Delivered to the Doorknob

INSIDE THE LITTLE yellow bags hung on doorknobs of Spanish-speaking U.S. households is a big idea: to reach all areas in the country that are at least 70% Hispanic.

The bags, the distribution piece for a program called La Bolsita (the little bag), also contain two Spanish-language magazines-one about the home, the other covering sports-and a circular featuring advertisements from the likes of Toys ‘R’ Us, Sprint and Columbia House as well as local merchants.

Los Angeles direct marketing agency JSA en espanol has been distributing its magazines in polybags to U.S. Hispanic homes since 1992. To date it has reportedly reached about 1 million families.

The difference now is branding. “We put a brand on the polybag so consumers will begin to recognize it as La Bolsita,” says company president Marcelino Miyares. “It’s a brightly colored plastic bag…full of offers and product samples that will be less likely to get thrown away,” he explains.

Miyares is so optimistic about the drawing power of branding that he’s boosted distribution to 2.85 million households in the top 20 U.S. Hispanic markets. The program, launched in November, has nine distributions remaining this year.

Miyares believes signing on with La Bolsita is an opportunity advertisers can’t afford to miss. “The market has a purchasing power of well over $300 billion in the United States alone,” he says. “In many of America’s most populated cities Hispanics represent the largest minority group. So any advertiser that believes it has adequate coverage of the market without going after Hispanics is naove to the demographic realities.” (In Los Angeles, Hispanics comprise 40% of the population; in Miami 66%; and in New York 24%, according to 1996 U.S. Census Bureau statistics.)

This isn’t anything new to Rudy Zaccagno, retail advertising manager for the New York Daily News, a distributor for JSA en espanol. Zaccagno sees La Bolsita as a way for the paper to attract advertisers to the program.

“We now have an opportunity to go to our advertisers in the New York area and let them know that if they want to target the Latino market, they can now reach it in a very cost-effective way,” he says.

An ideal participant for La Bolsita, for example, may be a local furniture chain outlet.

“The majority of their sales come from the Latino market,” Zaccagno explains. He would recommend the program be added to the store’s media mix, which usually includes broadcast advertisements on Spanish-language TV and radio. With circulars written in Spanish, “most people who are going to receive this would identify it as a Latino product.”

Moreover, the magazines, with their 40/60 advertising/editorial ratio, are perceived by marketers as a “benefit” to consumers, Zaccagno claims. You know your market is “receiving a goody bag filled with mostly circulars and advertising, but there’s editorial that’s worthwhile. It’s a special thing, like you’ve received a gift,” he adds.

For the program in general, exclusivity is part of the deal. Ads in competing categories aren’t slipped into the same bag.

Typically, the biggest selling categories for Hispanic consumers are telecommunications: long-distance, cellular and paging products; money-transfer services; and the range of packaged goods that these larger-than-mass-market families keep stocked.

“Many household products index very high among Hispanics and the reason is the average Hispanic family is larger than the average general market family,” Miyares says.

The fastest-growing segments are healthcare and financial products, including credit card offers, checking/savings accounts and insurance enrollments. “Any product or service that contributes to the financial stability of an immigrant household will see dramatic growth,” Miyares predicts.

Any Promises? Can Miyares guarantee a strong response rate?

“Most people involved in Hispanic direct marketing would agree that [this market] is at least a percentage point behind other consumers,” he admits. That’s because “direct marketing and couponing are new to Hispanic immigrants.” His company is trying to remedy that by using Spanish-language radio and TV ads to increase consumer awareness about the program.

And then, much depends on the advertiser. “If you’re selling Rolls Royces, it won’t have an impact,” Miyares says. “But if you’re selling soap, encyclopedias or books, it will.”