Online Hispanic Trends

Public-Private Collaboration to Increase Latino Academic Achievement

Univision, the Department of Education and the Gates Foundation have recently teamed up on an exciting three-year, multi-platform national education initiative called "Es El Momento" (The Moment is Now) aimed at improving academic achievement of Hispanic K-12 students. The campaign is focused on improving the high school graduation rate, which is currently at 55 percent for the Hispanic population as compared to 69 percent for their non-Hispanics peers.

In addition to PSAs, TV and radio, the campaign is offering a comprehensive web presence and mobile resources, including questions and answers with the popular motivational radio personality Dr. Isabel, a school locator widget and weekly mobile text alerts with relevant educational tips. Visitors will also be able to find local resources through website feeds in the future. 

This is a terrific example of public private partnerships creatively coming together to address the pressing needs of the community. We should see more of this happening on a regular basis.

Check out the online presence here or by clicking the image below.

Source: Hispanicad.com

Latinos Changing the US Political Landscape

By now most people recognize that Latinos are changing the US political landscape. But are political parties, both Democrats and Republicans, listening to what Latinos have to say?  Probably not, or at least that is the reading of an article by Washington Post staff writer Peter Levin on how “Republicans look to gain traction with Hispanic voters.”

Levin highlights a recent NBC-Wall Street poll that shows a drop of Hispanic support for the Democratic Party, just a year after voting in record numbers for President Obama.  

The article also cites hard-liners and “tea party” activists’ posture on immigration issues as the main reason why Republicans are still struggling to engage Latinos voters.

The article provides hard data on how political parties should be paying close attention to Hispanic voting behavior and population changes. Hispanics are the fastest growing segment in the US and their voting power has increased twofold over the last two decades. The article also underscores how important is that politicians listen to Latinos to really understand their perspectives and priorities.

Social Media and Mobile Internet Use of Hispanic Teens and Young Adults

The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently published a report entitled Social Media & Mobile Internet Use of Teens and Young Adults. 

A few of the more interesting findings on teens and young adults in general include: 

• Blogging and commenting on blogs by teens and young adults has decreased since 2006 while it has increased among older adults (from 28% to 14%),
• Both teen and adult use of social networking sites has increased significantly, but the sites where teens and young adults maintain their profiles are different, with 66% using MySpace compared to 36% of those 30 and over, and most interesting....
• Only 8% of Internet users age 12-17 use Twitter.

With respect to Latino teens and young adults, the results of Pew's research show that:

• Although not as often as White teens and young adults, Hispanic teens and young adults report going online once a day or three to five times a week.

• Although laptops have overtaken desktops as the computer of choice, Hispanic adults are less likely than White adults to own a desktop or laptop computer.

• Along with young adults, Hispanics and African‐Americans are more likely to go online wirelessly. According to the report "Half of all African‐American adults (48%) have used their cell phone to access the internet, compared with 40% of Hispanic adults and just 31% of white adults."

Correction: Pew Research indicates that 18% of Online Hispanic Adults Use Twitter

I ran across an interesting tweet by Luis Pagan that referenced a Pew Report on Twitter and Status updates.  In addition to showing an increase in making status updates on Twitter or another service - from 11% to 19% since April 2009, the report shows that 18% of online Hispanic adults use Twitter. 

Thanks to Tomas of http://www.hispanictips.com for pointing this out.

View the full report

Forecast: More Complex Consumer Markets

The recently published AOL Hispanic Cyberstudy, Marketing to the web's most rapidly growing population, is full of great information on the online Hispanic market, but one reference I found particularly interesting was an article by Peter Francese in Advertising Age: New U.S. Census to Reveal Major Shift: No More Joe Consumer.

The gist of the article is that the average American consumer is gone and has been replaced with "a complex, multidimensional society that defies simple labeling."

Some key findings of the white paper include the following:

• The traditional two parent, two child family will only account for 22% of the population, while the most prevalent type of household will be married couples with no kids followed by single person households.

• White non-Hispanics will be the minority in California, Texas, New Mexico and Hawaii, and in the countries largest 10 cities, no ethnic groups will represent the majority of the population.

• 80% of the over 65 age group will be white non-Hispanics while only 54% of those under 18 will fall into this group. 

• And, as many of us already know, "In 2010, Hispanics will be the nation's fastest growing and largest minority (50 million people)."

Reaching Out to Hispanics: What Government Agencies Need to Know

I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by Rockcreek Strategic Marketing on what I think government agencies should take into consideration when reaching out to the quickly growing Hispanic / Latino community.

You can read the interview here: Reaching Out to Hispanics: What Government Agencies Need to Know

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

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