Television’s annual spot-buying season begins next month, and marketers eager to reach the ballooning Hispanic population in the U.S. have more choices than ever. But those increased opportunities also reflect the challenges companies face in catering to the sought-after young adult population.
The stakes are not minor: Hispanics’ buying power almost tripled during the past 13 years, from $222 billion in 1990 to $653 billion in 2003, according to the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth. And the Census Bureau estimates that with a median age of 25.9 years, Hispanics are younger than any other population segment in the U.S.
For the past few years, marketers have flocked increasingly to Spanish-language television, largely to broadcasters Univision and Telemundo. Nonetheless, many advertisers have remained aloof from that market.
“The thinking behind that is Hispanics also watch general market programming, so they’ll get them anyway,” says Jamie Korsen, chief marketing officer at Avrett, Free & Ginsburg, a media buying agency that deals heavily with Hispanic media through clients such as Goya Foods. Goya is boosting its Spanish-language media budget 25% this year in a campaign designed to encourage Hispanics to lobby grocery stories to carry more of its products.
Complicating advertisers’ strategies is a growing divide between Hispanics who have become assimilated into the American melting pot — primarily those who were born in the U.S. and are bilingual — and those who remain steadfastly rooted in their Latino cultural roots, who tend to be older and speak little English.
A relatively new cable network tries to tread the middle ground between the groups. Jeff Valdez, chairman/cofounder of SiTV, estimates that 50% of the 39 million Hispanics in America are bilingual and another 25% speak predominantly English. He argues the group is not as homogenous as many marketers think and many in fact carry Anglo surnames.
“Hispanics don’t just marry other Hispanics, don’t just date other Hispanics,” Valdez says.
The growth of Hispanic media choices is seen in Nextel Communications’ recently announced expansion of its “Nextel. Ya” campaign to national Spanish-language networks. Instead of buying time only on Univision and Telemundo, the company is also reaching out to cable networks Galavision, Azteca TV, Fox Sports en Espanol, and Telefutura.
The upshot for this year’s “upfront” buying season: “The pie is growing, but with all the new networks, the slices for the player will be smaller,” Korsen says.
