For over 20 years, salsa has outsold ketchup in the United States, as first reported in the New York Times in 1992. Hispanic foods and flavors continue to have an increasingly important impact on the diets of all Americans, not just Hispanics. If we look at the search statistics on Google Trends, we see that search volume for the Mexican-American food items “tacos” and “burrito” have grown dramatically in the past eight years: Not surprisingly, we can see that states with large Hispanic populations, like

This article originally appeared on Fox News Latino. A lot of research shows that Latinos, both in the U.S. and in Latin America, over-index for using mobile devices. But are they finding the information and services that they need? The future growth of the Internet will come from low-income users, exactly the opposite of how the Internet began with professors and executives using it. In order to satisfy the new wave of mobile phone users, many of whom are disadvantaged, marketers need to bring new

As 2013 begins, most smart marketers will take time to forecast the emerging trends for the year ahead and incorporate new ideas into their media and marketing plans. Digital pundits have previously predicted that “this is the year of mobile” for U.S. Hispanics, but results had not surfaced. Yet last year, that prediction finally came true.   The Interactive Advertising Bureau recently released a report with BIGinsight called the “Digital Hispanic Consumer,” which shows that when Hispanic consumers go online, they often do so via

The following post is an excerpt from my forthcoming book: A Five Step Process to Digital Marketing PepsiCo launched PepsiCo10, an incubator program in Brazil, UK and the US to take a leadership position in identifying innovative digital start-ups and pairing them with its brands to execute marketing programs. With the accelerated pace of digital media, this offers PepsiCo the opportunity to understand what new trends are happening in mobile marketing. The company hopes that the initiative will drive growth while offering these start-ups visibility

The following case study is an excerpt from my forthcoming book: A Five Step Process to Digital Marketing. The story of Souchi.com exemplifies the incredible effect that optimizing a website and the digital marketing that leads people to it can have on e-commerce sales. More specifically, it highlights how tapping into the right social network, Pinterest in this case, can dramatically grow a business online. In only five months, we grew traffic to the website over 1000% and e-commerce sales by over 630%. Here is how we

In researching my new book, I have had the opportunity to get to know some of the great people at One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). The non-profit aims “to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning,” according to its mission statement. To this end, OLPC has designed the hardware, software and content to promote collaboration and self-learning. With these tools, children take their

This article originally appeared on Fox News Latino. eMarketer projects that between 2012 and 2016, Latin America will be one of the world’s fastest-growing regions for online advertising spending, growing from $3.62 billion in 2012 to $7.68 billion in 2016, a 112% increase in just four years. Yet, legacy monopolies like Televisa, creator of many of the world’s most popular telenovelas along with its competitor TV Azteca, still dominate media spending where 56% of advertising dollars go towards broadcast television while only 10% goes towards

This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com.  We all know that U.S. websites offer some of the best content and functionality found online. What happens when one of these websites goes multi-lingual and is offered in Spanish? The story of Amtrak.com provides a surprising illustration of how companies – and even government agencies – can expand sales beyond their “home markets.” An Unexpected Source of Sales for Amtrak.com In 2006, Amtrak began offering its complete website in Spanish. Its goal: to serve the large and growing

This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning,” said Bill Gates. And the best place to find those unhappy customers today is on Twitter, Facebook and across your social media channels. I recently flew on the Mexican discount airline, Volaris, and had an experience that highlights how not to manage both customer service and social media among an international, multi-lingual audience. Allow me to explain the details of what happened, and conclude with six lessons on managing

I am excited to announce the launch of my new book (in Spanish) where the author proceeds will benefit One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), the non-profit founded by Nicholas Negroponte at MIT. Hilda Garcia and I will co-author the book, describing the success stories of leading companies in Mexico and Latin America on how they effectively launched online marketing programs. What companies do you know that have interesting marketing stories to share? We are looking for case studies in Latin America or really anywhere in the