Hispanic Cell Phone Users

Today's (Tuesday's) edition of The New York Times has a nice front-page business section story about the cell phone provide competition for Hispanic consumers. Matt Richtel and Ken Belsen report that "The industry is spending tens of millions of dollars on marketing campaigns to court Hispanic customers." This is true, but I am amazed by the timing of this story. For months I have noticed a huge upsurge in Internet and print advertising aimed at Latinos by Verizon and other providers.

The story also reports that "Short text messages are also popular among Hispanic cellphone customers..."

This is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding what it might take to jump into the Hispanic market.

For the full story click [here].

Reuters Reports Univision Bids Expected June 8th

One of the most significant business developments in the Hispanic and Spanish-language media world may reach a critical stage on June 8th when, according to a recent Reuters report, two groups are expected to submit bids for the purchase of Spanish-language TV, radio and Internet giant Univision Corporation.

See a few excerpts or click-through to the full story [here].

“PHILADELPHIA, May 19 (Reuters) - Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications Inc., which has put itself up for sale, has asked interested bidders to submit offers by June 8, a source close to the process said on Friday.

At least two groups of bidders are weighing whether to make a play for Univision, which could be valued at more than $12 billion ...

Grupo Televisa, a Mexican television broadcaster, has said it is partnering with U.S. private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, and a Bill Gates investment fund called Cascade Investment to consider a bid.

…

The Televisa group could face strong competition from another consortium that includes private equity firms Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and media investor Haim Saban, sources familiar with the matter have said.

That bidding group melds the buyout firms' combined financial firepower with Saban's clout as a television producer, executive and investor.”

Hispanic Voters Getting New Attention

Hispanic voters are getting new attention as the national debate over immigration reform continues to stay in the news.

Sunday's Washington Post has an article titled "Bush Is Losing Hispanics' Support, Polls Show." It reports on three new studies including a report in which my academic research project (the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University) played an advisory role. The successful micro-targeting firm Strategic Telemetry, run by Ken Strasma, conducted the research and analysis.

The lead paragraph and a few others in the story are quite interesting considering they were triggered by a poll conducted by The Latino Coalition, an organization widely believed to be Republican-leaning. Excerpts are below:

"Hispanic voters, many of whom responded favorably to President Bush's campaign appeals emphasizing patriotism, family and religious values in Spanish-language media in 2004, are turning away from the administration on immigration and a host of other issues, according to a new survey...

A survey of 800 registered Hispanic voters conducted May 11-15 by the nonpartisan Latino Coalition showed that Democrats were viewed as better able to handle immigration issues than Republicans, by nearly 3 to 1: 50 percent to 17 percent. Pitting the Democrats against Bush on immigration issues produced a 2 to 1 Democratic advantage, 45 percent to 22 percent.

The poll findings indicate that Republicans are likely to have a hard time replicating Bush's 2004 performance among Latino voters. According to 2004 exit polls, Bush received the backing of 40 percent of Hispanic voters, up from 34 percent in 2000. Other studies have put the 2004 figure somewhat lower, although there is general agreement that Bush made statistically significant gains from 2000 to 2004."

To read the full Washington Post article please click [here].

Update - New Business

On June 1st I will make an excisting announcement about the formation of my new consulting agency. The processes of pulling together all of my ideas and preparing the elements of a successful new business have distracted me from the blog for the past week or so. I plan to post regularly, and on some occasions I expect I will post many times each day. Be sure to check back here on June 1st.

Ringtone Misses the Mark, Draws Attention

A new ringtone produced by BarrioMobile and available on the Cingular Wireless website has drawn national media attention for its controversial content potentially offensive to Hispanic Americans and others.

Given that the content was created by a company with deep ties to many Hispanic businesses I presume it was intended as a spoof, which is not out of character for ringtone content creators.

Yes this serves as another example of how a major national or international brand can be thrust into the spotlight for a product or content that ethnic groups find offensive.

Below are excerpts from an Associated Press story which landed on DrudgeReport.com and other sites today.

Associated Press: Cingular Pulls Offensive Ringtone

Tuesday, May 9, 2006

BROWNSVILLE, Texas -- Cingular Wireless LLC pulled a ringtone from its Web site Tuesday after learning that it carried a message the company called "blatantly offensive."

...

The newspaper reported in its online edition Tuesday that the ringtone started with a siren, followed by a male voice saying in a Southern drawl, "This is la Migra," a slang term for the Border Patrol.

"Por favor, put the oranges down and step away from the cell phone. I repeat-o, put the oranges down and step away from the telephone-o. I'm deporting you back home-o," the voice continued.

Hispanic activists called the product racist.

"It's horribly offensive and a disgusting thing," Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, told the newspaper.

