Social Networking Perfect For Close Hispanic Family Ties

The gist of the Hispanic: The State of the Industry panel led by ADN Communications CEO Jose Lopez-Varela with Publicitas VP of Digital Media Paul Meyer, mun2 Director od Digital Media Jose Nestor Marquez and Machado , Garica, Serra Associate Media Director Stephen Paez was that the Hispanic market is both very much the same and very much different than the general market.

With many families splitting with some members coming to American and others staying in their home country, the strong family bonds built from that separation make social networking a big growth area. Facebook recent opening of its API to developers could be a boon to Hispanic-specific social network development. Also, services such as Ning, which provide drag and drop social network creation, lend hem serves perfectly to topic specific networks.

This strong bond among Hispanics applies to word of mouth marketing as well as natural word of mouth as a powerful more of communication for Hispanics. Nintendo and Sony have capitalized on these bonds with their online networked games.

In terms of mobile marketing, Jose Lopez-Varela said text messaging, ringtones and screensavers are heavily access by the market which he took advantage of in a recent Scion campaign to the male 18-34 target - which indexes 142 for SMS usage. The campaign consisted of screen savers and ringtones as part of a chance to win one of Scion's new vehicles.

Lopez-Varela also noted that the luxury segment of the Hispanic market is overlooked with, unfortunately, many people still stereotyping Hispanics as poor and uneducated. Movement in this area is happening but it's not coming from the corporate suite, rather, from small, smart marketer like local Miami car dealers. Yes, we know. Car dealers and smart aren't usually two words that go together but when it comes to gettig cars off the lot, they are the masters of marketing.

A point brought up by all the panelists including several audience members was the fact detailed research on the Hispanic market is severely limited and in all cases should be used with caution. That said, Paez said 67 percent off Hispanics are online and there's been an increase in educated Hispanics coming to America.

The topic of translation was brought up by an audience member who pointed out there are many versions of Spanish and that one version might be offensive to those who don't speak a particular dialect. Lopez-Varela pointed out the English use of "soda" and "pop" to describe the same thing though the word soda is most often used in marketing. He suggested the most generic version of Spanish be used. Of course, the obvious point of translation being far more than about words was acknowledged by all.