The IAB Hispanic Committee, part of the Multicultural Committee, recently put together a presentation, "US Latinos Online: A Driving Force," that is a compilation of sources in order to provide a clear picture about the size, growth, activities and how to effectively reach this market in-culture and in-language.
This is part two of a deep dive into The IAB Hispanic Committee presentation, "US Latinos Online: A Driving Force." In the first part we looked several key points: first, 30 million Latinos are online and growing! and second, the gap between Hispanics and non-Hispanics in household income, online usage and spending, education and finance is closing.
In part two, we will look at how online Latinos are engaged and active. Then we will look deeper at a sub-set of the US Hispanic market: Spanish-preferred and bilingual Latinos.
Online Latinos are "influential" and "socializers"
Forrester Research has developed a The Social Technographics® Ladder which shows the spectrum of participation ranging from "creators" at one extreme to "inactives" at the other. "Creators" publish blogs, web pages and upload videos, while "inactives" essentially do not do much. In the top two tiers of participation, "creators" and "critics", Latinos over index non-Hispanic adults, 263 and 249, respectively, (US online non-Hispanic adults=100).
Furthermore, Hispanics are avid users of all of the activities related to wireless and broadband. They out-text, out-photo, out-IM, out-download non-Hispanics. I could go on but I think you get the picture.
Online Spanish-preferred and bilingual Latinos
Let's take a look at a sub-segment of the US Hispanic market online: Spanish-preferred and bilingual Latinos. Hispanics that prefer to speak Spanish or are bilingual are the majority of the market. Of the 30 million Hispanics online, 19 million are Spanish-preferred or bi-lingual. What do we mean by Spanish-preferred? Typically when we look at language usage, we look at the language that is spoken at home. Spanish-preferred primarily speak Spanish at home, while bilinguals speak both English and Spanish.
Looking forward to where population growth will come from, while it is true that second-generation Latinos are outpacing first generation, that does not mean they are abandoning their heritage. The majority of Latino youth, 72%, use country of origin/Hispanic or Latino as the first term to describe themselves. This carries on to the online world as well. All Hispanics that are online strongly identify with Latino culture. Even among English-preferred, 36% show strong ties to the Latino culture. They do so by celebrating holidays, keeping up with Latino news, sports and entertainment, and almost all enjoy eating traditional food.
Language represents a strong connection to culture and should play an important role in marketing messages. Among Spanish-preferred it goes without saying that ads in Spanish are critical. What is surprising is that it is also important to bilingual and English-preferred Latinos. Advertising in Spanish makes them feel their culture is respected and they are more loyal to those advertisers.
When we compare the demographic profile of Spanish-preferred and bilingual Latinos to the overall Hispanic online population they are relatively the same. Spanish-preferred and bilingual households are slightly larger and income is slightly less. Similar to the over market, they make purchases online, 54% made an online purchase in the past year and spent an average of $707.
The profile of the Spanish-preferred and bilingual adult Hispanic Internet user is as follows:
51% Male/49% Female
36 years old
52% married
Hhld size of 4.1 (38% 5+ persons)
66% have children and 20% 3 or more
Household income of $71K
68% are employed (23% live in hhlds with 3+ employed adults)
38% have at least 1 year of college (17% graduated College+)
56% own a home
57% were born outside the U.S.
60% Mexican
40% U.S. residents for 10+ years
Most importantly to marketers, Spanish-preferred and bilingual Hispanics are more receptive on online advertising. Not only do they click on ads more frequently, but also more frequently internet ads lead to purchase. Furthermore, online advertising influences offline behavior: they over index substantially in visiting travel agencies (221), visiting automotive dealerships (166), visiting a bank (162) and attending an entertainment event (153) and going on a job interview (153) after seeing an online ad.
Hispanic sites deliver on engagement and hard to move persuasion metrics
Spanish-preferred and bilingual Latinos do visit mass market sites such as Google and Yahoo! What is interesting is their level of engagement with Hispanic focused sites. They show 10 to 18 times the level of engagement on Hispanic focused sites as they do general market sites. They spend more days online, visit more frequently, visit more pages, and spend more time on Hispanic focused sites. The IAB Hispanic Committee reasons that this is because Hispanic focused sites are more relevant and provide content that cannot be found elsewhere.
Moreover, in a study conducted by Dynamic Logic for ad effectiveness, Spanish-preferred and bilingual Latinos are even more persuaded by ads on Hispanic focused sites. When comparing effectiveness on Hispanic focus sites versus general market sites, advertisements on Hispanic focused sites outperformed on every key metric: aided brand awareness, online ad awareness, message association, brand favorability, and purchase intent/consideration.
This group, Spanish-preferred and bilingual are 'influencers' online and offline. They email articles and express their opinions online (165), they blog and participate in chat groups (147), they post photos and videos (120). They host community events (237), and help raise money (141). Others turn to them for their opinion and advice. They influence household purchases (110) and people follow their advice (106).
In summary, US Latinos online are a driving force. They are a large, and growing population with a desirable demographic. Spanish-preferred and bilingual Latinos online are 'influencers'. They seek content that is relevant to them and are more engaged with that content. Marketers would be well served by looking at this market more closely.
Before I close, I would like to thank everyone on the IAB Hispanic committee for putting together this comprehensive report that makes sense out of all of the data out there. No easy feat indeed. The committee was headed up by Olga Casabona, VP of Audience and Market Insights for impreMedia, Participating members were Terra Networks, Telemundo, Univision, AOL Latino, StarMedia, AOL Latino, Batanga and Scarborough. Research partners included eMarketer, Forrester, comScore, Simmons, Dynamic Logic, Scarborough and Mintel. Data was also incorporated from the Pew Research and the Census.
This deck will be updated quarterly and is currently available from the IAB website: http://www.iab.net/insights_research/947883/us_latinos
Mary Zerafa is VP of Strategy and Integrated Marketing for impreMedia. Mary can be reached at Mary.Zerafa@impremedia.com. She also blogs at www.hispanicmarketinfo.com where you can learn more about the US Hispanic market.
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