Hispanics Display Unique Mobile, Web Habits

October 18, 2011

US Hispanic adults 18 and older display mobile and internet habits notably different from the non-Hispanic and general adult populations, according to data released in October 2011 by the Prosper Insights Hispanic Insight Center. For example, almost 68% of Hispanic adults download mobile apps, 28% more than the 53% of non-Hispanic adults who download mobile apps.

In addition, 56% of all adults download mobile apps, meaning Hispanic adults are 21% more likely to do so.

Cable TV, Magazines Trigger Hispanic Search

When it comes to triggers for online search, Hispanic adults are much more likely to have their search behavior triggered by cable TV and magazines than non-Hispanic adults or the overall adult population. The leading online search trigger for Hispanic adults is magazines, used by almost 41% of Hispanics. This makes them 17% more likely than non-Hispanic adults (35%) and 14% more likely than overall adults (36%) to perform a magazine-driven online search.

In addition, 35% of Hispanic adults have online searches triggered by cable TV, 21% more than non-Hispanic adults (29%) and 13% more than overall adults (31%). Hispanics have similarly higher rates of online searches triggered by blogs, cell phone and email advertising. Their rates are significantly lower for the triggers of direct mail and reading an article.

Hispanics Blog More

Hispanics use blogs more frequently than other adults. About 15% of Hispanic adults read blogs regularly, 25% more than non-Hispanic adults (12%) and 15% more than overall adults (13%). Hispanic adults also maintain blogs (6%) at a rate 50% higher than non-Hispanic adults (4%) and 20% higher than overall adults (5%).

In addition, 6% of Hispanic adults post to blogs, compared to about 5% of both non-Hispanic and overall adults (roughly 20% more likely to post).

Other Findings

• 51% of Hispanic adults perform online research before shopping in a store regularly, 27.5% more than the 40% of non-Hispanic adults and 24% more than the 41% of overall adults who do so.


• 24% of Hispanic adults perform online search via cell phone, 71% more than 14% of non-Hispanic adults and 50% more than 12% of overall adults.


• Hispanic adults are much less likely than non-Hispanic adults to own a desktop computer but somewhat more likely to own a wireless laptop or netbook, Droid or iPad, and much more likely to own an iPod or iPhone.

Pew: Latinos Less Plugged In

US Latinos are less likely to access the internet, have a home broadband connection or own a cell phone than whites or blacks, according to an August 2011 study from the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism. Data from “The State of the News Media 2011″ indicates that about two-thirds of Latino (65%) and African American (66%) adults went online in 2010, roughly 14% less than the 77% of white adults who did so.

Furthermore, only 45% of Latinos have broadband access at home, 13% less than the 52% of blacks and 31% less than the 65% of whites with home broadband access. Just more than three-quarters, 76%, of Latinos owned a cell phone in 2010, 4% less than the 79% of blacks 11% less than the 85% of whites who owned cell phones.

About the Data: Data was collected by BIGresearch in June 2011.

Resource: Marketing Charts. Retrieved from: http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/hispanics-display-unique-mobile-web-habits-19706/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mc&utm_medium=textlink

Walmart Goes Local on Facebook, Launches Store-Level Messaging

Poses No Threat to Circulars, Radio at This Time, Says CMO By: Jack Neff

Walmart is launching a Facebook app that customizes marketing for each of its nearly 3,600 U.S. stores, allowing tailored communications about local deals, events or limited-distribution products.

Eventually, Walmart also hopes to use the My Local Walmart app to grow its site-to-store e-commerce program and evolve it into an individualized marketing program, said Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer for Walmart U.S., in a telephone press conference.

But for now, the focus is "to allow us to make our stores relevant locally at scale," he said.

He declined to disclose financial considerations or exactly how Walmart will promote the app, but he said it would likely draw on the giant retailer's traditional media mix, including in stores. He also said the partnership includes an unspecified amount of advertising with Facebook.

The deal brings together two of the biggest institutions in U.S. marketing -- Walmart, which gets about 150 million shoppers monthly, and Facebook, with 165 million U.S. users.

The overlap is huge, but it's centered on Walmart's 9.4 million Facebook fans. So, at least for now, Mr. Quinn doesn't foresee the app displacing circulars it distributes via newspapers or direct mail or the local radio advertising it does around such events as Halloween.

"Over time, I guess if it became a really huge scale effort, it might have that impact," Mr. Quinn said. "But right now it's not really impacting us in that way, because it's really an extension of what we ought to be doing anyway, which is paying attention to what customers want."

One reason Walmart wanted to get the app out before the holidays, Mr. Quinn said, is that it lets users download maps of their local stores to their smartphones to find Black Friday-discounted merchandise in the store.

Much of the information directed at local store shoppers will be based on data analysis by marketers and merchants at the retailer's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters, he said, but there will also be "a local override" that lets store managers customize content.

But the app will also allow Walmart to tailor marketing based on local weather events or such things as Nascar races and fishing tournaments, Mr. Quinn said. At least initially, such communications will come only about twice a week to avoid "bombarding" customers, he added.

"The unique thing here is that Walmart has taken it to another level," said Carolyn Everson, VP-global marketing solutions for Facebook. "They're not just having a local tab on their fan page where people can find their nearest retailer by putting in a ZIP code. There's actually going to be fundamentally different business being done and a different relationship at the local level because of being able to launch new products at the local level" or offering localized news about savings and events.

