Online Hispanic Trends

Online course in Hispanic Marketing Communications for Professionals Starting Soon

Online course in Hispanic Marketing Communication for Professionals at the University of Florida starting on August 23rd, 2010. For more info, visit: http://hmc.comm.fsu.edu/

Latino Internet Use Being Fueled by Growth in Previously Underrepresented Groups

The Pew Hispanic Center just released a very interesting new report - Latinos Online, 2006-2008: Narrowing the Gap.

The report looks compares and contrasts internet use patterns of native-born latinos, foreign-born latinos, blacks and whites.

Some of the key findings include:

• Internet use among Latino adults rose by 10 percentage points from 54% in 2006 to 64% in 2008, as compared to four points for whites and two points for blacks.
• This increase has been fueled by a growth in use by groups who have typically had very low rates of internet use - foreign-born latinos, those with lower educational levels, and those with lower household incomes.
• Although there were not large changes in the number of Latinos accessing the internet from home, there were significant increases in the the numbers using broadband, as well as for whites and blacks.

To promote consistency, the surveys were done via landline, and being that there was a significant increase in the numbers of Latinos that only use cell phones during this same period, the researchers concluded that the numbers in this report may underestimate Latino internet use.

To see the full report: Latinos Online, 2006-2008

Univision Launches New Vertical Site "Cocina"

Univision Communications just launched a new vertical called Cocina in response to the fact that the U.S. Hispanic audience spends a significant part of its budget on groceries and is interested in cooking and trying new recipes.

Per the Portada article, "...more than 11 million U.S. Hispanics report that they really enjoy cooking and trying new recipes."  And "Nearly 12 million U.S. Hispanics live in a household that spends $100+ on groceries in a week, that's 54 percent of all online Hispanics ages 18 and older."

The site will feature recipes, cooking tips from experts, videos, personalized content, user-generated content, a searchable database of recipes, and the Cocina widget that users can embed on their blogs and websites.  

General Mills is an exclusive sponsor of the Cocina widget and has category exclusivity in a number of its key areas - baking, snacks, and cereals to name a few.

Source: Portada

Univision Launching Ad Network to Reach the U.S. Hispanic Audience

Recognizing the potential of the quickly growing online Hispanic market, Univision announced the formation of the Univision Partner Group, a collection of Spanish-language websites in the U.S., Latin America and Spain that reach a significant number of U.S. Latinos.

Source: Mediaweek

LATISM DC - Dec. 11th and 12th

Excited to be attending the LATISM DC event this Friday and Saturday, in particular to connect with others that are interested in using the power of social media to make a difference.

LATISM DC is a Latinos in Social Media community building event in DC. It will bring together organizations focused on reaching Latinos and the seasoned social media veterans that can help them. From Blogs, My Space, Twitter, YouTube to Facebook, hear about what’s worked or not worked so far in the Latino community.

The conference tracks include:

• Brand Building - Build brand awareness and affinity among Latinos
• Social Good - Reach Latinos to improve opportunities and quality of life
• The Mobile Opportunity - Use mobile to reach more Latinos
• Gov 2.0 - Empower and inform Latinos through the gov't, work of grassroots and CBOs
• 101 Social Media - Learn the basics

For more info, check out: http://latismdc.eventbrite.com/ and http://latismdc.wordpress.com/

If you can't make it, you can follow the action on Twitter, by following the LATISMDC Twitter crew here: http://tweepml.org/LatISM-DC/

Coke Taps Latinos Desire for Self-Improvement

In an interview conducted by Joe Kutchera, Reinaldo Padua, the assistant VP of Hispanic Marketing at Coca-Cola America talked about a new educational marketing initiative. 

In essence, when Hispanic customers buy coke, they receive a bilingual dictionary and a DVD with the first lesson from the Inglés sin Barreras collection. Thereafter, they can register and accumulate points and redeem these for one of the 12 volumes of the collection.

By doing its research, Coke was able to identify that for Latinos, happiness means being able to pursue their dreams, and one important factor in being able to do so in the U.S. is to have strong English language skills.

The initial results of thein-store and mobile campaign, "look very encouraging" said Mr. Padua. " The feedback we have gotten from consumers has been very positive. The feedback from our employees, our most important stakeholders, has also been positive. They love it and understand the value that it provides to the community. Customers also love the idea that we are helping the community in a tangible way."

Source: Media Post