News Report: Ford Reaffirms Value of Ethnic Marketing Strategies

An excellent Washington Post article today by staff writer Sholnn Freeman reports on Ford's latest campaign which is "devoting considerable energy to attracting niche customers." The article reaffirms what I have been teaching my students at Johns Hopkins University and telling my clients: ethnic or multicultural marketing strategies can be highly effective.

While the article itself reads like a corporate promotional piece, I love it because it makes for a great case study for my Master's degree course in ethnic marketing.

The story quotes a professor at the College of William and Mary who delivers quite an understatement. There has been evidence that the largest minority groups in the U.S. over-index the mainstream consumer on auto purchases and remain more brand loyal. So it is really a no-brainer that automakers reach out to these consumers. The biggest challenge continues to be how to create a message and brand/product line that is in-culture or fits well in-culture. This is not to say company's like Ford can not help drive the culture a little as well - afterall they spend billions of dollars on consumer advertising. But the Post story reports that Ford is borrowing from some of the most notable figures and media organizations that are strong among ethnic audiences and tying their brand to them.

Freeman writes that, "While many other customers have fled, lots of African Americans have stayed local to carmarkers in Detroit. African American and Hispanic artists celebrate American car brands in music and culture. Hip-hop and R&B have given Cadillac new life with lyrical backing of the over-the-top Escalade SUV and the flashy Cadillac brand itself."

She reports that: "Ford will sponsor a sweepstakes on Spanish-language Univision.com..."
and that "Ford's marketers also think they've got a strong shot with Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese people..."

Click [here] for the article.

'Slap in the Face' for Blacks

How can a search for a nanny end up like a slap in the face for Blacks?

New York Times writer Jodi Kantor reports in today's paper that, "Like hailing a cab in Midtown Manhattan, searching for a nanny can be an exasperating, humiliating excercise for many blacks, the kind of ordeal that makes them wonder aloud what year it is."

She finds "that many black parents do not have the same child care options as their colleagues and neighbors." And later she writes that, "The problem may be as much about class as race" and attributes the finding to a Harvard sociologist.

Click [here] to read the story.

The Hispanicization of American Catholicism

The New York Times Magazine has a major Christmas-eve cover story on "The Hispanicization of American Catholocism." From my initial quick read tonight, I find that the story puts heavy emphasis on the changes in the church in Los Angeles, but also paints a national portrait, including the following report from writer David Rieff:

"Nationally, Hispanics account for 39 percent of the Catholic population, or something over 25 million of the nation’s 65 million Roman Catholics; since 1960, they have accounted for 71 percent of new Catholics in the United States. The vast increase, both proportionally and in absolute numbers, is mostly because of the surge in immigration from Latin America, above all from Mexico, that has taken place over the course of the past three decades. Today, more than 40 percent of the Hispanics residing in the United States, legally and illegally, are foreign-born, and the fate of the American Catholic Church has become inextricably intertwined with the fate of these immigrants and their descendants."

Rieff explains these and other significant shifts in the church make-up and writes, later in the story that, "The question, though, is whether these changes represent something lasting. Is this a real turning point in the history of the American church that will lead to its enduring revival or, instead, only another cycle in that history? "

Rieff argues that, "The question, of course, is whether an increasingly conservative hierarchy, both in Rome and in the United States, will choose to allow it to remain so or will alter its course. It is this decision that will in the end determine whether the Hispanicization of the American church signals its rebirth or is a false dawn after all. "

I find it fascinating that this story is able to add another layer to the media's - and of course my own - growing interest in the Hispanic influence on America, and global issues as a result.

Click [here] for the article.

Top Shows Among African American TV Viewers

USA Today published Nielsen ratings data showing the top ten shows among African American TV viewers in mid-November:

Click [here] to see it on the USA Today website:

Spotlight: Tops among African- Americans

Avg. viewers (millions)

1 Dancing With the Stars (ABC) 3.1
* Dancing W/Stars results (ABC) 3.1
3 Day Break (ABC) 2.7
4 CSI: Miami (CBS) 2.6
5 Girlfriends (CW) 2.4
* All of Us (CW) 2.4
7 60 Minutes (CBS) 2.2
8 CSI (CBS) 2.0
9 Shark (CBS) 2.0
10 Grey's Anatomy (ABC) 1.9
Source: Nielsen Media Research, week of Nov. 13

Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT.org)

Nearly a year ago Lionel Sosa contacted me about a new non-profit organization he was putting together, from scratch. The group, which would become Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together, sought to become the first online non-profit organization to build a web portal devoted to dialogue between Mexicans and Americans.

MATT.org has grown into a tremendously successful organization in the months since it officially launched (the site launched on Cinco de Mayo - May 5th). Americans and Mexicans have visited the English and Spanish versions of the website, generating millions of clicks. Virtually all content and projects are posted to both the English and Spanish websites.

Here are a few of the terrific MATT efforts worth pointing out:

1.) MATT.org launched a micro-loan program that allows Americans to invest in Mexican small (or micro) businesses all with the goal of securing or creating jobs in Mexico. More jobs and job security in Mexico equals less desperation and hopefully less illegal immigration. Click [here] to check out a promotional video about the program and to learn more about the process and loan recipients.

In case you missed it, the Nobel Peace Prize this year was awarded the man behind the largest and most successful microloan programs in the world. MATT.org partners with Kiva and Mexico-based ADMIC for the program.

2.) MATT.org has a tremendously successful discussion board section where thousands of people from the U.S. and Mexico debate the important and sometimes less important issues facing our two countries and two peoples.

The comments are lively to say the least; they are noteworthy, sometimes controversial, and occasionally offensive depending on who's posting. Since the site is open to anyone the comments reflect that. Click [here] for the discussion section which feature 10 forums with about 35,000 posts and more than 16,000 members.

3.) MATT.org has begun to circulate a petition urging Congress to make it easier for American citizens to vote in national elections. Click [here] to review and/or sign the petition.

