Críticas Magazine

Bruce Jensen

Smells like Lateen spirit: a marketing lesson
June 13, 2008

Up in Dallas there is an ad agency called iNSPIRE! that specializes in getting Latinos to buy stuff.  Its chief is Tommy Thompson—not the Wisconsin politician but a Venezuelan of Cuban and Nicaraguan descent who is a marketing wizard.  He's revered in the advertising world for his success in selling Big Macs to Hispanics.  Thompson has been called "the go-to guy when it comes to connecting with the Latino consumer."

Mind you, he's well aware that it's more like 45 million such consumers in the US.  The 31-year-old adman doesn't subscribe to the notion of a monolithic market.  Indeed, he likes to speak of recognizing "the niche within the niche."

A target group of particular interest to Thompson—and I suppose to you, too—are so-called "Lateens," 14-to-19-year-olds who are bilingual, bicultural, and tech-savvy to varying degrees.

Ensuring that your front line and your store [or library] environment is welcoming to Hispanics is critical. Through advertising and other marketing tactics, you can probably get a Hispanic customer to visit you once, but the ultimate goal has to be for them to walk out of your store [or library] happy, willing to come back and, most importantly, have something positive to share with their friends.

Sharing is the operative word here, because WOM, or word-of-mouth, has gained influence with the digital explosion. For Hispanics, WOM is not new nor tied to the digital world. Hispanics, especially less-acculturated ones, tend to rely more heavily on the influence and recommendations of their friends and family when it comes to making purchases. This is particularly true for purchases of products that they are not that familiar with or that require a more elaborate thought process and comparative shopping. Additionally, Hispanics are not afraid to share their unsolicited opinions with other people whether they know those people or not.

As you fine-tune your Hispanic-targeted efforts or look to start connecting with this segment, it is crucial that you take a good look at yourself and your operations to ensure that the first visit to your store [or library] will be a success.

Some questions to ask: Do you have the right staff in place? Are they bilingual? Have you trained your non-Spanish-speaking staff how to communicate with Spanish-dominant consumers? Is your staff friendly? (A smile and a caring employee transcends any language.) Are your [flyers and forms] bilingual? Can you accommodate a family vs. a single customer?

Do you have relevant reading materials...?  And the list goes on.

Check his other blog entries, and the comments that follow some of them, as well as his agency's site.  You might pick up some ideas you can use to serve more and more people.

Posted by Bruce Jensen on June 13, 2008 | Comments (0)