Tweet This article originally appeared on MediaPost. Last week, the leading advertisers convened in Miami for the ANA’s annual Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference. Historically, Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American marketers have fought hard for budgets even though demographic trends point to the fact that today’s minorities will become the majority in the coming decades. Hence, the summit was subtitled, “Multicultural – The New Mainstream.” One marketer who clearly sees the growth of multicultural audiences converging with the growth of social media is McDonald’s. Rick Wion,

Tweet Following is a preview of Latino Link: Building brands online with Hispanic communities and content from Paramount Books. Bicultural Hispanics often switch back and forth between Spanish and English. To learn why, Elizabeth Perez, the Digital Insights Analyst at ImpreMedia, describes why she chooses content in English or Spanish based on the cultural and political orientation of the news in each language. In-Language media is simply written in a consumer’s native language whereas in-culture media provides news from the perspective of the viewer’s native

Tweet Following is a preview of Latino Link: Building brands online with Hispanic communities and content from Paramount Books. A few weeks ago, while having a very American lunch of cheeseburgers and milk shakes, my goddaughter Madeline, 11, and her brother Ricardo, 13, asked me, “so, what’s your book about Uncle Joe?” “Well, it’s about how families like yours use the Internet and what is the best ways for companies to communicate with people who speak Spanish,” I responded. Madeline and Ricardo speak Spanish with

Tweet This article originally appeared on MediaPost and is a preview of Latino Link: Building brands online with Hispanic communities and content from Paramount Books. After reading Felipe Korzenny’s and Lee Vann’s column about Hispanics’ adoption of social media relative to other ethnic demographics, a question came to mind: how will social networks affect the acculturation process among Hispanics? The ability to keep in touch with family and friends from countries-of-origin via email, Skype and online newspapers back home makes it easier than ever. Travel

Tweet This article originally appeared on MediaPost. “Multicultural marketing is at the core of Western Union’s business,” said Gail Galuppo, EVP and CMO of Western Union at the ANA’s Multicultural conference recently.  She shared with the attendees how Western Union launched their new “Yes!” campaign in 22 languages across 200 countries with the goal of making a more emotional connection with their consumers. Ms. Galuppo says that “Yes! is a culture, especially among immigrants who hear a lot of “No.” Who is their target audience? 

Tweet With computer prices falling, Internet users skyrocketing and no borders on the Internet, how can marketers turn their international Spanish-language web site visitors into revenues? That is the question that Juan Tornoe and I will answer in our panel discussion at SXSW Interactive in 2010. Please submit your feedback, suggestions and vote for the panel here on SXSW’s panel picker: Some of the questions that we will answer include: 1. How do consumers cross geo-political boundaries to find, read about and buy what they

Tweet This article originally appeared on MediaPost and is an early preview of Latino Link: Building brands online with Hispanic communities and content from Paramount Books. Put yourself in the shoes of a bi-lingual or Spanish-preferring U.S. Hispanic and try searching in Spanish on Google, Yahoo or MSN and what do you find? A good portion of the results, sometimes approaching 50%, come from sites based in Mexico, Spain, and other Spanish-speaking countries. Let’s look at some examples I found recently on the first page

Tweet This article first appeared on MediaPost’s Engage:Hispanics column. Is brand building with consumers an art or a science? Angel Martinez answered this question during his keynote presentation at the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies‘ Media & Account Management Conference last week, where he recounted his life growing up in The Bronx, becoming CMO of Reebok, building it into a sports powerhouse and, most recently, joining the Deckers Outdoor Corp., maker of the Uggs and Teva shoe brands, as CEO and chairman. Born in Cuba,

Tweet This article originally appeared on MediaPost’s Engage:Hispanics blog. Where will many Hispanics and other Spanish-speakers around the world first experience the Internet? Interestingly, because they lag behind the general population for Internet access, many will first go online via their cell phones. In fact, they significantly over-index when consuming mobile content. According to comScore m:metrics, 71% of Hispanics consume content on cell phones compared to the market average of 48%. In addition, Hispanics tend to notice and respond well to ads on cell phones.

Tweet This article originally appeared on MediaPost and is an early preview of Latino Link: Building brands online with Hispanic communities and content from Paramount Books. In a recent report from Pew Hispanic Center, U.S. Hispanics represented over 50% of the U.S. population growth since 2000. In our current economic climate, one would think that that be the kind of growth that marketers would aggressively seek out. While Hispanic media investment overall has grown considerably, especially television, the online ad segment has under-indexed relative to