Retailers and online marketers working to make inroads into America’s burgeoning Hispanic community need to do more than just speak the language. It’s essential to understand the various nuances of Hispanic culture and tastes.
The lesson here: Know your market, and you’re halfway to making the sale.
Reaching the Hispanic market begins with the understanding that there is no single “Hispanic community” but rather a large and varied group of cultures who may share Spanish as a common language, says Don Madden, a former television executive and attorney who now is a principal with MAS Communications LLC of Orlando, a public relations and marketing consulting firm that shows Anglo businesses how to reach Hispanic customers. (“Mas” is a Spanish word meaning “more.”) Include Brazilians who speak Portuguese and you have yet another important ethnic niche within the Latino market.
Successful communication with and marketing to these cultures requires a keen understanding of each distinctive group and their own unique methods of receiving and processing messages, says Madden, who learned the Spanish language in high school while living in Southern California and later married a Spanish-speaking woman.
For example, among Mexicans, naranja is an orange and jugo de naranja means orange juice. For Puerto Ricans, however, jugo de naranja may be any drink that is orange in color, but jugo de chino is what they call orange juice, according to Madden. In many other Spanish-speaking countries on the other hand, the idea of jugo de chino is repulsive, inasmuch as it literally would be the juice of a squeezed Chinese person.
“They are divided by a common language,” Madden says of Hispanics only half-jokingly.
In addition, Cuban-Americans and Mexicans have different preferences in food, clothing, and music than Puerto Ricans and others. People of Mexican origin, for example, tend to prefer a faster, mariachi-style beat in music than other Latinos whose musical tastes are more pop oriented or romantic. Argentineans are fans of tango, while Colombians favor the cumbia style of music and folk dance, and people of Cuban descent may prefer salsa. A hip-hop fusion style called reggaeton appeals to many Puerto Ricans.
For that reason, TV or radio ads aimed at Miami’s large Cuban-American community may use salsa music in the background, while advertisers in the U.S. Southwest may go with a mariachi beat.
Effective marketing to a Latino audience often will enlist Hispanic people of influence, including celebrities and sometimes pastors, Madden says. “Look for influencers and enlist them.” Rather than appealing to personal vanity, market a product that may help a customer’s mother live longer. “Mold your approach to be family friendly,” he advises. “Make imagery match your audience. For bus-stop ads, use Hispanic faces. No blond hair.” And don’t hire a Mexican spokesman to sell to Puerto Ricans.
“Finding a way to leverage your current business operations into this market is the single biggest opportunity/challenge facing American business today,” claim Madden and his partner at MAS Communications, Tico Perez, an attorney, civic leader and political analyst.
Madden has used his language skills throughout his business, personal and professional lives, including a two-year stint as chief public information officer for Osceola County, Florida, just south of Orlando, which has a substantial Puerto Rican population. There, he frequently was interviewed on Spanish-language radio stations.
Americans’ business dealings with Hispanic culture have been rife with linguistic and cultural faux pas over the years. One such story may be apocryphal, according to snopes.com, but it illustrates the point: Some time back, Chevrolet launched a version of its Nova model in South America. But, as the story goes, the Spanish phrase “no va” means “no go.” More recently, Sprint spun off its land-line telephone operations with a company called Embarq. “Embarque,” however, is a Spanish slang word for being left behind.
Hispanics make up the United States’ largest and fastest-growing minority group. With historically high birth rates and robust immigration from places such as Mexico and Puerto Rico, this trend is sure to continue. The estimated Hispanic population of the 50 United States in July 2007 was 45.5 million—constituting 15 percent of the nation’s population. In addition, another 3.9 million people live in the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico. In the 12 months ending July 1, 2007, 1.4 million Hispanics were added to the nation’s population, including one of every two births.
By 2050, Hispanics are projected to make up 30 percent of the U.S. population with 132.8 million residents.
Spanish speakers are avid consumers of local media in their own language, and savvy business people use these means to reach Hispanic customers. The Central Florida city of Kissimmee, where more than 40 percent of the residents are Hispanic, boasts five Spanish-language newspapers and only two in English. Spanish-language AM radio stations also are popular there.
As a group, Hispanics base their lives around three key values: faith, family, and freedom. The three “F’s” drive much of Hispanic decision-making, and no sacrifice is too great to protect these values. Capitalizing on them is one way business people can make inroads into the lucrative Latino marketplace, Madden and Perez say.
“Everything comes down to relationships, and those three things are the fulcrum points for the relationships,” Madden said. “[Hispanics are] highly suspicious of efforts to market at them.”
The Hispanic tendency to be wary of outsiders while nurturing family is apparent even in the way their homes are built, Madden observes. A Latino family’s house may appear like a fortress from the outside, but oftentimes the inner rooms open onto a central courtyard. “It’s a metaphor for how they view the world: Keep intruders out, embrace the family,” he adds. “This reflects that they are more inward-looking than outward.”
Faith is another important component of Hispanic culture. But it would be a mistake, Madden says, to assume that all Spanish-speaking people are Roman Catholic. Evangelical and Pentecostal churches have made significant inroads into the Latino community.
Freedom is important to all Hispanics, Madden says, but especially so to Cubans—many of whom have fled the repression of the Castro regime to South Florida and elsewhere. Appealing to a Latino’s faith can reach his heart, while appealing to his appreciation for freedom can reach his mind.
With all the opportunities it presents, experts say the U.S. Hispanic market is just too large for business planners, advertisers and marketing firms to ignore.
Don Madden is a bilingual professional who has extensive experience in both the private and government sectors. He can be reached at DMadden001@cfl.rr.com. Mark Andrews is editorial director of WEALTH magazine.
