Workforce Language Services

In a post on the Future of Media blog, Maria Lopez-Knowles opines that the election of Obama illustrates what demographers have predicted: that we as a nation are becoming a hybrid of various cultures and that shortly those historically in the minority will become the majority.

Lopez-Knowles goes on to say that advertisers must become savvy about the unique characteristics of Hispanics and be aware of the differences between generations to effectively market to this powerful demographic:

Taken from the blog post are her thoughts on Hispanics across generations and language use:

Most advertisers bifurcate the Hispanic market by linguistics – if they are immigrants, we’ll market to them in Spanish, if they are US born, we’re reaching them with our current English-language general market campaigns, so we’re covered. That assumes reach alone is enough to make an emotional connection that will lead to brand awareness/consideration.  More importantly, it erroneously presumes that assimilation happens in two generations; the reality is the path to assimilation takes three generations.  So if you think you are reaching the second-generation in a way that resonates with them via English-language alone, you are mistaken.  This target lives in two worlds.  It’s not about either/or (Spanish/English), it’s about AND. We’re hybrids.

To read the entire blog post, click here.