Marketers ignore growing Hispanic population, survey says

Marketers ignore growing Hispanic population, survey says

10 Mar 2010

The 2010 U.S. Census is expected to find that Hispanics number more than 50 million in this country, and they command $1 trillion in buying power. Yet 50 percent of U.S. advertisers, who acknowledge the cultural impact of Latinos, do not include Hispanics in their marketing efforts. 

That's the key finding of a new Hispanic marketing trends survey of senior marketers at Fortune 1000 companies, commissioned by Los Angeles-based Hispanic advertising agency Orci. The survey, conducted via e-mail in February of 2010, was designed to offer a broad and deep look at advertisers' strategy, spending plans and viewpoints of the U.S. Hispanic market. Respondents included senior marketing and advertising executives of B2B, consumer, small, medium and large Fortune 1000 businesses across the country.

 

Latinos comprise more than 15 percent of the U.S. population, and are predicted to rise to 50 million in the 2010 Census, an increase of 42 percent since the last Census in 2000. In the 2000 report, the Hispanic growth rate of 24.3 percent was more than three times the growth rate of the total U.S. population (6.1 percent).

 

Yet the Orci research showed that 51 percent of respondents do no marketing to Latino consumers. And, 82 percent have no plans to begin or increase existing efforts aimed at American Hispanics in the next 12 months. This despite the fact that the great majority of respondents – more than 8 out of 10 – agreed that Latinos will impact U.S. companies' product and service offerings in the next five years, particularly in food tastes, fashion and technology.

 

The survey also found that 78 percent of respondents do not use social media to engage Latinos despite the fact that Hispanics are the heaviest users of wireless access through mobile phones and laptops than any other ethnic group. In addition, close to 80 percent of Latinos engage in some kind of online socializing. 

The news comes on the heels of the Latinum Network's early 2010 report that Hispanic spending grew more than twice as fast as the general populations' from 2005 to 2008. Latinum Network is a business network devoted exclusively to helping corporations penetrate the U.S. Hispanic market.