Reaching English-Preferred Hispanics Across Multiple Screens

LAS VEGAS -- There was a lot of buzz around mobile marketing at last week’s ninth annual Hispanic Retail 360 Summit. Hispanics over-index in smartphone usage and consumption of digital content, which is great news for marketers in general, but it raises questions about how to specifically target consumers, in what language and with what messages.

During a session entitled “Reaching English-Preferred Hispanics Across Multiple Screens,” panelist Brett Dennis, chief media communications officer of Latino agency Conill, said success has resulted from customizing creative for a given audience. He shared an example of work done for Toyota, a brand that ranks high with Hispanics. The company’s English-language message was of reliability and safety, whereas the Spanish creative was more about the excitement of the brand.

“We want to deliver messages in a relevant way,” Dennis said. “Consumers don’t live in one world.”

Hispanics consider themselves as much American as their country of origin, and messaging should respect that, he explained.

Lung Huang, vice president of digital advertising, global partnerships, at Dunnhumby, spoke of their work with The Kroger Co. to make the most of the retailer’s loyalty program among Hispanics.

“We work to create an emotional connection with [Kroger’s] consumers,” Huang said. “We’re trying to get the right message to the right person in the right place.”

Kroger is able to cull a tremendous amount of information from loyalty programs and then reward the best customers with coupons on items they purchase regularly. However, Huang pointed out that where it used to take three to five marketing messages, such as point-of-sale and store fliers, it can now take seven to 10, from direct mail to digital.

Hispanic Millennials, in particular, consume a tremendous amount of media per day, according to Rob Da Silva, senior vice president at Ipsos MediaCT. It’s common for this generation of 19- to 35-year-olds to have three screens in front of them: a laptop, a smartphone and a television. In terms of media consumption, he said, “their day is more like 34 hours than 24 hours.”

Through various mediums, marketers have more access to consumers than ever before. Further, they have more information on consumers and their preferences and behavior than ever before. But, the panelists agreed that it’s as important to know the “why” as it is to know the “what." And that is the crux of the challenge.

At the end of the day, said Dunnhumby’s Huang, “companies like customers, not data. … [At Dunnhumby], we look at 9 terabytes of transaction data every day and it will continue to grow because we’re able to capture more and more. But we want the insights. We want the one-to-one media plan, rather than focusing on the 35- to 54-year-old woman who eats yogurt.”

The Hispanic Retail 360 Summit is produced by Stagnito Media, parent company of Convenience Store News.

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