Hispanic Marketing Can Be Eventful

Marketers of almost every ilk are promoting their products and services to the 32 million-strong Hispanic-American population which spent an estimated $411 billion last year on consumer goods.

But measuring the results of those efforts has been tough, because the diversity of ancestry, language, locale, acculturation, and other particulars – which leads some pundits to criticize the very use of a blanket “Hispanic” term – don’t necessarily add up to a measurable whole.

Despite Hispanic-specific tracking systems at ACNielsen, Information Resources, Inc., Spectra, and other number crunchers, understanding Hispanic consumers is a work in progress. Perhaps that’s why most marketers, asked by promo to rate the effectiveness of their Hispanic-targeted campaigns, gave themselves only mediocre marks (see Promotion Trends 2000 supplement with this issue).

“Measuring sales activity is often hard to do,” says Maria Madruga, vp-creative director of Mass, Inc., a Miami-based Hispanic advertising and marketing agency. “Most of the companies we work with realize this deficiency and are working toward improving measurability. They rely less on formal data and more on psychographics and knowledge of consumer behavior of a qualitative nature to create programs. They want quantitative information, but it’s not always possible.”

And that can lead to some major misconceptions, according to Gregorio Bennett, president of the Luna Bacardi Group, Los Angeles. For instance, some marketers still believe that an Hispanic-focused campaign requires the use of Spanish. But when it comes to younger Hispanics especially, “they’re bilingual, and they’re bicultural, and they have the same [interests] as other young people,” Bennett says.

TAKIN’ IT TO THE STREETS

That dearth of deep understanding makes events an attractive component for Hispanic-targeted promotions. “We see a rebirth of interest in event marketing,” says Madruga.

Among other clients, Mass works with General Mills and Bestfoods on Hispanic festivals, concerts, and proprietary events. For example, General Mills’ Trix cereal is sponsoring the 17-city tour of an all-Hispanic circus, Trix Circo Mundial, beginning this month. Other General Mills brands will co-sponsor.

Late last month, Bestfoods’ grocery division took several brands that are best-sellers in the Hispanic marketplace (including Mazola and Best Foods Mayonnaise) to Fiesta Broadway, an extravaganza staged annually in Los Angeles. Tying into the parent company’s sponsorship of Major League Soccer, the promotion was soccer-themed and featured interactive games and premium giveaways. Earlier this year, Bestfoods participated similarly in Carnival Miami, a yearly event started in the late 1970s that has become the largest street festival in the U.S.

“Event marketing allows us to get our communications directly to the [Hispanic] consumer,” says Espeanza Teasdale, associate product manager at Englewood Cliffs, NJ-based Bestfoods. “The more we can go one on one, the stronger our brands will remain over time.”

To measure that strength, Bestfoods compiles internal data and utilizes Hispanic-oriented information from outside agencies such as Nielsen, Simmons, and Garcia Research Associates, Burbank, CA, which conducts phone interviews to track brand awareness and usage.

Bennett agrees that event marketing is “very strong.” But he says he often steers his clients away from the large, traditional festivals. “They’re very expensive, and there’s too much clutter,” he contends. “Very few companies have the money of a Coke or a Bud, who have all the stages and media locked up.” That squeezes out lower-tier sponsors who sample food and other products. “The return on their investments are minimal at best,” he says. Likewise, recall of their participation in exit polls is low.

Theoretically, event activity is an opportunity to directly gather consumer data, yet Bennett points to a cultural barrier he calls the “Fred Flintstone Effect” that can muddle the process. “Companies give free stuff away and ask for information. But as a whole, Hispanics don’t like to give away such information. So they fill in the name Fred Flintstone, from Anywhere, USA, and get their stuff.”

Bennett recommends marketers create their own events. For instance, Luna Bacardi established the three-year-old Southern California Soccer Consortium for Keebler Foods, Elmhurst, IL. “We got 10 independent leagues which were never talking to each other together, and now have 80,000 players under the Keebler umbrella,” Bennett says. (For more information on the program, see “Blue Ribbons,” pg 83.)

Luna Bacardi helped grocery chain HEB, San Antonio, TX, target Hispanic children with in-store events sponsored by Tarrytown, NY-based Dannon. “We went in and looked at one of HEB’s hot buttons,” first creating an HEB Buddies youth program, then a Dannon’s Kids Club around the yogurt maker’s Danimals brand. A traveling weekend tour sets up music tents and hands out Danimals coupons. Purchase receipts can be redeemed for Danimals plush toys, T-shirts, and other goodies.

THE ARTSY APPROACH

Carteret, NJ-based Pathmark Supermarkets has taken the event approach to mega-proportions in a program run by Arts for Business, Briarcliff Manor, NY. The 11-year-old Pathmark Multicultural Arts Festival was initially designed to attract Hispanic families within the grocery chain’s New York City-New Jersey-Philadelphia marketplace, but now also draws African-American, Asian-American, Jewish, and West Indian locals as well.

Held May through July, the program brings ethnic music, dancing, arts, and other cultural elements to strategically chosen public venues within easy access to Pathmark stores in seven cities. Nearly 125 other companies participate on a category-exclusive basis. Promotions are sponsored by both typical packaged goods marketers such as Procter & Gamble, Pepsi, and Kellogg, and not-so-typical grocer tie-ins including Ford, America Online, and Emigrant Savings Bank.

Initial research identified the Pathmark locations in or near Hispanic neighborhoods, says Paul McGlothin, Arts for Business’s president of ethnic marketing. Then, locations frequented by female shoppers and families such as the Newport City shopping mall in Jersey City and Manhattan’s Southstreet Seaport, were identified.

“The next thing was to figure out how to get right into the neighborhoods, to reach families up close and personal,” McGlothin explains. “We researched and found all the churches, schools, and community groups, and formed a database of 300 organizations in the target areas.”

In advance of the local events, the agency and sponsors create a cultural curriculum, which is distributed free over several months to schools and churches. Sponsors also use the network to initiate their own promotions. Ford, for instance, conducted a “Safety Comes First” poster contest and sweepstakes last year in several hundred schools, then wrapped up the program during the festival.

More than 90 percent of consumers polled at the festivals “are more likely to buy sponsors’ products,” says McGlothin, remarking on the loyalty produced by the program’s constant emphasis on family – a key touch-point when marketing to Hispanics.

“We get families involved,” says McGlothin, adding that nearly 700,000 people participated in last year’s festival. “It’s one thing to watch a race car run around a track, but if you see your child on stage performing alongside a famous performer, you will never forget that. If your child gets an award, you’ll put it on the wall at home.”

Ultimately, sponsors hope their efforts translate into increased sales. “The fact that the sponsorship list grows each year is a good indication of the program’s success,” says Pathmark spokesperson Rich Savner, offering an undocumented measurement. “If it weren’t successful, we wouldn’t be doing it for the 11th year.”

With the size of the Hispanic segment and other minority populations growing steadily, they may be doing it for a long time to come.