A recap of major news on the marketing and media front from around the web compiled by Portada Digital Media Correspondent Susan Kuchinskas.
Denny’s “Likes” Hispanics
The restaurant chain is expanding is Hispanic marketing with a dedicated Facebook page that will offer original and curated content. Denny’s vice president of marketing John Dillon told Nation’s Restaurant News that, while the company actively reaches Latino consumers in a variety of ways, in both English and Spanish, ” So instead of taking a general-market idea and pushing it in the same way to Hispanics, why not create content targeted more directly at them? That should get better engagement.”
At the same time, Denny’s has found that Hispanics like the same mainstream grub that general-market consumers do – with the occasional addition of chorizo.
Pandora Beats Hispanic Streaming Sites
We knew that Pandora was popular with Latinos, but this popular? According to ComScore’s June numbers, 25 percent of Pandora’s total 76.4 million active monthly unique visitors are Hispanic. This makes it the top streaming music site for Hispanics – beating Univision Digital’s 10.5 million monthly uniques.
Billboard notes – as we have before – that Pandora has carefully created channels to appeal to a wide variety of tastes, with subgenres for Latin, Puerto Rican and Mexican. Meanwhile, Pandora’s strength in mobile appeals to highly mobile Hispanics.
Marketers Miss Out on Digital Hispanics
Lee Vann of Captura Group analyzed Adage’s latest Hispanic Fact Pack – and found that media buyers are under-spending on digital to reach this group. He points out that, while Hispanics over-index for all kinds of digital media, last year marketers invested only 7 percent of their Hispanic budgets on digital. Vann wonders whether the current buzz about the total market approach has led advertisers to think – or hope – they can reach Hispanics with general market advertising. He begs to differ.
Enough of the Hot Latinas, Please
Finally, here’s an opinion from an actual Hispennial. Jose Gutierrez, a staff writer for San Diego State University’s Daily Aztec, complains about the stereotypical Latino characters in TV and movies, those of the hot blood, exotic features and Spanglish. He writes, “As people, we are far more than stereotypes. As humans, we deserve to be represented as such. It goes without saying the media influences and shapes our perceptions about the world. Seeing Latinos represented almost exclusively as the aforementioned stereotypes is incredibly damaging and doesn’t go without negative repercussions.”
On the other hand, Modern Family, home to possibly TV’s best-loved Latina, has turned Sofia VErgara into a major star complete with red-carpet coverage and endorsement deals. Last year, Vergara defended the character, saying that while everyone is different, Gloria has aspects of women she knows.
What do you think is the best way to represent US Latinos?
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