4.) The site features commentaries, news summaries and original reporting as well as statements from the MATT on important issues facing the two countries. I help lead the editorial team at the site and we're developing outstanding content and research projects for the coming months.

5.) And this might be the coolest development thus-far: MATT has established a new relationship with Quepasa.com a fantastic, growing online community with more than 350,000 members. The site has really taken off and is attracting a lot of national media attention and national advertisers.

Will Obama’s candidacy advance racial bridge-building?

Will Obama’s candidacy advance racial bridge-building? I am certainly excited when I think about the possibility. The New York Times has a profile which implies that Sen. Barack Obama has quite a different take on the challenges facing our country. His old mentor, the famed attorney Laurence Tribe, is quoted as saying he'll be hard to pin down on some issues because of his unique background and identity.

The New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny, formerly of the Chicago Tribune - one of Obama's hometown papers, wrote for Sunday’s paper that, “As the third African-American senator since Reconstruction, Mr. Obama represents a new generation of black leaders who are connected neither by lineage nor by personal experience to the monumental struggle for racial equality.” Zeleny goes on to analyze some of Obama's writings on this subject in the article titled "Testing the Waters, Obama Tests His Own Limits."

Click [here] for the article.

First Hispanic to Chair the Republican National Committee?

Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press breaks the news that Florida Senator Mel Martinez will become chairman of the Republican National Committee. Read the story [here]. Media Matters criticizes CNN's John King who apparently broke the story [here].

An "official" announcement has not been made yet, and tomorrow's stories will likely cite AP as the source. But it appears to be certain.

A few thoughts:

Senator Martinez will be the first Hispanic to chair the Republican National Committee.

The appointment of Sen. Martinez to Chair the RNC is an important step for the Hispanic community as it intimately ties one of the nation's leading Hispanic leaders to the strategy and policies of the Republican Party. When the RNC speaks, it will now speak with a Hispanic voice. And I think this will mean much more than speaking Spanish, it will mean speaking in a way that is at least somewhat attuned to the issues and concerns in the community.

But I assume some major Hispanic organizations will oppose the appointment because of Martinez's conservative position on life and other issues. It might be accurate to say that his personal position on major contemporary political issues are both in line with, and divergent from, the Hispanic community agenda at the same time.

Given the pummeling Republicans took at the polls in the competition for the Hispanic vote during the mid-term elections, this appointment is significant because it sends a message that the Party intends to be more in-touch with the Hispanic community in the walk-up to the 2008 presidential election.

I also think this is important because it sends a clear message about the role President Bush hopes the RNC will play in helping to support efforts to pass historic, comprehensive immigration legislation and to resuscitate the Party's image in the Latino community. When Sen. Martinez speaks about immigration, he speaks about his own personal experience.

News on the Year of the Black Vote, Black Candidates

This election year has been an interesting one for those of us that track political party outreach to minority voting groups. Here's the latest news on this subject:

Today, the Associated Press reports [here] on a poll conducted by AP and AOL Black Voices
which finds "GOP Outreach to Blacks Falters."

And, also today, Reuters reports [here] that "Many conservative blacks still vote for Democrats."

Yet, as AP recently reported [here], "Black Republicans Urge New Voter Habits."

This month's edition of Ebony Magazine has a well-written, major story (teased on the front cover) titled "The New Black Power." In the article, the magazine says "From Maryland to Ohio, Pennsylvania to Tennessee, nearly a half-dozen Black political candidates are competing for some of the highest offices in the nation. If many of them win, the victories could mean a historical increase in African-American political might. If most of them lose, it could send a discouraging signal to Black America." Ebony profiles prominent African American candidates from both parties, including Democrat Deval Patrick who is running for Governor of Massachusetts and is widely expected to be elected.

Here in Maryland, Republican Lt. Governor Michael Steele is running for Senate against Congressman Ben Cardin. The Washington Post recently reported that Cardin had a 10 point lead, and that's part of the reason this race has not been seen as among the most competitive in the nation and when national Republicans groups have spent so little supporting Steele.

But, the Los Angeles Times reported on this race in today's newspaper [here] and finds that "Once trailing by more than 10 points, Steele narrowed the margin to where the race is now considered by some to be nearly a tossup."

Steele, who is African American, received endorsements from a group of prominent African Americans from Prince Georges County recently. The Washington Post reports on the endorsements [here] and The Washington Times reports on it [here] and the Baltimore Sun [here].

Today, the Post also reports on the broader African American outreach efforts across Maryland this cycle, [here].

Some in the Democratic Party are warning that garnering support from Black voters will become more difficult for the Democrats in the future, but the AP poll out today appears to contradict those beliefs.

WSJ Report on Viva Piñata

Today the Wall Street Journal reports on the front of its Marketplace section about the new 4Kids™ TV show on Fox stations and the new Viva Piñata Xbox 360™ video game which Microsoft hopes will help it sell its new Xbox system.

And this is how WSJ frames it: "Microsoft Corp. said it will take a step to address a weakness of its original Xbox with a new game called "Viva Piñata" for its Xbox 360 console aimed at young gamers."

Visit http://www.vivapinata.com/

Will Michael Steele Capture the Black Vote in Maryland?

The Washington Post has a Metro section cover story on the Maryland U.S. Senate race today:
"Race vs. Party: Steele Catches the Eye of Frustrated Black Democrats In Prince George's, but Will They Cross Over?"

I think many will. But Rep. Ben Cardin has been aggressively courting Black voters, including visiting P.G. county voters with Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John Kerry and others, as the Post notes.

Click [here] to read the article.

- Adam

U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Courts Mexican Immigrants

Wall Street Journal staff writer Miriam Jordan reports today on a unique program being marketed to Mexican immigrants, many of them illegally in the United States, by the Bush Administration and the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.

It sounds controversial, and some critics have already raised concerns, but it could also been seen as simply another bank getting into th business of international remittances or money transfers.

From a marketing perspective (I teach ethnic marketing to Master's degree students at Johns Hopkins University), the story and the subject help provide terrific information for a case study into how banks are aggressively marketing to Hispanic consumers.

