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Latino o Hispano en Español
Seal of the Ohio Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs Source (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Por Mari D. González
Aunque los dos términos tienen su origen en EE.UU., sus connotaciones son diferentes. A consecuencia, unos prefieren un término sobre otro.
“Hispano” denota que la persona tiene una ascendencia principalmente Española y es preferido por cubanos y personas de Nuevo México. Por otro lado, “Latino/Latina” es un termino inclusivo de la gran diversidad étnica de Latinoamérica y no pone las raíces Españolas por encima de las otras (Indígenas o Africanas); también asume que no todos los habitantes de Latinoamérica son Hispanohablantes.
De esa misma manera el término “Hispano” o “Hispanic” es preferido en ciertos círculos con privilegio (Ej.: Hispanic Business, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce) y el término “Latino” es preferido en los ámbitos de música y medios de comunicación popular (Ej.: Latin Grammy, Latin Music) y por las nuevas generaciones.
Generalizing Hispanics and Marketing
By Mari D. González
Fast and easy analysis does not always translate into accurate analysis. The infographic below from CutCue states that “U.S. Hispanics are very proud of their heritage and never forget where they come from.” This might be true for Latinos/Hispanics across generations—more specifically Latinos/Hispanics of Mexican descent who are the majority.
However, the next statement, “They are self reliant and have a negative view about asking for help” relates more to individualistic societies. In general, Latinos/Hispanics regardless of their acculturation level tend to be on the collectivist side. So, my question is—Which segment of Latinos/Hispanics is CutCue talking about?
Marketing to Second-generation Latinos
Mari D. González
According to the Pew Hispanic Research Center 11 percent of the nation’s 16 million Hispanic children are first generation or foreign-born; 52 percent are second generation or U.S.-born “sons or daughters of at least one foreign-born parent;” 37 percent are third generation or higher “meaning they’re U.S.-born children of U.S.-born parents. 1
What does this mean for Spanish-language vs. English-language media and advertising?
That none of the two are reaching the largest bulk of Latinos/Hispanics -second-generation, bilingual ones.
Who is addressing this trend best?
Spanglish music-themed programming such as MTV3s and Mund2 and Hispanic/Latino oriented magazines are targeting this emerging group; not Univision or Telemundo and definitely not CNN, FOX, Target, or Amazon who have lately alienated Latinos with racially charged programming and/or products.
How?
By infusing Latin elements -words, phrases, music, colors- into to their English-language content and including content that is relevant to this socio-cultural group such as positive news about Latinos/Hispanics and against-the-common-negative-stereotype stories (Gonzalez, M.D., 2009) companies, marketers, and even politicians, have won and will continue to win over Latinos/Hispanics in the U.S.
Let’s begin to feature Juan Martin del Potro, number-one tennis player; Lhasa de Sela, Mexican-American signer of Spanish, French and English; Alondra de la Parra, 27 year-old classical maestra; Lorena Ochoa, number-one female golfer; or the all-American rock band from Texas, Girl in a Comma whose members are Latinos/Hispanics.
Why?
With 48 million Latinos/Hispanics in the U.S. and in states like California in the threshold of becoming more than 50 percent of their total population, and when “overall, Hispanics increased purchasing ‘deals’ by 16 percent, outpacing non-Hispanics shoppers,”2 news that Latino lives are about shooting, selling drugs, or school dropouts should be on the brink of getting too old.
1 Hispanic Magazine, 2009 October/November edition.
2 Hispanics and the New Economic Reality consumer report.
Latinos Getting More Complex
By Mari D. González
I am very please to have an echo on the fact that the more the number of Latinos/Hispanics in the U.S. increases, the more they need to be segmented because their complexity as well increases.
Last July, I submitted a research paper for possible publication at the Journal of Internationalisation and Localisation (JIAL) titled “Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing: Targeting Latino Youth in the Digital Age.” The study covered:
“Recent interest in the Latino/Hispanic population and culture has lead to fruitful research and increased attention on U.S. Latinos/Hispanics…. Marketing that targets Latino/Hispanic youth, has become promising, specialized, and lucrative. [This study] investigates the type of cultural knowledge marketing researchers are using to target Latino/Hispanic youth…. It explores how the ever-growing access to digital media changes the way the food and beverage companies do business with Latino/Hispanic youth” (Gonzalez, M.D., 2009, p. 4).
My findings show that Latinos/Hispanics specifically youth are creating a new “hybrid” culture which marketers need to take into account. They cannot effectively be reached by Spanish-only media nor are they being attracted to mainstream mass media because they do not culturally identify with it.
Marketers are loosing the mark of this large and continuously growing population of bicultural and bilingual digital media savvy generation if they do no pay attention to what matters to them. For instance, while they listen to the whole spectrum of music in English, from rock to hip pop, they also listen to “rancheras” (Mexican country music) by Vicente Fernandez.
The following information posted by Louis Pagan makes an interesting comparison on how Latinos/Hispanics continue to use their cultural strengths such as “being personal” and “sociable” while using media to network and advertise: http://louispagan.com/?p=453
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