Chamber hosts lecture on Hispanic consumers

By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

An expert panel enlightened Pflugerville Chamber of Commerce members last week on the intricacies of Hispanic consumer market.

At the Chamber’s first session of its new Pfood for Thought lectures, Austin Hispanic Chamber President Andy Martinez, Univision Austin General Manager Luis Patino and Cultural Strategies CEO Sebastian Puerte crunched the numbers on the state’s fastest growing demographic and told local business owners that it takes more than ads in Spanish to hook Hispanic consumers.

“I think everybody needs to look at the Hispanic market and the growth of the Hispanic market as a business imperative. You need to have a strategy to reach this marketplace, because I’m telling you, when the 2010 census comes out – you’re really going to be shocked. They’re saying 45 million right now with 12 million undocumented. Those numbers are going to be obliterated,” Patino said. “No matter what business you’re in, somehow this is going to affect you. If you don’t have a plan, you’re going to have a plan to fail.”

Having a plan is going to mean more than translating commercials into Spanish. Puerte said businesses too often have the misconception that language is the only key to unlocking the Hispanic market.

Too much focus on the language can neglect the content of the message and the nuances of the consumer, Puerte said.

To properly target Hispanic dollars, companies will need to understand the value sets of the segment of the population they choose to pursue.

“Part of a comprehensive marketing strategy should including some tailoring your message to include some very small cultural accents in those advertising campaigns. I think that that will compliment the strategy of working with the Spanish-language media, but that is a long-term strategy,” Puerte said. “It’s comprehensive in the sense that you need engagement. You have to be authentic with the market to where they feel like the message they hear on the radio or the message they see on TV or in the paper is actually going to be supported by the experience when they walk into your business.”

In Texas, Hispanics are opening small businesses at a rate of 3 to 1 compared to other demographics.

Patino said that the common thought in the media industry 10 years ago was that developing Hispanic marketing was a moot point because immigrants would assimilate once they moved to the US. Today, the country’s most watched TV news program is Univision Los Angeles, and in Austin, Univision also tops the charts from 6-10 p.m.

Patino said businesses began to recognize the potential in the Hispanic market after the 2000 Census showed Hispanics represented more than 10 percent of American.

Ten years later, many companies large and small are still trying to figure it out.

“Don’t assume that if you’re a business that’s been in Central Texas, Austin, Pflugerville, for 20-30 years and you sort of brand yourself as that staple institution… that you are that institution in town. A lot of these people got here two or three years ago so don’t assume that you have brand equity. You have to really look at it as if it’s a brand new market and a brand new consumer that has not been exposed to your message, that has not driven by your location for the last 20 years,” Patino said.

From illegal and first generation immigrants to second third and fourth generation Hispanic Americans, the Hispanic community is internally diverse, representing Europe, South and Central America and the Caribbean.

With so many “flavors” of Hispanics, it is difficult for businesses to market basic on a generic understanding of what drives Hispanic consumers’ thought processes. They may share a language but have different cultural perspectives.

“You have to understand your market. The combined purchasing power here in Central Texas – five county area – for Hispanics, is $9.2 billion annually.” Martinez said.

Currently six of every 10 students in AISD are Hispanic, and almost half of those students speak English as a second language.

Just as the Baby Boomers generation has been a driving force of the U.S. economy since Wolrd War II, Martinez said the Hispanic community are the Baby Boomers of the 21st century.

“My daughter goes to school that’s predominantly Anglo, and she’s kind of the cool kid because she’s bilingual,” Patino said. “She comes home and tells us all these great stories about how all her friends are asking her to teach them Spanish. That’s different from when I grew up and my mom would come pick me up from school and speak to me in Spanish and I would have to say “Mom! Not in front of my friends!”

Although a cavalcade of histories and cultures exist within the diverse Hispanic market, Patino said the tone of the message to Hispanics should generally be informative and educational. Puerte said many effective ads show something that helps Hispanic consumers see where they are going in life.

“When you’re talking to a Hispanic who is buying a home, they’re not really buying a home as an investment to resell it. The mainstream usually thinks about ‘how is this property going to appreciate? How can I invest it? … How can I make money off of this thing?’” Martinez said. The Hispanic family is looking at it as, that is going to be their home, and they’re going to live in it, and they’re going to hand it off to their daughter, and they’re going to hand it down to their grandkids. That’s going to be their home. So the perspective is a whole lot different than somebody who is looking to make an economic decision.”

Subtleties like that are important when thinking about how businesses should approach Hispanic consumers, Martinez said. “When you’re dealing with Hispanic consumers, you’ll find that they’re extremely loyal, because most of there transactions are relationship-based transactions. You have to make a connection with the individual. Build a relationship and you have a client for life. Think more relationship, less transaction.”