Jordan writes:

As U.S. leaders craft policies to curb illegal immigration from Mexico, the U.S. Federal Reserve is devising programs to extend banking services to undocumented immigrants. A new remittance program aims to bring Mexican migrants who send money home into the mainstream U.S. financial system, regardless of their immigration status.

Dubbed "Directo a Mexico," the remittance program enables U.S. commercial banks to make money transfers for Mexican workers through the Federal Reserve's own automated clearinghouse, which is linked to Banco de Mexico, the Mexican central bank.

She goes on to report that:

Critics, however, say the Federal Reserve Bank is coddling illegal immigrants and helping them engage in capital flight. "Anything that makes it easier for people to live in this country illegally is an inducement for illegal immigration," says Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an immigration-restrictionist group. "On top of that, it is draining money out of our economy."

I found this link to some recent public events promoting the program in Texas. And this link to one held in St. Louis. And [here] is a link to a downloadable Directo a Mexico brochure in PDF format. And finally, [here] a page with a lot more information and downloads.

Click [here] to read the full article online or read it [here] if you subscribe to wsj.com.

PBS Reports on "Vigorous political organizing inside Latino churches"

The award-winning PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly reports on "vigorous political organizing inside Latino churches."

This story, reported by Kim Lawton, is excellent and balanced. Rarely does a mainstream media organization devote so much time and thought to the issues of faith and politics in the Hispanic community and PBS should be applauded for the work on this piece. It's one of the important things I've been pushing for since I established the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University following 2000 presidential election.

She reports that, "However things shake down politically, experts agree the mobilization over immigration is creating unprecedented new alliances between various ethnic groups within the Hispanic world and between Catholics and Protestants."

Click [here] to read the transcript or watch the streaming video from the recent broadcast.

Hispanic Websites Spotlighted by Washington Post Business Section

This past Saturday, Washington Post business writer Alan Sipress wrote an interesting piece which reported that "Hispanics' Web Identity Grows As Ads Target Diverse Audience." Sipress did a nice job of reaching out to experts from around the nation to build a balanced piece, which identifies some of the biggest challenges marketers have when trying to reach Latino consumers online.

The Post story reports that, "Today, a contest over Hispanic identity is being waged on the terrain of the Internet. The proliferation of Web sites such as Batanga, which appeal to Latinos regardless of where they come from, is pulling in one direction, encouraging the emergence of a wider Hispanic identity that transcends the borders that long fragmented the group. But a countervailing trend, which taps into the endless specialization available on the Web, is pushing the opposite way, toward a narrower identity rooted in homeland and even in hometown."

Sipress goes on to quote my old friend and former EFE America correspondent Rebeca Logan:

"The Internet allows you to develop a greater identity, but you can still find out the weather in your parents' hometown," said Rebeca Logan, a former news producer at AOL Latino.

He writes that, "Motivated by commercial considerations, Web sites such as AOL Latino, Univision.com, Yahoo-Telemundo and Batanga are trying to capture as large an Hispanic audience as possible in a bid for advertisers."

Click [here] for the article.

Tavis Smiley Profiled by The New York Times

Felicia R. Lee profiles television and radio personality Tavis Smiley on the front of The Arts section in today's edition of The New York Times. The piece solidifies Smiley's standing as one of the most influential and thoughtful African Americans in the nation.

When he was with NPR I found his show to be one of the most thought-provoking on radio and he was willing to take on issues many other media organizations ignored. His book, The Covenant, is one I highly recommend to all of my students in ethnic marketing at Johns Hopkins University. It's a must-read for every single political strategist, candidate, and journalist whose work even remotely involves the African American communities.

Click [here] or [here] to read the article.

Washington Post: Blacks Increase Political Presence

The Washington Post recently reported on the growing clout of Black politicians in Montgomery County, Maryland. Please click [here] to read the article by Post staff writer Cameron W. Barr.

MTV Tries Again with Tr3s

MTV relaunched its old MTV en Espanol today as "MTV Tr3s" a souped up bilingual version of MTV geared towards the emerging acculturated American Hispanic youth. The audience share is likely to start small but New York Times reporter Mireya Navarro, whose feature on the channel ran today, interviews a bunch of people who seem to think it's the beginning of a powerful business that will benefit from the growing number of advertisers savvy enough to put their dollars into ventures aimed at bilingual or even English-dominant Latinos.

The "new" revamped cable channel, which will reach about 14 million people at launch, has partnered with Latina magazine and is co-sponsoring its national tour througbhout Hispanic heritage month. Click [here] for details.

As NYT's Navarro notes, other cable channels that have been recast successfully include Mun2 the bilingual cable channel owned by Telemundo. Both find themselves in the company of the successful cable channel SiTV.

I'm really excited about this new channel (though I'll have little if any time to actually watch it). The newly competitive environment is certainly shaping up to be a terrific case study for the Ethnic Marketing course at teach in the Master in Communication program at Johns Hopkins University.

Click [here] to read the positive spotlight piece in today's New York Times.

Click [here] to read the Billboard story on washingtonpost.com

Will Televisa Make a New Bid for Univision?

Andrew Ross Sorkin & Peter Edmonston report in the business section of today's The New York Times that, "A consortium of investors led by Grupo Televisa, Mexico's largest media company, is considering a plan to make a $13 billion bid for Univision Communications after losing an auction for the company this summer, executives involved in the negotiations said yesterday."

It's surprising given that the group led by media mogul Haim Saban appeared to have won the auction and was well on its way to Univision board approval only two weeks from today.

Click [here] to read the Times article.

- Adam

Naive... What else is there to say about Survivor's producer?

Washington Post columnist, Lisa de Moraes, who writes about television has written a devastating column which exposes the sad intentions behind the Survivor program on CBS which will feature a sort of battle of the races where racial or ethnic teams face off against each other. It appears to have only been about attracting ethnic viewers (big surprise).

Survivor's producer makes terribly naive comments about race and ethnicity in society which lead me to believe that there was little deep thinking that went into developing this season's show which I had hoped might be able to contribute to a discussion about race and ethnicity in American society.

