The Total Market continues to cause confusion and discussions regarding the "right" definition and execution of this relatively new concept that has taken the multicultural marketing ecosystem by storm. At the center of the controversy is, perhaps, the definition itself, which defines Total Market as:

Latin America's appetite for social media has seen substantial and consistent growth the last few years. In the first two quarters of 2015, the volume of social media messages sent to brands in the region increased by 21.2%. Today, Spanish and Portuguese speakers comprise one of the most vocal markets on social media. But how much are brands actually engaging this increasingly important audience?

If you take a look at the 2015 Hispanic Fact Pact, you will notice that service advertisers are about 21% of the 50 largest spenders in Hispanic media. Granted, there are some services that are more regulated, which sometimes presents an interesting challenge. For example, food service will never be regulated quite like telecom, insurance or financial services and this sometimes can become a problem for us Hispanic marketers. It's a problem because regulation and legal requirements can stand in the way of good marketing and providing relevant experiences for our consumers.

Whenever I hear the term "Total Market Approach" to Hispanic marketing, I scrunch my face in doubt since it strikes me as a "one size fits all" path to cost reduction. Perhaps some marketers do use it to avoid the difficult work in segmenting multicultural audiences or as a means to consolidate the advertising agencies they hire. But last week, at the Association of National Advertisers' Multicultural Conference, a handful of companies provided examples that not only edified me as to what the term "Total Market Approach" exactly means but, moreover, changed my opinion in the process by providing examples …

With the holidays around the corner and 2015 coming to a close, I took some time to reflect back on what's happened in Hispanic digital marketing. I must say, it was quite a year.

Latinos are highly social, and while there is a fairly robust community of Latino influencers that brands can work with, there is still a lot education that needs to be done between brands and clients who do not have a full understanding of the Latino market. Below are a list of six tips for engaging with Latino influencers.

Hispanic agencies and media companies have been obsessed with Hispanic millennials for the last three years. It seems that the entire Hispanic marketing industry has focused its attention and efforts towards understanding and reaching the bicultural, partially-to-fully acculturated, native-born U.S. Hispanic. This new "darling" of the Hispanic market is generally given the overly simplistic moniker of "millennial."

As I recently read a bedtime story to my daughter, I was struck at how a children's book and my day job could collide. It occurred to me that this story encompassed the hallmarks of multicultural marketing at its best. The book, Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw tells the story of two young pen pals, one from America and one from India, and the similarities and yet nuanced differences in each of their lives.