Photo: Cel Garay |
Hispanics might represent 16% of the population, but not enough money is being invested against the demographic, top marketing executives at some of the nation's largest companies agreed. Yet, for companies like Post Foods, whose brands tend to over index among U.S. Hispanics, budgets should be set not only by percentage of the population Hispanics represent, but by volume of products sold.
"Honey Bunches of Oats spends 27% of its total marketing budget against Hispanics," Mike Foley, brand anager, U.S. Hispanic and Export, Post Foods tells Portada. "That's the key insight!"
Foley spoke Monday morning at a marketing panel (see photo) during the 2012 NGLC Media Marketing and Entertainment Conference in New York. The panel included PepsiCo.'s Javier Farfán; Macy's' María Cristina Ríos; Kraft Foods' Silvia Robles; Unilever's Joe Vizcarra and NBA's Saskia Sorrosa.
Asked by Portada what percentage of their respective marketing budgets each spends against Hispanic, only Post Foods was able to give out a specific percentage. The rest agreed that "not enough."
For PepsiCo., however, investing in this market goes beyond allocating a specific amount of dollars to a specific demographic. "[At Pepsi] I re-defined my department, to call it cultural branding, not multicultural," said Farfán. "Of course you have to address the ethnic aspects of it but you have to do it from the perspective of total market."
