Online Hispanic Trends

The Hispanic Consumer on the Rise

A recent AdAge article, written by Peter Francese, highlights some very interesting data on the growth, characteristics and future of the Hispanic market.

Mr. Francese compares the growing Hispanic market to America in the 1950s with young, large, community-oriented families, which often include grandparents, migrating to the suburbs and pursing a better life for their children.

The main point of the article is that this growing market and culture will become more and more important as baby boomers retire and reduce their consumer spending.

Read the full article.

Latinas Online - Are you reaching them?

Please check out Bixal's recent blog on the growing and important online Latina audience: http://bit.ly/aLpOHX

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

Surge in U.S. Hispanic Population Driven by Births, Not Immigration

Citing the latest data from the Census Bureau, Conor Dougther and Miriam Jordan, from the Wall Street Journal highlight how the rising Hispanic population is changing America's landscape. According to new Census Bureau data, between 2006 and 2007, 62% of the increase in the U.S. Hispanic population came from births, not from immigration.  The data also shows that there are 45.5 million Hispanics in the U.S., representing 15% of the overall population, up from 35.7 million in 2000 when they made up 12.6%.

Research from Georgia's Selig Center indicates that "growth in Hispanic's spending power will outstrip that of the general population in coming years." Hispanics currently control more disposable income than any other minority group at $860 billion a year, a figure which is expected to exceed $1.3 trillion by 2012.

View the video of Conor Dougherty, from the WSJ, discussing these findings - A Demographic to Reckon With.

Read more >> Wall Street Journal