Click [here] to read the article.

- Adam

New York Advertising Agencies Adjust to Reality - They Must Hire more African American Senior Executives

In a positive turn of events, New York's major advertising agencies have acknowledged that they have kept African Americans out of their senior ranks and are taking steps to change (or will accept punishment if they don't). Both the government and the agency clients have expressed frustration over the hiring and promotion practices at Madison Avenue agencies.

The New York Times, which has reported on this issue in the past, reports today on its front page that the agencies will make changes after pressure was exerted by the City's government leaders.

Given the stereotyping of African Americans and other minorities in corporate advertising it really should come as no surprise that these groups have not been active participants in the leadership decisions made about the direction of advertising.

It depresses me that students who I help train to take junior or mid-level positions in marketing and advertising may never be able to reach the higher levels of agency leadership simply because of a broken system that is out of step with the changing society and changing demographics of our nation. I continue to hope that, sooner or later, corporate advertisers will avoid agencies that avoid diversity at all levels, including the most senior positions.

Click [here] to read the Times' story by Dianne Cardwell and Stuart Elliott.

- Adam

Is CBS's Survivor Show Going to be a Battle of the Races/Ethnicities?

Reports out this morning by the Associated Press [here] and The New York Times [here] on negative publicity CBS is receiving after it announced a change in the format of its popular show Survivor. AP says CBS has "defended the ethnic twist."

AP reports, "For the first portion of the 13th season of "Survivor," which premieres Sept. 14, the contestants competing for the $1 million prize while stranded on the Cook Islands in the South Pacific will be divided into four teams - blacks, Asians, Latinos and whites."

New York City Councilman "[John] Liu, who is Asian-American, said he was launching a campaign urging CBS to pull the show because it could encourage racial division and promote negative typecasts. He and a coalition of officials, including the council's black, Latino and Asian caucus, planned to rally at City Hall on Friday," AP reports.

My sense is that CBS, which has seen a decline in viewership of this program, one of its most successful ever, sought to develop a national debate on the issue of race and ethnicity while attracting more viewers to its program.

Bill Carter's story in the Times includes this quote from the show's long-time producer and developer:

“In America today,” Mr. Burnett said, “I really don’t believe there are many people who hate each other because of their race. But even though people may work together, they do tend in their private lives to divide along social and ethnic lines.”

The critically acclaimed film Crash is an example of an entertainment effort that was able to turn prejudice and racial or ethnic hatred on its head. And I bet the show's development team sought to benefit from the praise this film and others received for causing audiences to think about the issue in our country.

According to Carter that casting for this season required an outreach effort into minority communities:

"For the new contest, Mr. Burnett said, the show reached out to social and church groups to bring in more applicants of different backgrounds. He said the results had been gratifying."

- Adam

Juan Williams Calls for Black Leadership to Change Approach

NPR journalist and well-known African American author Juan Williams has a fairly controversial op-ed in today's Washington Post with under the title "Banish the Bling: A Culture of Failure Taints Black America."

Williams writes in his column, "Have we taken our eyes off the prize? The civil rights movement continues, but the struggle today is not so much in the streets as in the home -- and with our children. If systemic racism remains a reality, there is also a far more sinister obstacle facing African American young people today: a culture steeped in bitterness and nihilism, a culture that is a virtual blueprint for failure."

Williams' column goes on to examine, and defend, Bill Cosby's criticism of Black leadership and African American culture: "Incredibly, Cosby's critics don't see the desperate need to pull a generational fire alarm to warn people about a culture of failure that is sabotaging any chance for black people in poverty to move up and help their children reach the security of economic and educational achievement. Not one mainstream civil rights group picked up on his call for marches and protests against bad parenting, drug dealers, hate-filled rap music and failing schools."

It's hard to disagree with his conclusion, "The defining challenge for this generation of Americans dealing with poverty is putting the next generation in a position to move even higher. Individuals must now use the opportunities made available to them by the sacrifices of past generations if they are to achieve victory in America's long and still unfinished civil rights movement."

Click [here] for the full article.

Minorities Become Majority in Three More U.S. Cities

Tomorrow's Washington Post reports in a piece titled "Changing Face of Western Cities," that minorities have become the majority in a number of major American cities. It's a topic we'll be addressing in my Ethnic Marketing course this fall at Johns Hopkins University.

Last week I posted a short piece to MATT.org about changing American demographics. Click [here] to review that article.

The Post's Anushka Asthana writes, "An analysis of census data released last week has shown that the white non-Hispanic population in another three of America's 50 largest cities has become a minority. In Phoenix, Tucson and Denver, the white population has recently fallen below 50 percent, according to William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. He predicts that another four cities will soon follow. Whites will become a minority in Arlington, Tex.; Charlotte; and Las Vegas within two years and in Austin within four years, he said."

Click [here] to visit the Washington Post article.

Historically Black Colleges Reach Out to Hispanic Students

Historically black colleges and universities, HBCU's, are reaching out more aggresively to Hispanic students, reports the Associated Press today. Atlanta AP reporter Dorie Turner finds that " Black colleges that want to shore up enrollment numbers are revising recruitment strategies to include more members of the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group. The campuses are hiring Hispanic recruiters, distributing brochures that feature Hispanic students and establishing special scholarships for Hispanics."

This is an interesting development which could help save the financially challenged HBCU's while also calming some of the tensions between African Americans and Hispanics that even reached into the academic elites.

Just a couple years ago I participated in, and spoke at, a three day symposium at Harvard Univeristy titled the Color Lines Conference and I witnessed a thoughtful dialogue between a panelist and an audience member who spoke about their mutual distrust for one another even though both have devoted their time to building racial and ethnic understanding.

Click [here] or [here] for the article.

AP reports: "Casinos Are Aggressively Courting Asian Americans"

It's rare that mainstream media explores the ways business segments are tapping into the Asian American consumer market. They are quite helpful for building case studies for my ethnic marketing course at Johns Hopkins University and for sharing with clients of my agency, The 2050 Group.

