• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 29, 2007

Hispanics are avid consumers of all media--more so, in fact, than the general U.S. population. And they expect TV and Internet content to be delivered in tandem, according to a new joint study titled "Connected Culture" from the Yahoo-Telemundo partnership, with Experian Simmons Research. The data--gathered in an online and phone survey of more than 2,600 Hispanics ages 18-55 who regularly use Spanish at home--should stoke advertisers' already burning interest in the Hispanic market, the nation's fastest-growing ethnically and linguistically defined demographic group.

According to the study, the average Hispanic consumer spends more than half of each day somehow engaged with television, the Net or communications devices, like mobile phones--often simultaneously. Respondents record an average 13.5 hours spent with media out of a total 51-hour multitasking day. Fifty percent of U.S. Hispanics also use the Internet while watching TV--in what Jose Rivera-Font, general manager, Yahoo North Latin America, referred to as "media meshing" behavior.

Overall, Internet penetration has doubled from 2000-2006, Rivera-Font noted--and most of these are high-quality connections, with 80% of online Hispanics using broadband. Rivera-Font added they that are also big fans of video on the Internet, with about 50% searching online for content from favorite TV shows.

Peter Blacker, senior vice president of digital media for Telemundo, said that coordinating TV programming with online content has paid off in a big way for the network's Yahoo-branded Web site, with unique visitors rising from 1.2 million in January to 1.7 million in February. "Fifty percent look on the Internet as an extension of TV," Blacker observed, "so we've created Web content with the goal of super-serving passion points."

"We're able to drive traffic from television with messages in the shows and during commercial time that send viewers to Yahoo-Telemundo for more content," he adds. For example, telenovela fans can go to Yahoo-Telemundo for behind-the-scenes features, and fans of Mexican league football visit to see interviews with coaches and players.

What's more, U.S. Hispanics who use the Internet include a high proportion of early adopters of new technology: 79% have a digital camera, versus 59% of the population at large; 90% have a cell phone, versus 79% overall; 61% took photos on a mobile phone, versus just 28% overall; and 66% send text messages, versus 38% overall. Rivera-Font attributed the high connectivity and early adopting behaviors to a need to stay connected with friends, family and the Spanish-language media--common characteristics of immigrant communities generally, and U.S. Hispanics specifically.

Why is the Hispanic population in general highly desirable for marketers? According to another recent report produced by the Magazine Publishers of America, from 2000 to 2006, the purchasing power of Hispanics/Latinos climbed more than 63% to $798 billion. The report also cited a prediction from the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth that "by 2011, it will top $1.2 trillion."

Per the same MPA report, although median household income remains lower than the national average, parts of the population are moving into the middle class at a rapid pace. In the top 85 metropolitan areas, 14.3% of Hispanics ages 18-34 had household incomes of $50,000 or more in 2001, comparing favorably with 13.6% of the overall population of those areas.