My Local Walmart won't permit what Ms. Everson called "frictionless open-graph sharing" of what people are shopping for or buying, a la Spotify data on who's listening to what that goes out over Facebook's new ticker. But Walmart does hope the app generates more "likes" of products to increase the viral effect of its fan base.

The announcement comes as Walmart Stores prepares for its annual analyst meeting Oct. 12 and the retailer seeks to end a series of nine straight quarters of declining same-store sales. But it stops short of what some Walmart watchers and analysts have openly called for -- a direct answer to the increasingly sophisticated database-driven shopper loyalty programs of many competitors.

"It will be very personalized" eventually, Mr. Quinn said of My Local Walmart. "Right now we're just focused on making it a very localized experience.

"Our customers have been asking for this," he said, adding that "loud and clear" Facebook feedback the past two years was among factors that recently led the retailer to reinstate layaway.

Source: AdAge.com http://adage.com/article/digital/walmart-local-facebook-store-level-messaging/230327/

Few Marketers Target U.S. Hispanics With Spanish-Language Facebook Fan Pages

Just 34 of 184 Brands Used Spanish; Latinum Network Offers Some Tips to Reach Latinos Online

By: Laurel Wentz Published: September 27, 2011

U.S. Hispanics are known to be avid consumers of social media, but few marketers are using Spanish-language Facebook fan pages to reach out to them. And marketers that do try to engage Hispanics online often make mistakes, ranging from simply repurposing Spanish-language content from other countries to allowing stale content to remain online indefinitely, according to business network Latinum.

Latinum, which helps brands reach Hispanics, looked at 184 different brands and found that only 34 had any kind of Spanish-language presence on Facebook, said Andy Hasselwander, VP-professional service and product development for Latinum. That's only 18%, and included Spanish-language pages from other countries, like a Heineken fan page from Mexico.

"We looked at Spanish-language fans vs. English-language fans, and there were 1.96 million Spanish-language fans and 106.4 million English language fans," he said. That's fewer than 2% as many Spanish-language Facebook fans as English-language ones.

"On Facebook there's a big opportunity to engage," he said. "For brands willing to put up Spanish-language Facebook pages, there's a huge payoff."

Some marketers are concerned that non-Spanish speakers will stumble upon their Spanish-language content on Facebook and set off a firestorm of complaints that people in the U.S. should use English. That happened to Best Buy when the consumer electronics marketer put up a Facebook page in Spanish a couple years ago. And just last month, when a post in Portuguese for Coca-Cola's Brazilian Facebook fans appeared briefly to Americans due to a technical glitch, the comment thread turned into a depressing hotbed of xenophobia.

"We get the backlash question a lot," Mr. Hasselwander said. When pressed, marketers concede that their general market sales haven't dropped as a result of posting a Spanish-language Facebook page.

Separately, Mr. Hasselwander looked at about 100 websites across 13 different product categories, and came up with some do's and don'ts for marketers trying to reach Spanish speakers online. His tips include:

Don't just import Spanish-language content from your websites in other countries, like Mexico or Spain.

Use human translators. "It was amazing how many machine translations we found," he said. And don't just translate content from a general market site without changing the images, too.

Aim for parity in content with the English-language site. "A Spanish-language site that's one-fifth as rich might [detract from the brand]," he said.

Have a URL strategy. While a packaged-goods marketer may have websites for different brands, an easy-to-remember multi-brand site could work better in Spanish. Kraft Foods has comidakraft.com, and General Mills' QueRicaVida.com includes recipes, videos and separate product sections for 16 different brands from Cheerios to Yoplait. "It's more affordable than creating in-culture sites for a bunch of different brands," he said.

Don't do partial translation, with some links in Spanish and some in English. And if there is a transition to English, such as contact details, make that clear with an option like a dialog box so the user can choose whether to switch languages.

Avoid stale content. Sometimes marketers want to do something Hispanic and decide 'Let's do a World Cup campaign' and that becomes their Spanish-language site for the next year. "Just take it down," he says.

Don't put a Spanish-language site up, then neglect to monitor it and engage with users. And avoid orphaned social media that lacks links and easy navigation.

Marketers are at various stage of figuring out their online Spanish-language media strategy.

Home-improvement chain Lowe's, for instance, finally launched a Spanish-language version of its website last month, but the link to Facebook is to an English-language fan page.

And Kmart, although lacking a Spanish-language website, is the first to work with Google to develop a Spanish-language video channel on YouTube. Kmart's eight-part web series, launched last month, is called "Madres y Comadres" and features two close friends who are Hispanic moms and their daily dilemmas.

"We know the challenges Hispanic women face today, and the cultural push-pull of trying to raise your children here," said Nydia Sahagun, Kmart's director of multicultural marketing.

In one of the most popular YouTube episodes, one mother is outraged that after she spent days slaving over labor-intensive tamales in her kitchen, her son traded his lunch for a school friend's tuna sandwich. In another episode, her young son decides he is too cool to be called by his given name, Rigoberto. In each episode, everyone is decked out in Kmart clothes and accessories, and some of the characters, including Rigoberto, appear in shoppable videos in which fashion expert Felix Mercado styles them in fall fashions from Kmart.

"This is one of the first projects we're doing," said Mark Lopez, who joined Google as head of U.S. Hispanic audience in November 2010. "We're providing a platform and community."

Procter & Gamble, the biggest advertiser to Hispanics, launched a bilingual website in mid-September aimed at Hispanic women with beauty and household tips and information about its brands. The site is called orgullosa.com, the Spanish word for "proud."

http://adage.com/article/hispanic-marketing/marketers-target-facebook-fan-pages-u-s-hispanics/230066/