Associated Press reporter Ling Liu has an intriguing story on the wire today about how casinos are mounting aggressive efforts to attract Asian Americans, responsible for enormous segments of casino revenues. Liu reports, "And few industries have catered to the Asian boom with as much cultural competency as the $75 billion U.S. gambling industry."

This struck me as astonishing: "Foxwoods, the biggest casino in the world, based on gambling floor space, estimates that at least one-third of its 40,000 customers per day are Asian. Mohegan Sun says Asian spending makes up a fifth of its business and has increased 12 percent during the first half of this year alone."

With detailed evidence of the outreach efforts in Asian American communities and details on the growing buying power of Asian Americans, I find Liu's piece to be one of the more thorough and helpful AP stories of its kind in a long time.

Click [here] for the full AP story.

America's Demographic Changes

The Washington Post's Anushka Asthana has a terrific profile today of academic colleague William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution.

She writes: "Looking to 2026, Frey imagines a country that is even more diverse -- where many more people are bilingual and more road signs and products are labeled in English and Spanish. He imagines a country split by age, with older and younger states driven by different political interests."

She continues: "What will change going forward? In 10 years, minorities are expected to make up nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population, Frey says. Ten years after that, they will have a plethora of high-profile positions as members of Congress, judges and business leaders, he predicts."

It's a great article, and it's precisely the type of focus I bring the Ethnic Marketing course I teach for Master's degree students at Johns Hopkins University and the work I do through my marketing and media agency The 2050 Group.

Click [here] for the full article.

New Study on Hispanic Voter Turnout

According to today's Washington Wire column, compiled by John Harwood, in The Wall Street Journal:

"National Bureau of Economic Research study concludes Hispanic voter turnout rises as much as 10 percentage points in areas with local Spanish-language television news. "Television is quite capable of increasing civic engagement," write Joel Waldfogel and Felix Oberholzer-Gee, backing regulatory policies encouraging TV "localism."

The paper the WSJ references, published in June, can be found online [here].

This sounds like valuable research, yet it has a hint of activism behind it. I wonder how much voter turnout among Hispanic increased in those areas due to higher concentrations of Hispanic voters and the paid political advertising aimed at Hispanic voters. Plus, campaigns might be more likely to target these areas for ground campaign efforts aimed at increasing voter turnout. In effect, can the local Spanish-language TV news truly be segmented from these other possible factors? Read the report to find out.

Bush to Address NAACP Thursday

The Washington Post's Darryl Fears reports this morning that "After six years in office, President Bush has agreed to address the NAACP at its annual national convention in Washington, the White House announced yesterday. White House spokesman Tony Snow said the president will appear before the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group tomorrow after years of trading rhetorical jabs with its leadership."

So what's the significance of speaking to one of the most respected civil rights organizations in America? Fears puts it into context: "With the appearance, Bush will avoid becoming the first president since Warren G. Harding to snub the predominantly black organization throughout his term...The NAACP, founded in 1909, has had sufficient influence in black America to draw every president after Harding to its conventions, even as the group has been critical of some, including Republicans Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan and Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton."

Click [here] for the full article.

AP Reports NAACP's Gordon Calls for Black Boycott

The AP's Erin Texeira reports today, from the NAACP national convention, that the organization's president has called for a Black boycott of major retail outlets following a new survey of corporations' contracting and employment practices. See article [here].

While it is unclear whether African Americans consumers are likely to follow the advice of the NAACP on personal spending patterns (especially without evidence of blatant racism or discrimination), this issue is a reminder that corporations must always be conscious of their corporate responsibilities in many areas of their work, particularly as it relates to the communities they serve and the communities that are responsible for their record profits.

Many of the companies targeted by the NAACP have benefited from the explosive growth in spending power of minority groups in America.

---

NAACP leader urges empowerment

By Erin Texeira, Associated Press

July 18, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Black Americans should end "victim-like thinking" and seize opportunities to help close the gap between the nation's rich and poor, NAACP President Bruce Gordon said Monday.

"We may not have all the power that we want, but we have all the power that we need," Gordon said. "All we have to do is believe it and use it."

Gordon's comments were part of his first keynote convention speech as head of the Baltimore-based civil rights group.

He urged members to keep pushing for reauthorization of expiring portions of the Voting Rights Act, which is scheduled for a vote this week in the Senate, and to improve voter turnout among blacks.

Gordon also said blacks shouldn't spend money with companies that don't hire them or advertise in their communities.

Even companies that make an effort to work with minority-owned businesses typically spend barely 5 percent of their contracting dollars with them, he said as his group released report cards on several industries.

The NAACP has graded corporations since 1997 on how well they work with blacks in employment, charitable giving, advertising, contracting and community service. This year, the civil rights group looked at the telecommunications, lodging, finance, retail and auto industries.

Most companies did best on charitable giving and community service, and worst on hiring and contracting. Gordon said the contracting numbers were "totally unacceptable."

For the second straight year, Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. received the highest grade of any company--a 3.5 out of a possible 4.0. The company pushes its managers to look for vendors and employees who are black, said Valencia Adams, a BellSouth vice president.

Of the 50 companies contacted by the NAACP, five ignored the survey, including four retailers: Dillard's Inc.; Kohl's Corp.; Sears, Roebuck and Co., and Target Corp. All were given Fs for not answering. The other company that failed to answer was Excel, a telecommunications company; it also received an F.

Gordon called on blacks to stop shopping at Target, in particular, until the retailer answered the NAACP's questions--though he stopped short of calling the action a boycott.

"They didn't even care to respond to our survey," he said. "Stay out of their stores."

The NAACP focused on Target because it's one of the most prominent national retailers, said John White, NAACP spokesman. However, the group does not plan to picket or leaflet Target, but will rely on word of mouth, he said.

A Target spokeswoman said via e-mail that the company opted out of the survey "because Target views diversity as being inclusive of all people from all different backgrounds, not just one group." The NAACP survey asks only about blacks.

The 97th annual meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People continues through Thursday.

