Are you failing to see the bigger picture?

In the past three years many organizations, woken by the 2000 Census figures, joined the marketing to Hispanics race. Now, a few have stopped on their tracks to realize Hispanics are a moving target.

On December 13-15 of 2004 HMCA cosponsored IQPC’s US Hispanic Marketing conference in Miami. Veterans and newcomers to the Hispanic marketing industry shared their experiences with the audience, hoping to either validate their visions or exchange ideas, frustrations and opportunities.

It became evident throughout this event that marketing effectively is really about asking the right questions. Here are some:

• “The question is not who makes the purchasing decision in the household, but how is the decision made” – a pearl of wisdom coming from Hispanic marketing research pioneer Dr. Felipe Korzenny, professor at FSU and co-founder of Cheskin. Hispanic households personify the interplay and diversity of cultural influences, lifestyles, life stages, generation and gender based needs, and language proficiencies of the larger Hispanic society.

• It is not who is in charge of the remote control but how many television sets does your household have? And with better and more technologically sophisticated entertainment and information options, the wording of the question is changing as we speak.

• “Should I translate is an irrelevant question.” Korzenny says: Rather ask “how do I make them fall in love with my brand.” Marketing and communication is increasingly about romancing the customer (and avoiding break ups). National City’s “we speak the customer service language” exemplifies the use of universal customer-centric concepts, that make sense in any language.

• How much should you spend in advertising to Hispanics? What’s the right way to spend it? The AHAA’s (Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies) “The Right Spend” or the ANA’s (Association of National Advertisers) ROI (return on investment)? Ask the consumer! A consumer-centric feedback approach to measuring marketing and communications reach and effectiveness will help answer whether and how positively effective are your marketing efforts. In other words: How is your courting of the customer developing into a lasting relationship?

• Research anyone? There are many types of research for many different purposes. Ask many questions from the ones that will be doing the measurements. Do they understand multiculturalism? Are their methods standard or updated? How is effectiveness being measured? As an audience member suggested: Doing it right usually means going against the grain. How could the amount of money spent have a direct relationship on a campaign’s success if research results consist on counting how many times the ad appeared on the media? (What about how many people actually saw/heard it, reacted to it, how did they get affected by it and who?)

• How is success defined? Maria Romero of Accent Marketing emphasized on the importance of not assuming what is important for your customer and instead, letting them tell you. For example, their research has shown that Latinas define success differently from the mainstream point-of-view. How you define “mainstream” is also becoming an increasingly important question. When is a Hispanic customer mainstream and when not? And what is mainstream after all; in what context? Sometimes speaking to the lifestyle is more relevant than speaking to the ethnicity. Oh, by the way, Hispanics don’t only go to the ethnic section of the supermarket.