Online Hispanic Trends

Internet Statistics for Latin America - Key Countries Include Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile

Data from Internet World Stats indicates that the key countries for Internet use in Latin America are Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Chile. 

Chile is an interesting case. Although it doesn't represent a large number as a percentage of the overall Latin American population, it's Internet penetration is the highest of any Latin American country.

Although still relatively small, certain countries, including El Salvador and Guatemala have made significant gains in the 2000-2008 period.

What is most important to note, however, is the room for growth going foward... 

Central America and Mexico

Internet Usage and Population Statistics for Central America June2008
CENTRAL AMERICA	Population ( 2008 Est. )	% Pop. C. A.	Internet Usage, Latest Data	% (Penetration)	% Users C. A.	Use Growth ( 2000-2008 )
Belize	301270	0.20%	32000	10.60%	0.10%	113.30%
Costa Rica	4195914	2.80%	1500000	35.70%	5.40%	500.00%
El Salvador	7066403	4.70%	700000	9.90%	2.50%	1650.00%
Guatemala	13002206	8.60%	1320000	10.20%	4.70%	1930.80%
Honduras	7639327	5.10%	344100	4.50%	1.20%	760.30%
Mexico	109955400	72.70%	23700000	21.60%	84.60%	773.80%
Nicaragua	5785846	3.80%	155000	2.70%	0.60%	210.00%
Panama	3292693	2.20%	264316	8.00%	0.80%	487.40%
TOTAL	151239059	100.00%	28015416	18.50%	100.00%	770.70%

South America

Internet Usage and Population Statistics for South America June2008
CENTRAL AMERICA	Population ( 2008 Est. )	% Pop. C. A.	Internet Usage, Latest Data	% (Penetration)	% Users C. A.	Use Growth ( 2000-2008 )
Argentina	40677348	10.60%	16000000	39.30%	15.40%	540.00%
Bolivia	9247816	2.40%	580000	6.30%	0.60%	383.30%
Brazil	191908598	49.90%	50000000	26.10%	48.10%	900.00%
Chile	16454143	4.30%	7387000	44.90%	7.10%	320.30%
Colombia	45013674	11.70%	13745600	30.50%	13.20%	1465.60%
Ecuador	13927650	3.60%	1109967	8.00%	1.10%	516.60%
Falkland Islands	2483	0.00%	1900	76.50%	0.00%	n/a %
French Guiana	220898	0.10%	42000	19.00%	0.00%	2000.00%
Guyana	770794	0.20%	190000	24.60%	0.20%	6233.30%
Paraguay	6831306	1.80%	260000	3.80%	0.20%	1200.00%
Peru	29180899	7.60%	7636400	26.20%	7.30%	205.50%
Suriname	475996	0.10%	44000	9.20%	0.00%	276.10%
Uruguay	3477778	0.90%	1100000	31.60%	1.10%	197.30%
Venezuela	26414815	6.90%	5940426	22.50%	5.70%	525.30%
TOTAL	384604198	100.00%	104037293	27.10%	100.00%	627.90%

Source: www.internetworldstats.com/

 

Best Buy and Walmart Expanding Their Markets by Reaching Out to Immigrants Online and Off

Instead of leaving the market to ethnic-focused stores that traditionally serve immigrants, Walmart and Best Buy are actively pursuing these growing audiences via multiple channels and multiple languages. 

Best Buy and Walmart now have Spanish-language websites, and Walmart has launched special holiday sections of its site for its Vietnamese and Chinese customers.

Best buy is hiring staffers with language skills in Spanish and other key languages, including Korean and Chinese.  

Both Walmart and Best Buy are both putting up bilingual signage and displays that appeal to these immigrant communities. Specifically, Best Buy has signed a contract with Mexican soccer star Cuauhtemoc Blanco to be a brand ambassador, and will put up bilingual signage at 350 of its more than 1,000 stores.

 

According to Hispanic Business, Inc. Latinos currently spend more than $870 billion on consumer products and this figure is expected to increase to $1.3 trillion by 2015 or 12% of total U.S. purchasing power.

In terms of results, Best Buy executives claim that activity on the Spanish site has since far exceeded that of the original site.

Are these companies going to benefit from their comparatively early efforts in this area? We shall see...

Read full article - Los Angeles Times

Advertisers taking notice as Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans increase their numbers online

An article written by Douglas MacMillan for BusinessWeek presents some key findings from a recent eMarketer report, including the fact that even in a poor economy advertisers are likely to increase their efforts to reach growing minority audiences online.

Targeting of all three minority groups has increased since 2003, from 86% to 95% for the Latino audience, from 60% to 76% for African Americans, and from 35% to 38% for Asians.

Lisa Phillips of eMarketer highlights the importance of making marketing messages culturally relevant for new customers. She says “To be effective, advertisers "can't just translate their mass-market campaign into another language. You have to have an understanding of their cultures and traditions."

The article also discusses Microsoft’s experience of successfully adopting a multicultural approach to sell its products. Jose Piñero, Microsoft’s Multicultural Marketing Director says that “Online, it's easier to measure which campaigns work with different ethnic groups.”

Another important point relates to how those companies that get in early are likely to gain loyalties with these groups by being the first movers, citing Absolut Vodka’s experience of being the first vodka to establish a strong position with the gay and lesbian markets.

In addition to reflecting cultures and attitudes, the article points out the importance of considering language, citing Home Depot’s recent launch of a fully functioning, Spanish-language version of their e-commerce site. Jean Niemi, a spokesperson for Home Depot said that "One of the things we realized was that home improvement for anyone in general can be difficult, so for Hispanics to go on and not do it in their own language it can be [especially] intimidating."

Read full BusinessWeek article

Latinobud.com launched

Recognizing the Latino community's sense of cultural pride, their desire to improve their lives and those of their families, and their loyalty to brands that treat their culture respectfully, Anheuser-Busch launched a new site with video content providing information on the Hispanic communities and organizations who have benefited from its support. 

Read full article on La Voz

Methods to Target U.S. Hispanics Online

In an excellent article by Joe Kutchera of ContextWeb on the MediaPost website, Joe shared a number of techniques being used by various experts in the field to more effectively target U.S. Hispanics online. 

The specific methods that he covers to more effectively segment and reach the audience include:

Geo-Targeting - IP targeting to specific countries, states or DMAS to reach U.S. Hispanics visiting Latin American sites and Latin American audiences visiting U.S. based sites.

Behavioral Targeting- using collected on web-browsing behavior, such as pages they have visited or e searches they have made, to select which advertisements to display to that individual. Unfortunately, however, there is not enough money going into this type of targeting for online Hispanics.

Search - the experts recommend buying keywords in both Spanish and English to reach English and Spanish dominants in addition to the bilingual segment.

Contextual Targeting - placing relevant banners near content.

Content Category Targeting- buying online media across specific content sites.

Creative Re-Targeting - Delivering a cookie to a user who has been served a particular ad and following them throughout their experience with the same messaging.

Spanish-language Browser Targeting - targeting the segment of the audience that has set their browser to Spanish.

Read the whole article on MediaPost