SOLD to the highest bidder. Univision goes for $12+ billion.

Below are some excerpts from The Wall Street Journal's coverage of the sale of Spanish-language media company Univision.

---

The Wall Street Journal

June 28, 2006

Investor Group Snags Univision; Televisa Fumes

By MIRIAM JORDAN, DENNIS K. BERMAN and JOHN LYONS

-- Merissa Marr contributed to this article.

June 28, 2006

The chaotic auction of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications Inc. has resulted in an equally tumultuous outcome.

Univision yesterday confirmed its planned sale to a consortium of private-equity investors who will pay $12.3 billion and assume $1.4 billion in debt. But in doing so, Los Angeles-based Univision appears to have further rankled an important business partner it had already been feuding with: Mexico's Grupo Televisa SA, the company that provides much of the popular programming that has made Univision the dominant Spanish-language TV network in the U.S.

Televisa, which already owns 11% of Univision, led a group that made a competing bid for Univision. For weeks, it was expected to win the deal, fulfilling Televisa Chief Executive Emilio Azcarraga Jean's dream of controlling the U.S. media asset. After losing the deal early yesterday, people close to Televisa complained bitterly that Univision and its controlling shareholder -- billionaire A. Jerrold Perenchio -- had ignored its bid, failing to discuss it even though the bid was very close in value to the winning offer.

...

The winning bid came from a private-equity group made up of Texas Pacific Group Inc., Thomas H. Lee Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, Providence Equity Partners Inc. and media mogul Haim Saban. The private-equity partners are contributing $900 million, with $250 million coming from Mr. Saban, and financing the remainder. The consortium didn't speak publicly about how it plans to operate Univision, which consists not just of the highly rated broadcast network, but also sister network TeleFutura, 73 radio stations and several record labels.

The acquiring group's winning bid of $36.25 per share came after an earlier offer of $35.50 was rejected. Televisa and partners Bain Capital and Cascade Investment late last week offered $35.75, but in a prepared statement Televisa said, "repeated offers to discuss all
aspects of our proposal including price" were disregarded.

...

Both offers were well below the $40 per share Mr. Perenchio initially sought when he put the company on the auction block in February. Nonetheless, the press-shy Mr. Perenchio in a written statement characterized it as a "blockbuster transaction." Mr. Perenchio himself stands to reap $1.4 billion in the transaction, a giant windfall from the $33 million he invested in the company 14 years ago.

This blockbuster immediately faces complex problems, however. Televisa said it has "a number of options it is considering." Those could include taking legal action against Univision, presenting a new bid or somehow moving its programming to new broadcasting venues. People close to the matter said the winning bidders left room in their final documents to bring Televisa into the deal, but Televisa was steadfastly opposed.

"We've made a decision, and we're not going to join the winning bidder. We're not going to bail that consortium out of the deal that it made," the Televisa spokesman said.

Univision and Televisa have a fractious history together. Mr. Azcarraga's grandfather, who got his start buying radio stations, started assembling the network of U.S. TV stations that eventually became Univision in the 1970s after being surprised by the almost total lack of Spanish-language programming in the states at the time. Mr. Azcarraga's father, a flamboyant man who went by the nickname El Tigre, was forced to sell the network in the late 1980s after a fight with U.S. regulators who charged that he was in violation of foreign-ownership limits of media companies.

...

Univision Sale in Trouble?

Whether it's by chance or by conspiracy, it appears that the process set by Univision to sell itself and fetch as much as $14 billion is in trouble. If it was going to be hard to get that much money before, I can only image how hard it will be to get it now.

This is a very important story to pay attention to, especially for ethnic marketers, but the Univision sale is also a measure of the value of marketing directly to Spanish-dominant Hispanic Americans and the success of the industry built around it.

News media have circled around this story the last three days:

Today's (Friday) Wal Street Journal has a front page story on this sale. The headlines tell it all: "In Univision Deal, Frayed Coalitions and New Turmoil" then "Questions Emerge Over Value of Media Empire Focused on Latinos in the U.S." and finally "A Swarm of Top Financiers."

And there is this Associated Press story out last night with the headline: "Univision Cool to $10.7B Acquisition Offer." As well as this Reuters story about a potential new bid by Televisa.

And this was preceded by two days of negative media attention:

Thursday's front page of the The New York Times business section had a story by business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin which screamed: "Disarray In Auction of Univision."

The favorite to buy the company, Mexican media conglomerate Televisa and American investors, missed the "deadline." Sorkin reports: "Though executives involved in the process said changes in the market were a factor, some thought the missed deadline by Televisa was a negotiating tactic." He continued: "Executives within Univision and the rival group have begun to speculate that the deadline was missed ... as part of a strategy to disrupt the auction process in an effort to drive down the price."

But given the right price the consensus is it will sell quickly. Sorkin's story concludes with the following: "The buyer would immediately gain the biggest gateway into a rapidly growing Latino market with some $480 billion in annual buying power."

The bad news continued Thursday with stories in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

"The future of Univision Communications Inc. remained in limbo a day after the call for bids was supposed to close," the Post's Kim Hart and Brooke A. Masters reported. They quote one analyst who says, "There has been an ongoing reallocation of advertising spending from television to the Internet, and Univision is not immune to that threat."

A Televisa spokesperson tells the Post: "We're confident that we'll come forward with the most attractive bid."

Study: More Latinos Get Elected to Office

An Associated Press reporter in Houston, Texas called me today to comment on the growing number of Hispanic election officials across the nation. The piece, excerpted below, is a walk-up to the annual convention of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appoined Officials.

Study: More Latinos Get Elected to Office

By ANABELLE GARAY, The Associated Press

Wednesday, June 21, 2006; 9:01 PM

DALLAS -- Latinos have increased their presence at all levels of government over the last decade, with more than two of every five serving in Texas, a Hispanic political group reported.

At the start of this year, 5,132 Hispanics were in elected office around the country _ a 37 percent increase from 1996, when 3,743 Latinos held elected posts.

