• by Lee Vann , Columnist, May 12, 2016

Last month, I attended the Association of Hispanic Advertising’s (AHAA) annual conference in Miami and walked away with a wealth of knowledge, inspiration, and overwhelming positivity about Hispanic marketing.

This year, AHAA celebrates 20 years of evangelizing and advocating for the Hispanic market and for Hispanic agencies. For the past two decades, AHAA has championed the Hispanic market in corporate boardrooms through thought leadership and compelling studies.

As I immersed myself into everything AHAA last month, I found their 2016 Hispanic Market Guide to be quite insightful. The guide not only serves as a directory for AHAA member agencies, but also highlights various Hispanic marketing studies published by AHAA.

Fact: Shifting English media dollars to Hispanic leads to sales growth

In their 2015 Ad Allocation Report, AHAA analyzed the impact of shifting advertising dollars to Hispanic-dedicated efforts for the top 500 U.S. marketers. The study found that over the past five years, this group of marketers increased Hispanic advertising spending 63% from $4.3 billion in 2010 to $7.1 billion last year.

The aha insight from this study is not that marketers have increased investments in the Hispanic market; rather, it is the impact of those increased investments. Across sectors, the study found that shifting English media dollars to Hispanic leads to sales growth. 

• Automotive A five-point allocation shift from English to Hispanic media resulted in growth acceleration of nine points in revenue.

• CPG and Retail A five-point allocation shift from English to Hispanic media resulted in growth acceleration of 1.75 points in revenue.

• Financial-Insurance Services A five-point allocation shift from English to Hispanic media resulted in growth acceleration of 6.4 points in revenue.

As I analyzed AHAA’s report, one thing immediately jumped out at me: It did not include any English or Hispanic digital media. This is likely due to the fact that Hispanic digital advertising is currently difficult to quantify.

If you follow this blog, you know that Hispanics are consuming digital media at higher rates than their General Market counterparts, and demonstrating a voracious appetite for social and video content consumed primarily on smartphones. AHAA reports that compared to other ethnic groups, Hispanics spend the most time using their smartphones to access apps and the web, view videos, stream audio, and access social networks.

Given that fact that Hispanics consume so much digital media, I immediately thought to myself, what would the results be if the AHAA report included investments in Hispanic digital media?

Based on our experience as a Hispanic digital agency, I am pretty confident in what the results would be, but maybe AHAA will do a study to prove me right.