Cingular removed the $2.49 ringtone, among thousands available for downloading from its Web site, Tuesday afternoon, said company spokesman Mark Siegel.

"Needless to say, we deeply regret and apologize for it ever being there in the first place. The ringtone is blatantly offensive," he said.

Marketing Foods to Hispanics

Associated Press reporter Libby Quaid has an interesting story out on the wire this afternoon written from the Food Marketing Institute Show in Chicago.

She chose to report on one of my favorite topics: marketing packaged goods (more specifically: foods) to Hispanic Americans. This has clearly become an enormous business market and one that has attracted the very biggest players including the Unilever conglomerate.

In my Ethnic Marketing course at Johns Hopkins University my students learn about consumer marketing aimed at Latinos and develop integrated marketing strategies and they often choose to promote food products or health living programs.

The full article can be found [here] and an excerpt is below:

---

Food companies court Hispanic families

By LIBBY QUAID, AP Food and Farm Writer

MAY 9 -- 4:45 P.M. ET

CHICAGO – From "Tony el Tigre" on Frosted Flakes boxes to a Latin-dance exercise video, Kellogg's is in hot pursuit of Hispanic grocery shoppers. It's not alone.

With young families and growing numbers, Hispanics are among the food industry's most coveted customers. Kellogg Co., the nation's dominant cereal maker, says it's boosting marketing to Hispanics by 60 percent.

"Obviously, we care about kids -- lots of our products are focused on children and the whole family," said Sandra Uridge, senior director multicultural business. "Hispanics actually do what we call 'event' shopping. They go as a family to the store."

Kellogg's took the unusual step of focusing solely on Hispanic marketing at this week's Food Marketing Institute Show, the annual trade show for supermarkets in Chicago. And the company is just one example.

Unilever PLC, maker of Hellmann's, Lipton and Skippy, among other brands, released results at the show of a study on how Hispanic customers shop for food.

Unilever had about 800 Hispanic households keep diaries and receipts from 3,621 trips to the store. The survey found that Hispanic shoppers tend to plan their shopping ahead, more so than shoppers generally, with an eye toward discount specials.

"Many retailers today don't have a large percentage of Hispanics in the marketplace, and yet everybody will as time goes on," said Mike Twitty, a senior group research manager for Unilever.

Hispanics are the youngest, fastest-growing segment of the American population, according to the Census Bureau.

...

Hispanics are driving what little growth there is in supermarket shopping, said Libbey Paul, a senior vice president of marketing at ACNielsen, the marketing information company.

"They tend to be larger households, have more kids and a higher growth rate," Paul said. "You can understand why Kellogg's would care, why Coke would care."

ACNielsen has begun measuring sales to Hispanics by looking at demographics and sales at individual stores.

Tony the Tiger, who says, "They're g-r-r-reat!" in Kellogg's ads, says, "G-r-r-riquisimos!" in Spanish-language promotions.

However, marketing by stores and food companies goes far beyond Spanish-language packages and ads.

Supermarkets are looking at the categories that Hispanics seem to buy more of -- things that large, young families need, such as toothpaste, and products that younger adults want to buy, such as beer, Paul said.

And food companies are looking at the tastes and flavors that Hispanics want, such as citrus and berry flavors, according to ACNielsen. For example, Unilever created a Hellman's mayonnaise with lemon specifically for the Hispanic market.

...

MATT.org Draws Visitors from Across the US in First Day

Here are links to a couple of the news stories that have been written about the new non-profit Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together and its engaging website MATT.org.

MATT.org will be a place for Mexicans and Americans to come together to discuss major issues facing our two countries. The site allows MATT to poll its members about these issues and will provide members with a forum for sharing ideas and building on these ideas.

Lionel Sosa, a leading Hispanic advertising executive recently named one of TIME Magazine's Most Influential Hispanics in America, is the CEO of the project.

The organization and site are promoted a major advertising campaign that airs on Univision network television nationwide and on major radio and television stations in Chicago, San Jose, San Antonio and other test/launch markets.

MATT is also conducting an impressive Internet advertising campaign on more than a dozen of the top sites frequented by Mexican Americans and Mexicans as well as Americans interested in topics related to the U.S. and Mexico.

Here are a couple news stories about MATT from different angles:

The San Antonio Express-News has a walk-up to the MATT launch [here].

Cara Marcano, a top reporter for Hispanic advertising industry magazine Marketing y Medios, published an extensive pre-launch article on MATT [here].

Internet industry newsletter Clickz wrote an extensive article on MATT [here].

Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together

On Friday an innovative new bicultural organization will be launched at a press event at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Hispanic advertising expert and political media consultant Lionel Sosa will announce Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together, a non-profit and non-partisan initiative that will be bring together peoples from both nations into a dialogue. The group aims to get a million clicks to its website MATT.org in a "Million Click March."