The results were part of a study announced Wednesday in Dallas to kick off the annual convention of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

"It's in everyone's interest, it's in every party's interest, to cultivate the number of Hispanic elected officials," said Adam J. Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University.

Latino elected officials now hold office in 43 states, but a whopping 42 percent of them call Texas home. Most other Latino officials represent areas with large Hispanic populations, such as California, Florida, New Jersey, New York and Illinois, the study said.

Click [here] for the full article.

NPR: Univision Sale Comes Amid Increased Competition

Noah Wolfe turned me onto this story today, thanks!

Media
Univision Sale Comes Amid Increased Competition

by Felix Contreras

Morning Edition, June 20, 2006 · Bids are expected to top $11 billion in the sale of Univision, the dominant Spanish language media outlet in the United States. But the network's next owners will face big challenges. There is more competition than ever from newer Spanish media. To keep its dominance, Univision seeks to attract and keep, younger, bilingual Latinos.

Click [here] to listen to the story.

Debate Emerges Over Ethnic Hairstyles

The Washington Post printed a front-page Metro section story on Saturday, June 17th about a legal fight over employee hairstyles at the Six Flags America amusement park in Largo, Maryland.

Click [here] for the full article which has jumped into the blogs. Technorati has archived dozens linking to the story and providing commentary.

Viva TV Coming Soon

Washington Post writer Arshad Mohammed wrote a piece on Friday about Verizon's plans to offer expanded programming through its Fios digital cable system. Mohammed reports that among the offerings will be "Viva TV, a channel under development that will offer Spanish-language content aimed at the Hispanic community. The article is available [here].

In January recent speech to industry platers, Corporation for Public Broadcasting president and CEO Patricia de Stacy Harrison noted: "Today, over 45 million Americans live in homes that are Spanish-speaking. Just this week, CPB approved working toward a major development grant to support WNET's VIVA-TV, a 24-hour digital multicast channel due to launch in the fall of this year. We are excited about the possibility of bringing the highest quality television and online programming to Hispanic homes.What this can mean is new audiences for public TV." The full text of her speech is [here].

Minnesota Public Radio's The Current has a story on the channel [here].

Televisa Threatens to Create American Network to Compete with Univision

June 8th was the rumored deadline for potential bidders for Univision to submit their proposals. It's unclear, from media reports, if that was a drop-dead deadline and whether Televisa and others submitted their bids.

I am intrigued by news that Mexican media conglomerate Televisa, already a modest stakeholder in Univision, and a potential suitor for the rest of Univision's assets, has leaked word of a "plan B" should their proposal fall through. One potential partner for that effort is SBS, though others are named as well.

I have seen few reports on the Univision sale in the past week and only the financial news services appear to be reporting on this closely.

Click [here] or [here] for the Financial Times story.

Click [here] for the Bloomberg story.

Click [here] for word of another potential SBS media project in Puerto Rico.

Reuters Reports on First Latino Bank in California in 35 Years

One industry that has experienced a rapid growth in marketing aimed at Latinos has been the financial services industry, namely banks. It should be no surprise that Latinos have become an enormous economic force whose strength only continues to grow.

Reuters reported today on the establishment of Promerica, a new bank backed by some well known Hispanic businesspeople, including the Chairman Maria Contreras-Sweet and Henry Cisneros, and non-Hispanic financiers.

Hispanic advertising agencies have aggressively competed for the marketing accounts of major national and international banks servicing the growing Latino population in the United States.

Click [here] or [here] for the full Reuters article.

Washington Post Series on "Being a Black Man"

The Washington Post has undertaken a tremendous feature project that will be reporting on Black men in America. I am already impressed with the depth of this project and the amount of newsprint and staff time the paper has devoted to it.

I look forward to hearing how this series is received within the African American community and discussing it with the clients of my new agency, The 2050 Group, as well as my students at Johns Hopkins University.

The first article in the series, by Michael A. Fletcher, ran on Friday with the following explanation:

"In the coming weeks and months, The Washington Post will explore the lives of black men through their experiences -- how they raise their sons, cope with wrongful imprisonment, navigate the perceived terrain between smart and cool, defy convention against the backdrop of racial expectations. On Sunday, The Post will publish the findings of a major poll conducted jointly with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The nationwide survey measured the attitudes of black men on a variety of issues and asked others for their views of black men."

Fletcher framed the Post's contribution to history with a quick summary of research since 1900:

"Over the past 100 years, perhaps no slice of the U.S. population has been more studied, analyzed and dissected than black males. Dozens of governmental boards and commissions have investigated their plight, scholars have researched and written papers on them, and black men have been the subject of at least 400 books.

In the early 20th century, researchers pioneered a still-evolving movement to pinpoint a biological link between black men and crime. After the social turmoil of the 1960s, experts spotlighted the rampant deprivation and lack of opportunity among black men that lent urgency to President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty.

Later, the focus became the diminishing opportunities in cities, where well-paying manufacturing work was vanishing, locking many unskilled black men out of the job market. That gave way to concerns about drugs and crime and the fraying of the family structure, as 70 percent of black babies were being born to unmarried mothers and incarceration rates soared.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund hosted a 1985 panel discussion that called young black men "an endangered species," a label that stuck even as some black men were making strides toward the middle class and a new level of social acceptance.

In 1995, the Million Man March, spearheaded by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, drew hundreds of thousands of black men to the Mall in an unrivaled show of unity and concern for one another. The gathering seemed to signal a watershed moment of self-reflection.

Since the march, black men have met in thousands of groups to address their problems, reinforce their progress and understand their lives with greater clarity. Perhaps the latest, most dramatic evidence of this involvement is "The Covenant," a book charting a plan for black self-improvement that was an outgrowth of commentator Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union forums. The book has been a No. 1 seller on the New York Times nonfiction paperback list."

As it turns out, I am in the middle of reading "The Covenant with Black America" which is a powerful, well-written book edited by Tavis Smiley. Before reading this book I was amazed and excited by the buzz I was hearing in the African American community about this book and then thrilled by its position at the top of paperback charts. Though I have not finished it yet, I alredy plan to recommend it to everyone who seeks to understand or connect with the African American community, it's that important and valuable. I will post on this book soon.

