Wired Latinos

Poder360 yesterday published a great article on Hispanic advertising and the dog eat dog world it is. Recently, the coveted $35 million Home Depot contract went from an all Hispanic agency (Vidal Partnership) to Richards/Lerma a subsidiary of the huge Richards Group.

The argument is that these specialty Hispanic advertising agencies are losing to the big mainstream agencies that are learning the value of the Latino consumer. So, there is an uproar in the advertising community.

"Traditionally," the article stated, "insight into Spanish-language immigrants was the mainstay of Hispanic agencies." But things are changing and the differences between mainstream advertising agencies and Latino advertising is beginning to blur as more and more Latinos can be reached in English and large advertising agencies have educated themselves on the Hispanic market.

But the playing field opens up again: internet and social media for Latinos. At the brink of the new 2010 Census results, the numbers could be staggering and the market lucrative, to say the least. Right now, it is estimated that more than 23.6 million Latinos go online regularly and they're more apt to use their phones to update their twitter or social pages like facebook or myspace. In a few more years, that number is expected to increase by leaps and bounds.

The most interesting part of the article was the Orci Survey of advertisers. Considering the booming online Latino numbers, it was mind boggling to see that only "78 percent of company respondents said they were not using social media in their marketing quivers, and 74 percent said they did not know if it was a useful tool."

So, it is definitely an advertising sector that is up for grabs. The numbers are there . . . it is only a matter of reaching out to them.


Source: Poder360