks made no apparent effort to market the production to the Hispanic market in the area, which is overwhelmingly Puerto Rican.

Hartford's mayor is Puerto Rican mayor and Caucasians are the minority in the capital city.  In Hartford County, there are 136,783 Hispanics with 95,964 of those (70%) being Puerto Rican, according to the U.S. Census Fact Finder.  In the city, Hispanics comprise nearly 45% of the total population with Puerto Ricans comprising 77% of the Hispanic population.

As my daughter would say this is an "epic fail."

Value of Facebook fan to a business? $10/each

A new study looked at more than 5 million Facebook ads placed by 50+ clients from May-September of this year, the study looked at the cost of acquiring new fans, and what it took to get them to perform a desired action.

In calculating the value of a Facebook fan, the study found it to be $10 per fan, assuming a constant cost-per-click of $1.

The article states that fans, unsurprisingly, perform desirable actions such as installing an app, voting in a contest and making a purchase at a much higher rate, and it's significantly cheaper to prompt them to do so through advertising than it is to prompt non-fans.  Specifically, fans are 291% more likely to engage with a brand than a non-fan.

Facebook fans are more likely to engage in deeper actions. Source: SocialCode   

Online Hispanics Have A Hard Time Finding Health Information In Spanish

"When it comes to being healthy, Hispanics have several things going against them: language and cultural barriers, lack of access to preventive care and lack of health insurance. But there is another, lesser-known barrier that prevents them from living healthier lives: lack of online health information in Spanish." So says Lee Van in his MediaPost article about the lack of Spanish-language health content.

In the past 12 months, usage of health websites skyrocketed among the bilingual and Spanish-preferring online Hispanics. As a result, more than half of all online Hispanics visits a health site each month.

Growth in health site visitation by segment September 2010 - 2011
English Preferring: 25%
Bilingual: 47%
Spanish Preferring: 35%
All Hispanics: 32%

Percent of given segment that visited a health site in September 2011
English Preferring: 53%
Bilingual: 52%
Spanish Preferring: 51%
All Hispanics: 52%

This article ties back to what I wrote about in January 2010 after the release of the AOL Cyberstudy, which pointed out that Hispanics recognize the disparity between the availability of English and Spanish-language content. They perceive English sites as more comprehensive in part because they know the Spanish content is not.

Further, the study showed that Hispanics often prefer English content and mistrust Spanish content because Spanish-language sites are often little more than literal translations of English content. In fact, only 3% of respondents found Spanish sites more trustworthy and useful than those in Spanish.

The only way to overcome this challenges is to offer relevant, comprehensive and trust worthy health information in Spanish.  As Lee points out at the end of his article, there is a clear demand for Spanish language health information online and relatively few companies providing it.

U.S. Hispanics More Receptive to Ads

Research shows that U.S. Hispanics are more responsive to ads than non-Hispanics, especially when the creative celebrates cultural sensibilities, according to an article in eMarketer reporting on new advertising research study by comScore.
In other words, being culturally relevant and not just focusing on language preference makes the difference.  This is an important consideration as Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing population, will spend $1.48 trillion in 2015, according to data from the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

Moving Beyond The Hispanic 'Right Spend' Argument

How much should a company allocate for the Hispanic market?  The Association of Advertising Agencies says it's 14.2%.  But, is that a number that can arbitrarily used across the board?  I've said no for quite some time. Instead, I've always advocated that the "right" spend should link, if nothing else, to a company's actual customer base that is Hispanic.  In other words, if your target market is 40% Hispanic then your budget allocation should be 40% or close to 40%.

Here is an article from Jose Villa that takes my argument into a few more specific, and relevant, areas.  He argues, correctly, that the AHAA number not only can't be applied as a macro approach but also that the recommended percentage only focuses on Spanish-language paid media.

Perhaps that's the right number if on top of that you add, as Jose says, earned media (i.e. public relations, events social media, etc.) as well as "owned" media (i.e. in store).  Perhaps.  But there is a danger, and ultimately a diminishing return on an association like AHAA, if we as an industry start settling for a "magic number."

Free "How To" guide to Hispanic social media marketing available

The official 2011-2012 U.S. Hispanic Social Media Guide, the second annual "How To" guide to Hispanic social media marketing, is now available for free download by registering at www.hispanicize.com .

Produced by Hispanicize and the Hispanic PR Blog in partnership with the Hispanic Public Relations Association  (HPRA) and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association  (WOMMA), the 62-page guide explores current and upcoming trends in the Latino social media and marketing.

Among this year's highlights are unique content directly from the Hispanicize 2011 conference as well as a surprising, first-of-its-kind report on how Fortune 100 companies are using various social media platforms to reach Hispanics.

Read the whole story here.

AHAA: Strong relationship between ad spend allocation to Hispanic media and revenue growth

The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, who is hosting its annual conference in Miami this week, released a report that shows that the higher the percentage of overall all spend allocation to Hispanic media, the higher the company's revenue growth.

Specifically, those companies that allocate more than 14.2 percent in Hispanic marketing are showing high levels of topline revenue growth, the report says. 

AHAA has divided Hispanic advertisers into five categories:

• Best in Class, defined by their allocation of more than 14.2 percent of overall ad budgets to Hispanic media;
• Leaders, companies which allocate between 6.4 and 14.2 percent;
• Followers, which allocate between 3.6 and 6.4 percent;
• Laggards, defined by their Hispanic allocations of 1.0 to 3.6 percent; and
• Denial, defined by their allocation of less than one percent.

Those of you who follow my blog or see my Hispanic Marketing Forum presentations know how much I talk about the importance of budget allocation.  I still confront many companies who claim not to have a "Hispanic marketing budget" when in fact their issue is one of proper allocation rather than needing more resources.

I invite you to read an article I wrote on the topic of allocation in April 2009 in Media Post that still rings true today.