Ok, ok…so the Hispanic market is light years away from following in the footsteps of the general market and buying TV real-estate online. But this week, Google announced a partnership with Echostar (parent company of satellite giant Dish and DishLATINO) to sell TV inventory belonging to the satellite operator via public auction. Also this week, news of failed attempts to launch an ad selling auction site by ebay dominated the headlines. What will this all mean to us in a few years?

First of all, the move between Google and Echo may or may not backfire on them. The Google system will track the efficiency of a buy by tracking the # of impressions, cost of the spot and several other variables. It is the online business model applied to a traditional medium holding it accountable in a whole new way…ROI. Is the Hispanic market ready for that? I don’t think so. What will happen to all the claims we use about increased awareness and opinion/consideration with brand advertising? Many agencies have been fortunate that their Clients did not want to foot the cost of DRI tracking or copy testing. In our guts, we know the brand “fluff” is necessary, but the numbers will never show it. I’m talking about the “touchy-feely” part of branding. How will we measure “the goose bumps” a brand gives you? What will happen to our media departments if Clients can buy their next TV spot while they shop for a new set of golf clubs on ebay?
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As the agency world begins preparing for the DMA’s Directo Days in NYC in April and later on the West coast, there are several articles running in the trades about direct marketing in the Hispanic marketplace.

Having attended this event in the past, I was disappointed to find that the information presented is elementary and presents direct marketing at it’s infancy stages. Many topics discussed are basic Hispanic 101 things that really do nothing to move the business forward. I believe that the DMA’s responsibility is to move Hispanic direct marketing to the next level. As ambassadors of the discipline, I believe that education is key to development and sophistication here. Currently, the DMA is suffering from bi-polarity trying to educate general market providers on the ways of the Hispanic market rather than helping Hispanic agencies and providers evolve the market. They also have very limited participation from Hispanic agencies and I believe I know why.

After talking to several Hispanic agencies attending the event, many felt that the event feels like a college level introduction to the subject matter. Many of the questions asked in the forums were language related and focused on best practices. However, it was like a giant field day for general market providers to ask questions and not feel silly. Which, don’t get me wrong is excellent, but very limiting for the others in the audience.

So I believe the DMA needs to ask itself what audience this event is serving. Can the DMA challenge itself to serve both general market and Hispanic audiences?

- Written by Miamiadguy

By Katy Bachman, Mediaweek

Mobile audio has a ways to go before it’s as ubiquitous as terrestrial radio. According to the results of a study by Arbitron and Telephia released Tuesday, only one in 16 mobile phone subscribers (6 percent) report using one or more audio features in the past 30 days.

The most common use of mobile audio is transferring music from another device and using the cell phone like an MP3 player.

The results were based on an online survey of over 2,000 wireless subscribers in February 2007.

Nearly half of wireless subscribers (47 percent) use their mobile phone for more than just a telephone. At the top of the list of activities used by mobile phone users was text-messaging with 36 percent responding they had sent or received a text message in the last 30 days.
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Has any one out there tried buying social media for the Hispanic market? Well, first of all, there are very few players in the market today speaking only to Hispanic. Most of them are pretty hokey at best. The general market sites cannot discriminate between its total user universe from the Hispanic users. They do not ask any qualifying questions which allow for segmentation. This causes CPM to levels to rise so much that they do not make strategic sense. I mean, after all, isn’t the claim that internet supposed to me efficient?

Myspace.com has the most attractive sampling of Hispanics, but there is little to nothing you can do to target them. You can do so my choosing topics of Hispanic interests like music etc, or make assumptions by geographic location but nothing that you can truly rely on to deliver the results. I don’t know, but if I were myspace.com I would be working 24/7 to find away to filter audiences. Other players like hi5 have been playing in the global market and have made inroads in countries of Hispanic origin. They are looking to fill this void in the Hispanic market but yet, they still cannot explain abnormally large number of Latino subscribers, in
Miami of all places. Naturally, this is something I found curious during a meeting with that vendor where I proceeded to probe the numbers.
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It is alarming that Hispanic online marketing is still perceived by many as the next frontier. Much like the early U.S. settlers, Hispanic marketers have endured the great cultural divide dueling with general market for the flexibility to develop creative, media budgets and strategies that speak to our market…the online arena is no exception.

Conflicting market research further muddles the waters making advertisers and agencies even more skeptical about the online medium. This has created a vicious circle that has stunted the growth of Hispanic internet and limited it to the creation of a Spanish webpage. Hispanic consumers perceive many of these pages to be useless because advertisers have prioritized the messaging based on what they think Hispanics want to hear. What they don’t realize is that Hispanics are very curious in nature and want to know EVERYTHING there is to know before they make a purchase. As part of the American Dream, they feel it is their obligation to be informed consumers and often compare the content of both sites only to realize that English is much more complete. This further skews the numbers in favor of English online content and develops a level of mistrust for the Spanish content. We are in a sense creating mistrust between our consumers, the Spanish language and our brands…not by lying, but by omission.
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The Hispanic purchase process language barrier
Many Clients ask me, “is it important for the full buyer experience to be in Spanish”? Sometimes I just shrug my shoulders and nod slightly…but most times I can’t help myself and say YES, of course! Most of them are very intelligent marketers, why would this part of the process be any different? This is part of any operational readiness plan.

Some industries are regulated much heavier than others. For instance, in the financial sector, there are laws protecting consumers that state if a bank solicits a consumer in a specific language, they must service that consumer in that same language. This prohibits banks from preying on consumers by baiting them in Spanish and confusing them when it comes time to collect on the debt. Unfortunately, it also prevents many banks from wanting to do business with the Hispanic market. Many don’t want to get into the legal mumbo-jumbo that many don’t understand. Many also assume that Hispanics do not have money or that they keep it in their mattresses or send it to family in Mexico. But then there’s WaMu and BofA who have figured it out and that is why they are reaping the benefits of having waiting areas filled with Hispanics.
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