To read Friday's cover story of The Washington Post, "At the Corner of Progress and Peril," click [here].

To read Sunday's cover story of The Washington Post, "Poll Reveals a Contradictory Portrait Shaded With Promise and Doubt," by Steven A. Holmes and Post polling director Richard Morin, click [here].

The Year of the Black Candidate?

Might this be "the year of the Black candidate?"

The Boston Globe reports that the Massachusetts Democratic Party has nominated its first African American candidate for Governor in state history. Former Clinton Administration official Deval Patrick, who I understand served as Asst. Attorney General for Civil Rights, sailed to victory at the Party's nominating convention.

I find this development quite exciting. And, since I cut my political teeth as a youngster growing up in Massachusetts, I am happy to see the Mass. Dems. may draw national attention to the primary. But more than anything else I am thrilled to see such an impressive, qualified candidate who has a strong civil rights background.

The Globe reports that Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly and venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli, a loyal New Democrat came in second and third respectively, earning spots on the statewide Party primary ballot.

"The victory makes Patrick the first African-American to be endorsed by a major political party for governor in Massachusetts history. His 10-minute speech to the delegates, touching on his path as a frightened 14-year-old boy from Chicago's South Side to elite education and success in Massachusets, made some in the crowd weep."

Click [here] for the full article.

See previous post on NYT Magazine feature on Maryland Senate candidate and current Lt. Governor Michael Steele.

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."

NDN Airs Radio Ads Attacking GOP on Immigration

NDN (formerly known as the New Democrat Network), one of the biggest players in Hispanic outreach within the Democratic Party community, has launched a new radio attacking the Republican Congress on the issue of immigration. This follows attack ads on the radio waves in the southwest by the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee on this issue (see my previous posts on these ads).

I listened to the new NDN radio ad and it's in the style of a couple of the other ads NDN's agency, Elevacion, has produced in the past. That style is an original, poetic song of sorts. A male actor says, in Spanish, among things:

"Now they quiver out of fear,
Those brave Republicans,
Looking to lay the blame on others
Insisting they have been misunderstood
Who are they kidding?
Show some dignity and respect!"

In an e-mail to supporters this morning, NDN's president Simon Rosenberg wrote: "For those of us supporting the bi-partisan McCain-Kennedy bill it has become clear in recent months that the Republican leadership in Washington is more serious about scoring political points then they are about solving this important national challenge. And that's why NDN has launched a new issue advocacy campaign encouraging the Republican leadership - who control the government of the United States - to stop playing games with people's lives and get serious about passing McCain-Kennedy this year."

Rosenberg writes: "The new ad, "How Little They Know Us", begins running today on Spanish language radio stations in Arizona, California (Los Angeles and San Francisco), Nevada, Texas and Washington, DC."

Simon Rosenberg told me the budget will be in the "tens of thousands" of dollars and that the run will be "weeks." He also told me: "Our goal is to encourage the Republicans to stop playing games and to come to the table and help pass McCain-Kennedy."

Click [here] for information on the ad from the NDN website.

Click [here] for a recent article from The Hill about NDN's broader Hispanic strategy.

Meanwhile, President Bush's director of the Small Business Administration, Hector Barreto, is leaving to become national chairman of The Latino Coalition, an organization with deep ties to the Republican Party and the Bush White House that continues to refer to itself as "non-partisan" and a policy organization though it has sponsored partisan political advertising in the past. I think Barreto is likely to help boost the image and fundraising of this organization.

Black Farmers to Mark 10 Year Struggle for Justice on Wednesday

John W. Boyd, Jr. began his rise to national prominence from his 200 acre farm in southern Virginia. Boyd, a fourth generation farmer and descendent of slaves, was denied federal agriculture loans because he is Black.

When Boyd, struggling to make ends meet, heard about others who were denied loans because of their race he decided to fight back. Others around the country did the same.

And thus began one of our nation's most remarkable modern civil rights movements. Boyd and the movement have gained national attention and won a first major victory in the decade-long struggle when the USDA agreed to settle the largest class action civil rights lawsuit in American history.

Boyd, named this month as one of Ebony Magazine's "100+ Most Influential African Americans," founded the National Black Farmers Association in the 1990's and on Wednesday morning (10:00 am) April 26th he will join with other Black farm leaders and activists outside of the USDA headquarters in Washington, including Gary Grant from the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, to mark 10 years in their struggle for justice and to focus on many important challenges they still face. They'll hold a rally and march in Washington, DC.

This year the farmers will receive an enormous boost, not only in support on Capitol Hill but from, among others, the AFL-CIO, Democratic National Committee, the NAACP and the Progressive National Baptist Convention. AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney will join John Boyd and Gary Grant among other notable speakers at the rally.

Washington Post Story on Spanish-language Political Radio Ads

Sunday's edition of The Washington Post has a brief by researcher Zack Goldfarb on the dueling Spanish-language radio ads sponsored by the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee up on the air in the Southwest. The piece includes my comment on the potential impact of the ads.

Click [here] for the full story or see excerpts below:

The Washington Post
Immigration and the Airwaves
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Page A05

A surge in voter interest in immigration -- the issue ranked second after the Iraq war as voters' most pressing issue in a recent Gallup poll -- coincides with a new round of immigration-related political ads. Jim Pederson, a Democrat challenging Sen. Jon Kyl in Arizona, takes aim at his GOP opponent's focus on border security and enforcement. "Kyl actually believes that illegal immigrants will turn themselves in to be deported," Pederson says in the spot.

The Democratic and Republican national committees have taken out competing ads on Spanish-language radio stations.

...

"The issue is on the forefront of the minds of Hispanics and immigrants in the country right now," said Adam J. Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University. "Hearing these ads will likely cause them to recommit themselves to sending their message . . . louder and stronger and perhaps even longer than they thought."

---

The full Sunday political column is [here].