latino lingo

All things related to effective Hispanic marketing, Hispanic advertising and Hispanic public relations.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Nielsen Provides Insight to Hispanics' Shopping Behaviors

Nielsen Company sent out a BusinessWire release recently for retailers and marketers to better understand the factors driving Hispanics' shopping behaviors.

What they found, was that:

-- As Hispanics become more acculturated, there is less evidence of brand loyalty in many categories. Thus, they recommend, the need to engage Hispanics early and continue to maintain connected to Hispanics as the acculturate.

-- There is a preference among Hispanics to shop at stores that resonate with the sights, sounds, smells and sensibilities of their homeland. This sense of nostalgia helps create an important connection with the Hispanic consumer. Thus the need for retailers to "create a familiar sense of community and comfort zone for consumers through product assortment, importing specialty lines and stocking items with bilingual packaging, hiring bilingual employees, posting bilingual signage and distributing bilingual coupons."

-- Shopping is a family affair, we shop as a family. Thus the need for retailers to create a family-friendly atmosphere and providing rest areas for seniors and extra service.

-- Many Hispanics make a concerted effort to keep in touch with those living in their homelands. According to Scarborough Research, Hispanics of all language preference are heavy users of phone service, 95 percent more likely than the average consumer to have spent $100 on long distance, and 18 percent more likely to have rung up a cell phone bill of $150 or more during the last month.

-- Hispanic consumers are more likely to plan on switching cellular providers during the next year, and 11 percent more likely to use a prepaid cellular plan.

-- Scarborough Research finds that roughly 25 percent of Hispanic Internet users purchased airline tickets, books and clothing/accessories online in the past year, with six percent spending more than $2,500 online during that time.

While not all "Earth-shattering" findings here, they do verify and supplement much of what's known of the Hispanic market. We do focus on family and want to shop for what's familiar. We bring many brand loyalties from home (i.e. Colgate) but as other companies become more savvy in their outreach to us, we will listen to their messages, especially if they are culturally-relevant. So, there is a need to continue to engage us as we become more acculturated.

No more Beaners

No, not the insulting word some have for Hispanics, but a 79-chain coffee house chain based in Michigan that is changing its name from Beaner's to Biggby Coffee.

In today's PC world, the coffee shop sought to "distance itself" from the disparaging term, according to an article in the Daily Press & Argus. The cost is $1 million to change everything.

BTW, the name Biggby is supposed to be the phonetic pronunciation of the company's logo, an uppercase letter "B," according to the article. However, wouldn't Biggby actually be pronounced phonetically as Big-Bye and not Big-Bee? I thought phonetically the strong E sound was represented as an E with a line over the top? Spelling Biggby with a Y gives it a BYE sound (i.e. strong I)versus a BEE sound (i.e. strong E). Right?

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

We're #2, we're #2

The latest Census estimate is out for Hispanic Heritage Month and puts the current U.S. Hispanic population at approximately 44.3 million.

If the U.S. Hispanic population was its own country, it would be essentially tied with Colombia, (whose population is estimated at 44.379 million) for second as the country with the most Hispanics. The largest, of course, is Mexico at 102.6 million.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Football taking hold in Futbol audience

Hispanic Business magazine is reporting that NFL football games kicking off the season helped NBC claim four of the top five spots in the Hispanic TV ratings, citing Nielsen Media Group.

Here are the top 10 English-language programs among Hispanics and their respective ratings for the week of 3-9 September:

1. Sunday Night Football (NBC), 7.5
2. NFL Thursday Night Special (NBC), 5.5
3. Friday Night Smackdown (CW), 5.0
4. NFL Sunday Night Pre-game/Kickoff (NBC), 4.5
5. NFL Thursday Night Pre-game/Kickoff (NBC), 4.3
6. The OT – NFL post-game show (Fox), 3.7
7. Family Guy – 9:30 p.m. Sunday (Fox), 3.5
7. America's Most Wanted (Fox), 3.5
7. Family Guy – 9 p.m. Sunday (Fox), 3.5
10. Primetime: Crime (ABC), 2.8