Hispanic buying power is increasing faster than any other segment of the population. Hispanic consumer spending reached $930 billion in 2008 and personal consumption spending by Latinos will grow at an annual rate of 9.1% from 2002 to 2020—far exceeding the national growth rate of 6.0%! With those staggering statistics, it doesn't matter whether you are selling diapers, blue jeans, cars, or credit cards, the Hispanic community is a market you must include in your business plans! In this straight-talking, data-packed guide, Chiqui Cartagena—one of today's leading experts on marketing to the U.S. Hispanic population—gives you all you need to know to successfully reach this market. Includes easy-to-read charts and graphs throughout.

• Essential information about each of the top ten Hispanic markets in the U.S.
• The difference is between the four main groups: Mexican's, Puerto Rican's, Cuban's and "others," and how to successfully target Latino's by understanding the unique unifiers and differentiators among acculturated, unacculturated and assimilated Hispanics
• How understanding levels of acculturation and language usage will make your campaign more effective
• The ten big mistakes to avoid

1. Every Dog Has His Day

   Politics and Issues of Race and Class
   Reaching Critical Mass
   A Brief History of Latinos in the U.S.
   Don't Cry for Me, Puerto Rico
   The Grapes of Wrath and the Search for a Hispanic Identity
   

2. Portrait of a Nation: Latino U.S.A.

   What's in a Name?
   Hispanic Population Growth
   Geographic Concentration
   Hispanic Household Incomes
   Breakdown of Hispanics Into Country Subgroups
   U.S. born Hispanics Versus Foreign-born Hispanics
   Hispanic Buying Power
   Education
   Employment
   Length of Residency in the U.S.
   The Three Groups: Isolated, Acculturated, and Assimilated
   Foreign-born Versus U.S.-born Latinos
   

3. The Perfect Market

   Unifiers and Differentiators
   The Hispanic Consumer Market
   How Do We Compare?
   

4. Market by Market Overview: the Top 10 Hispanic Markets

   Los Angeles, California
   New York, New York
   Miami, Florida
   Chicago, Illinois
   Houston, Texas
   San Francisco, California
   Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas
   San Antonio, Texas
   Phoenix, Arizona
   McAllen/Brownsville LRGV, Texas
   

5. Hispanic Nation and Identity

   Changing Immigration Patterns
   Growth of Hispanics in Non-traditional Areas
   Changing Immigration Patterns
   In Search of a Hispanic Identity
   Bilingual Nation
   Census 2000 and Its Impact on corporate America
   In the Twenty-First Century, Niche Marketing Is King
   Lack of Diversity in the Media
   Are You Talking to Me?
   The Blind Leading the Blind
   

6. Spanish-Language Media Landscape

   Changing Media Habits
   A Brief History of Spanish-Language Television Development
   Chronology of Spanish-Language TV in the U.S.
   Overview of the Media Landscape by Industry:

   • Spanish-Language Cable TV
   • Spanish-Language Radio
   • Spanish-Language Print
   • Hispanics Online
   • A Few Words About Direct Marketing to Latinos

7. The Hispanic Advertising Industry

   A Decade of Growth
   How Big Is the Pie?
   Who's Got Game?
   Make a Commitment
   Hispanic Agency Landscape
   Food for Thought
   The Brouhaha Over Nielsen People Meters
   

8. The Latino Baby Boom

   The Impact of Generation Ñ
   The Explosive Growth of Latino Youth
   Acculturation and Retro-Acculturation
   The Impact of Language and Media on the Assimilation process
   Demographic and Consumer Profiles: Isolated, Acculturated, Assimilated
   How to Get Started: Mentor From Within
   

9. So You Wanna Get Into the Hispanic Market? Ten Mistakes You Should Avoid

   Understand your target market
   Do your own research
   Make a commitment to the marketplace
   Get your message out
   Don't dilute your brand — that's all you've got
   Hire an "expert" — don't be fooled by a surname
   Learn to Manage Up
   If it's Latin it must cost less?
   The Hispanic "quota" problem
   Using Hispanic celebrities as spokespeople
   

10. The Big Picture

    Education
    The Digital Divide
    Latino Earning Power
    Ignorance About Financial Tools and Institutions
    Access to Credit
    Redefining the Future Hispanic Market
    What Lies Ahead?
    

