The Hispanic population is not a singlegroup, and payments companies who want to tap into that market needto become more sophisticated than just hiring a translator to puttheir marketing materials and disclosures into Spanish.
More than 8 out of ten Hispanics say that they get at least someof their news in English and about 32% say the get their newsexclusively in English, according to a study released July 23 bythe Pew Research Center. Additionally, 86% say that on a typicalweekday they get their news from television, and 56% say they getnews from the Internet, up from 37% in 2006.
While this information is focused on how Hispanic people get theirnews, it shows that Hispanics are not an isolated populationsomehow separated from the rest of the United States population.The majority of them speak English and they are watching televisionand using the Internet like the rest of the United Statespopulation.
What this means is that product design and marketing needs to besensitive to the fact that this population is not monolithic. Evenlooking at the classifications in the Pew report gives some clue asto the diversity of the market: foreign born, native born, secondgeneration, third generation+, English dominant, bilingual, Spanishdominant. These are in addition to age, income, and educationallevel. Add to this the country or origin or ancestry, and it iseasy to see that the idea of a nationwide Hispanic marketingprogram is an illusion.
If a company wants to develop a presence in the Hispanic market, itneeds to act locally in order to think globally. Program managersfocused on the Hispanic market should divide their markets up andrecognize what kind of people live in the different market regions- are they native born or immigrants? Where are they or theirancestors from? What language do they use most often? Where do theyget their information?
In addition, companies looking to reach into that market shouldconsider whether a separate Hispanic marketing program isnecessary. If the goal of the Hispanic population is the same aseveryone else – managing budgets, saving for the future, earningrewards – then marketing the product’s merits may be more importantthan the ethnic identity of the customer.
