Where the Multicultural population was once a small segment for marketers to consider, it may as well be today’s mainstream. Nielsen data show that the multicultural market had $3.4 trillion of purchasing power in 2014, an increase of 415% since 1990, with the numbers on the rise every year.
At IAB’s Multicultural Creative Case Study Town Hall on May 27, the spotlight was on the Multicultural market and on ways in which advertisers can successfully reach this influential segment. Liz Blacker, Executive VP at iHeart Media and Co-Chair of the Multicultural Council, joined Jessica Ramirez, Manager, IAB Industry Initiatives and Member Services, as she welcomed guests to the IAB Ad Lab for the event. It began with a deep dive into statistical data about Multicultural consumers in the U.S.
Understanding Digital Behavior Online for Multiculturals
Carl Kalapesi, Vice President Industry Initiatives at IAB, opened the event with an overview of digital media behaviors and statistics for the Multicultural population in the United States. Francesca Pujals, Head of Consumer Insights at Google for the U.S. Hispanic sales team, then presented statistics from a study commissioned in partnership with Ipsos. Here are some highlights:
· The digital space allows Digital Hispanics to be truly bilingual. Although 94% of Digital Hispanics are comfortable consuming English content across at least one online activity, two-thirds have used Spanish to look for information using a search engine.
· While 28% of Digital Hispanics are Spanish-dominant at home, only 16% identified as Spanish-dominant online.
· While 31% of Digital Hispanics are English-dominant at home, more than half (52%) of all respondents said they use English most or all of the time when online.
· 93% of Digital Hispanics who remember seeing an online ad took action as a result. The top three actions are searching on search engines, visiting a company’s site and making a purchase.
· 66% of Digital Hispanics said they pay attention to online ads, considerably larger than the overall market (46%)
· 60% of Digital Hispanics said they are “fine with it” if they land on a brand site in English after they are engaged with an ad in Spanish.
Case Study #1: Verizon Wireless “Goling”
If there were just one example of a Multicultural phenomenon, it would be the World Cup, and the first case study highlighted how to reach this audience on mobile, where the market is so active. Heather Conneely, U.S. Business Lead, Facebook, offered a look at how Verizon Wireless, in partnership with Facebook’s U.S. Hispanic creative shop, staged a winning campaign on the theme of goal celebrations when following a game on mobile.
Though Verizon had a strong TV presence for the 2014 World Cup, the brand turned to Facebook in order to leverage their mass reach on mobile in an effort to engage U.S. Hispanics during this important timeframe. Their video creatives show users celebrating goals in the workplace, cafeteria, and on the street. “Goling” was a huge success.
According to Nielsen, through Facebook, Verizon was able to reach 39% of all U.S. Hispanics age 18+. 68% of those reached were considered by Nielsen to be “light to medium” TV viewers. The concept and videos were so well received and engaging, that they had an unprecedented 95% completion rate.
Case Study #2: Home Depot’s Retool Your School
Matthew Levine, Director Mobile Platforms, Briabe Mobile, presented the case study of a campaign that his company ran for Home Depot and Uniworld Group that targeted African American audiences. Home Depot’s flagship cause marketing program offers grant money to historically black colleges and universities, and Briabe was tapped to create a mobile-social experience to stimulate conversation and drive engagement.
Home Depot went to Briabe for better reach through mobile, and Briabe responded by creating a mobile-social hub where participants could vote for their school, see tweets and otherwise engage in conversation through a social wall.
The results speak for themselves. There were 90,227 visitors to the hub, 1,008,500 total posts and 201.8 million earned impressions, or 2300% amplification of the campaign.
Case Study #3: P&G “Orgullosa”
The third case study revolved around a P&G campaign targeting Latina women called “Orgullosa.” Greg Knipp, CEO of Dieste, revealed how his company took the lofty goal of turning 16,000 Facebook likes into one million likes, which no other Hispanic community could equal online. Several agencies worked on the task.
Dieste created a unique target on which to focus: “La Mujer con la Falda Bien Puesta” (“Women Who Have Their Skirts Well Placed”). It had to encompass the hopes and desires of established Latina women as well as new immigrants with aspirations to make it on the same level. A strong call to action accompanied a social hub where those who were inspired could congregate and engage one another.
The end of the campaign created a Facebook community of 1.1 million followers. Knipp pointed out that the goal was to use traditional media to drive to the digital space rather than vice versa. Only in the digital arena could things go viral and allow the community to grow exponentially.
Multicultural Takeaways
Several things stood out from the three case studies and the opening presentation.
· Mobile rules the Multicultural market. There is a much higher rate of mobile device use in the Multicultural market. Any campaign must acknowledge this fact.
· The Hispanic audience is bilingual. It is not essential to translate everything or have an all-Spanish site, as most of the audience in bilingual on some level.
· Cultural significance trumps other factors. Regardless of language, the presence of culturally relevant content in ad creative is what matters the most.
· As some of the case studies showed, marketers can shoot for the same lofty goals in Multicultural campaigns as in general market ones.
· The market is wide open and, increasingly, Multicultural is the general market.
· Follow the money. With the spending power of the Hispanic market increasing along with a faster-growing and younger population, anyone following the money must look to the Multicultural market.
IAB MIXX Award Entries
As a note to agencies and publishers who were part of a great campaign, the deadline for entries for the IAB MIXX Awards 2015 is June 26. Any ads launched between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015 are eligible.