AOL Launches Bi-Lingual Hispanic Direct Mail Campaign

Through Hispanic direct marketer Carmen's Cupones y Consejos® program that targets highly acculturated Hispanic females - the decision maker in the 2.5 million Hispanic households in 7 states and in the top 12 US Hispanic markets, AOL has developed a bilingual, tri-fold brochure for the AOL Optimized PC. It's a special low cost offer for Hispanics who may think owning a computer and accessing the Internet is out of their reach. The offer includes the AOL Optimized PC, a printer, a 17-inch monitor, CD-ROM, stereo speakers, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, modem and costs only about $300 with a one-year subscription to AOL's Latino 9.0 Internet Service for $23.90 a month.

Targeting the Hispanic community is a smart move as indicated by research into the group's media and internet usage, According to two surveys by Draft/Simmons and Media Audit, 72% of Hispanics say they always read direct mail, 66% respond to direct mail, and 39% say they want to receive more. The typical Hispanic household receives an average of 50 direct mail pieces per year, compared to 500 or so received by the general US population, so there is no mailbox "clutter" (yet). In addition, Hispanic consumers tend to be price conscious and 46% say they "always" or "sometimes" use coupons, particularly those with high acculturation, 75% of which reported using coupons compared to 56% of overall consumers in the US (NCH Marketing Services' Hispanic Coupon Survey, 2002).