• by Jim Meskauskas , September 11, 2003

Writing about advertising in the shadow of the anniversary of 9/11 is like a life insurance salesman handing out his card at a funeral. But, we all have our particular crosses on our shoulders, and this one happens to be mine this time.

Well, let's see, we had the IAB Advertiser's Forum this week, where folks talked about how to integrate online advertising into their overall marketing plans, how to allocate resources to particular media based on varying and changing techniques of media mix modeling, and what's new and exciting in the world of rich media. Other things attendees heard were that search marketing really works, especially if you do things to spruce up your results listings. Oh, and another study was released that showed that if an advertiser spends more money on online advertising, they'll see incremental lifts in traditional brand metrics!

Probably the most interesting and forward-thinking set of presentations and discussion were those pertaining to targeting the Hispanic market. As anyone who listens to the radio or has read the news at any time in the last, oh, 5 years, will know it is the fastest growing segment of the US population. Politicians especially are talking about the Hispanic population with fervor, and they are all rushing to take a Berlitz course in Spanish.

Surprisingly, though, folks using the online medium as a marketing tool haven't done very much to address this group. Big mistake.

For a long time I've talked about the importance of reaching ethnically diverse markets through the use of the pastiche of media available to advertisers. So often - and this is as true in offline media as it is in online - advertisers simply don't make the effort necessary to reach these "emerging" markets through means other than those they are already using to reach their Anglo audiences.

There is some cause for marketers to think this way. Particularly when speaking about the Hispanic market, the youth segment is primarily bicultural Hispanic. This means that they consume just as much Anglo/English media as they do Hispanic media. This is not a reason to ignore specifically addressing this market, however. Putting a bronze-skinned woman dancing the salsa in your ad is hardly "Hispanic Marketing."

But at least general market advertisers are doing something with their terrestrial media. Online, there is almost no activity. Sure, Tecate has pop-ups on www.univision.com, and some auto manufacturers have banners on the auto section of yupimsn.com, but these are exceptions. Most advertisers completely ignore the Hispanic market - or any ethnic market at all - when it comes to using the Internet as an advertising vehicle.

More than 3 years ago, I remember trying to convince a client that was going after the pre- and post-natal market to use Hispanic and Afro-American media vehicles (as well as specifically designed creative) in order to reach these segments. They refused. Time and again, they didn't think it was important. They simply would not acknowledge that these were important market segments that could be reached more meaningfully with media specifically tailored to them. Their belief was that the kind of person they were looking for, if they were Hispanic or Afro-American, would be using the same media the Anglo audience was.

This might be true, but it doesn't mean that the rich mosaic of diversity that is the US market can't be better addressed by using a broad palette of media vehicles that are a reflection of that mosaic.

Whenever I travel to other countries, one of the coolest things I see is, if I turn on the television, advertising that may be in a language not endemic to the country I'm visiting. I forget who it was (automaker? beverage?) that ran an ad on network television that was all in Spanish. The programming wasn't Hispanic. The occasion wasn't germane to a particular cultural heritage. The advertiser just decided to take a bold risk and run an ad, in Spanish, during English media programming. I only saw it once, so, alas, I can't recall what it was for (frequency, people, frequency!), but I believe it was a beer ad or something. Probably Budweiser, as they've demonstrated time and again that they are willing to take risks with their marketing programs (anyone remember the chance they took on ESPN in the early 80s?). There is nothing to lose and everything to gain from marketers taking this approach to not just their offline media but their online media, too.

Advertisers often want to proceed as though we live in a color-blind, culturally neutral (read: US American) world. But this is not the case. And though a Hispanic market might be just as likely to check out scores on ESPN as your basic white dude, the landscape is more interesting, and the messaging certainly more engaging, if it were a reflection of the people being spoken to. The benefit is that an audience who was before being treated like spill will finally feel as though they are being recognized, and the Anglo audience usually being addressed will take note of something new entering their field of vision.