Hispanic Behavioral Targeting

As the Hispanic online audience has grown to over 20 million, so too have the methods for reaching them. The level of sophistication for behavioral targeting increased rapidly over the years.

Today, several networks, including AOL’s Platform-A, have introduced several options for advertisers to reach Hispanics via content type, language and geotargeting. Not to mention, there are ways for these ad networks to get as granular as identifying purchase intent for various categories like auto or finance.

While certainly this is a positive for advertisers who want to avoid wasteful, untargeted investments, what about those who are being targeted? Many of us online go about our business without giving much thought to the recording of our actions online by cookies. Yet, the more one sits to think about the level of data being recorded about our activites, it becomes a bit scary.

On one side of the debate, you could argue that this recorded information will make our lives easier. We'll have an online experience that is more customized, personalized to our interests and needs. On the other side, you could argue that big brother watching over us is nothing short of a police state.

As the law struggles to catch up to the realities of today's technology and the promise of more advanced methods tomorrow, how will the world's governments address the growing concern over consumer privacy?

Social GPS Convergence

Over the past 2 months, I've been tracking my friend, Heidi, on Google Latitude. We've opted in to see where each of us are at throughout the day via our mobile phone and online. Just the other day I texted her to find out why she was in Southport, CT. (She was outlet shopping.)

Loopt is another service that offers folks the opportunity to see small profiles of friends and strangers alike and connect with them. Imagine spotting an attractive guy/gal within a two block radius and asking them out for coffee? Unlikely? Not really - my roommate did just that. Certainly this is a dangerous technology - you may not want everyone to see where you are at all times.

But I thought, given Hispanics' propensity to socialize - maybe this technology will find huge adoption amongst Latinos? Does that data exist? No. But impromptu connections and a fluid idea of personal space make Latitude and Loopt interesting social enhancers for Hispanics. It will be interesting to see how the use of social GPS application evolves and how multicultural audiences adopt and adapt these technologies in the future.

Evolving the Television vs. Internet Mindset

The other day I met with a new client to share my thoughts on how they should address young Hispanic women. As we spoke about this Latina's relationship with their beauty product category, I shared a list of prioritized media channels where they could reach her during each phase of the purchase-decision process. Despite this approach, the client insisted we choose between television or internet given their limited resources.

My answer: do both, or don't do either.

More and more data points to the fact that television and internet concurrent usage builds "engagement" with the audience. It allows the brand to associate with relevant content, and then begin an interactive dialogue with the audience online. While TV is great at building familiarity with a massive audience, online is where she shares her opinions on this content. Online also is the key place where she is researching and comparing product benefits and costs.

In this specific case, if the client were to only do one of these channels instead of the other, it would be difficult to see the sales movement they expect. It's not to say that it's always required to do both TV and Internet to reach Hispanic women - that's preposterous and totally dependent on the objectives and the specific target. But we in the Hispanic market also tend to forget that there are other channels in our tool box for reaching Hispanic audiences outside of television. Also, internet is not replacing TV either - the channels fill different needs in our consumer's lives.

It is important to remember that during these tough economic times, that cutting corners in marketing doesn't always pay off.

As mom always says, do your best or don't do anything at all.

Latino Smart Phone Usage

Latinos are snapping up smart phones at a rapid pace and using these phones to surf the web more often than the general population. One of my first posts, Why the iPhone is Latino discussed the high percent of Hispanic ownership of the iPhone. I argued that it was an affordable status symbol.

Today, I revise my thinking to say that it's not just a badge to make us feel good. It's also a computer in our pocket so we can "stay connected." The Mintel Study found that Hispanics who use the Internet devote nearly three times as much time weekly to browsing websites on their cell phones (1.1 hours versus 0.4 hours for non-Hispanics).

Why do we do this? Well we Hispanics certainly stay connected with more people on average than the general market. But I have a feeling that our usage of these technologies has less to do with our culture, than our age. The Hispanic median age is 26.7 vs. 37 for the general market. Younger folks tend to be more tech savvy and enjoy connecting with family and friends via the web. My hypothesis, since Hispanics are younger - our age, not our culture, make us have a greater propensity to do things like surfing the web on our phones.

Hispanic Movie Viewers

Hispanics are avid movie watchers and no doubt helped the fourth installment of Fast & Furious become #1 at the box office this weekend. In 2007, Nielsen EDI estimated that Hispanics accounted for 33% of all moviegoers. That is more than double what Hispanics represent to the national population.

To understand the scale of this, Hispanics purchased 297 million movie tickets in 2007 compared to 150 million for African Americans. Hispanics also go to the movies more often purchasing 10.8 tickets per person vs. 7.9 for the general population.

The importance of Hispanics to Hollywood is clear. Given our propensity for downloading content online, it seems natural that the movie business should be catering to this audience online. Yet movies distribution on the web is still a frontier of pirated content. No studio is willing to release the grip of movies on the internet because of fear that their industry will go the way of the music business.

While certainly this is a realistic fear - Apple's itunes proved that digital content distribution can be profitable if properly managed. If movie studios don't make the first move soon on the web, no doubt tech savvy Hispanics will do the job for them and likely will choose a free content based model.

Hispanics and Sports - Futbol vs. Football

The second reason why Acculturated Latinos choose Hispanic targeted media in Spanish is really quite simple: soccer. Or actually, let's call it futbol since that is how we refer to it.

For non-Hispanic Americans, it's hard to comprehend how large an audience futbol commands. Futbol for them is a children's game that minivan moms shuttle their kids to practice after school. Maybe, they cite the World Cup, the tournament that grips the globe every four years. Of course, by globe we mean every country except the majority of people in the U.S.

But futbol is a religion to Hispanic Americans. It doesn't matter if you are U.S. born or foreign born, acculturating or unacculturated. The fact of the matter is, soccer is king.

Sure, the NFL commands a pretty large Hispanic audience - last year the league drew 70% of Hispanics. But, the recent World Cup qualifying match between the USA and Mexico reached about 85% of all Hispanics (male or female, young or old) through television, radio, online and mobile. Also, there's a reason why the Spanish word for futbol fans is "hinchas," which means "to pump" as in the act of pumping the very soccer balls they use to play the game. Hispanic fans are as integral to the game as the actual ball they kick along the pitch.

Going back to the original point of this two-part post, sure you can reach more acculturated Hispanics via general market media. But, let's be honest...reach isn't really the name of the proverbial game these days, it's "engagement" or "connection" or "breaking-through" to this audience. You can ignore the opportunity to address this attractive target at your peril, but make no mistake that your competition may not be so cautious.