11. Resource Guide

Introduction

    Today I am considered a vertan of the Hispanic media wars. I started my career when Univision was still called Spanish International Network in 1985 (we used to joke about the acronym and say: "I work for SIN") and I was there when The Miami Herald relaunched El Nuevo Herald in 1987. In the mid nineties, I worked on the development and launch of People en Español, to date the most successful magazine launch in the U.S. Hispanic market. I have worked on so many Hispanic media start-ups during the past twenty years that my peers consider me a Pioneer; that's right, a pioneer with a capital P. But, as we all know, pioneering has its challenges.
    What makes me unique in the world of Hispanic media is that, unlike most of my peers, my experience encompasses both content production in print and broadcast media as well as business acumen in sales, marketing, direct marketing and strategic planning. Taking advantage of my multimedia, multilanguage experiences, in the late nineties, I began working for some of the largest American media companies that were waking up to the need to address the growing Latino community in the United States. I have helped develop and launch several consumer magazines, and have put together many business plans for media products and services geared toward Latinos. Some have had great success; others never even got off the ground. But my primary role has always been to advise senior level executives of how to proceed in the relatively uncharted waters of the Hispanic consumer.
    Not that my advice was always followed, mind you. In fact, the main reason why I'm writing this book is precisely because, when I get hired to help solve the "problem" of what to do about the Hispanic market, I often find that executives tend to repeat the same mistakes. Some of these mistakes are based on pure ignorance, and I often spend much time "educating" executives about this market. Other mistakes, however, are made out of pure stubbornness on the part of otherwise intelligent people who simply don't want to change the way they do business in a specialized market.
    The presumption that Latinos behave in the same way as the general market often permeates the thinking of these executives. This attitude invariably causes their forays into the Hispanic market to fail miserably. For example, one of New York's great daily newspapers thought that one way to increase its circulation was to attract more Hispanic readers to its publication. So it decided to launch a bilingual edition that would be distributed side by side with the regular English-language edition. Sounds like a brilliant idea, right? Well, it failed miserably. Why? The paper's management did not really think through all the sales and distribution issues that would come into play in order to make a bilingual edition successful. On the sales side, they thought their sales force could just sell this new edition the same way they sold the regular paper, but they were wrong. In order to sell successfully, you need to understand what you're selling. This is a different market, with different players, and your sales teams need to be properly trained in order to succeed. To their credit, management did hire the best team of Latino journalists to work on the new edition, but even the best written newspaper will not get read if it doesn't reach its readers. You see, the bilingual edition was distributed through the same channels of distribution that were used for the regular English-language edition, which left out many areas in the city where Latinos actually work and live. Those of us who have worked in the Hispanic print media know that Latin publications are sold through a network of independent distributors that reach bodegas and other small mom-and-pop stores that dominate Latino neighborhoods. Without access to these barrio stores, you are greatly limiting your chances of success, even in a city like New York. The newspaper's management didn't think through the distribution differences before the paper launched its bilingual edition, and found itself caught between their union and a hard place. Distribution problems forced the paper to cancel the bilingual edition only six months after it had launched, but to outsiders, the perception was that it failed because "Latinos don't read."
    Unfortunately, these failed "experiments" cause much more damage to those corporations than their executives care to know. For one, it damages their brand image with an increasingly important population. (Changing a negative image costs twice the amount of money it would cost to do it right from the beginning.) Second, it discourages other players in the industry from getting into this market and makes everyone more skeptical about the upside potential of the U.S. Hispanic market.
Why are so many corporations looking to enter this market now?

• Hispanics are now the largest minority in the country. In 2002, Latinos outnumbered the African-American population for the first time in history—something that wasn't projected to occur until this year! Blacks currently represent 12.6 percent of the total U.S. population, or 36.4 million people. Latinos are 38.6 million strong and represent 13.4 percent of the total U.S. population.
• Add to that the 3.8 million Hispanics who live in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and who are not included in U.S. Census figures, and you'll see that this is a market no business can continue to ignore.
• Latinos are one of the fastest-growing demographics in the United States. The Hispanic population grew by almost 60 percent from 1990 to 2000, compared with a 13 percent growth rate for the general population. In fact, fueled both by high birth rates and by legal (and illegal) immigration, the Latino population increases by about 1 million persons per year!
• These demographic trends will continue to affect the population landscape of the United States for the foreseeable future. Census 2000 projections put the total Latino population at 53.7 million by the year 2015 and at 81.8 million (141 percent growth) by the year 2030. Between 2000 and 2050, the Hispanic share of the population will nearly double, from 12.6 percent to 24.4 percent.
• Finally, Hispanic buying power is also increasing faster than that of any other segment of the population. According to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, Hispanic consumer spending reached $580.5 billion in 2002 and according to Global Insights, personal consumption spending by Latinos will grow and at an annual rate of 9.1 percent from 2002 to 2020—far exceeding the national growth rate of 6.0 percent. In fact, Hispanic buying power will outpace that of the African-American community by 2005!

Those are staggering statistics! It doesn't matter whether you are selling Pampers, blue jeans, cars or credit cards, the Hispanic market is a market that every business must learn to understand and start including in its business plan if it wants to grow in the future. This book is intended to be the first step in helping you understand this important market. It is a business primer on the Hispanic market in the United States. In it you will find a general overview of this growing market that will give you enough background information to begin making smart decisions on how to proceed with any Hispanic-oriented initiatives your company may have or be planning. You'll learn many important things about the geographic concentration, socioeconomic profile, and levels of education of this market, things which make it uniquely challenging and at the same time appealing to marketers. You'll also learn about the three main groups of Latinos: isolated, acculturated, and assimilated, and how they differ in size, language preference, and behavior as consumers. I am also including a section, dedicated to critical demographic trends and snapshots of the top ten Hispanic markets in the United States, that will allow you to use this book as a reference for your own business presentations.
Before we get started, I encourage you to test your knowledge of the Latino community. Understanding a community is a key factor to tapping into it successfully. Ask yourself what you know (or think you know) about this market. Write it down on a piece of paper, and when you are done reading the book, take it out and review it. Together we will debunk some of the most common myths and stereotypes regarding Latinos and analyze some of the real challenges facing the Hispanic community in the near future. And, of course, I'll spend some time taking you through examples and mini-case studies that will help you avoid some of the most common mistakes made by others who entered this market. Finally, because I enjoy looking at the big picture and forecasting changes in the market, I will spend some time identifying trends to monitor in the future.
Because this book is just a first step, I have also included a Resource Guide that will help you take further steps on your own. The goal I had in mind when I set out to write this book was for any business owner or executive to be able to read this book on a plane trip or in a day. It is intended for people who may or may not be involved with any Hispanic project at the moment, but who need to become more knowledgeable about this market in order to make the right decisions for the future of their businesses.