Hispanic Market News
< Back To Hispanic News Homepage EPMG Recently Hosted a Panel Discussion with Representatives of Three of the Top Marketing Research Agencies for Ethnic Markets:
Thursday, May 18, 2006
 Cesar M Melgoza, of Geoscape International
Geoscape International provides market intelligence to a diverse array of organizations throughout the world via information products, software and consulting services. In particular, we help our clients understand their opportunities for multi-national and multi-cultural business growth. We are especially strong in the Americas, and are rapidly increasing our offerings throughout Europe and Asia.
 Gary A. Meo, Senior Vice President, Print and Internet Sales, Scarborough Research
Scarborough Research is a premier source for consumer insights. We measure the shopping patterns, lifestyles and media habits of consumers locally, regionally and nationally.
 Hugh Brown, The Media Audit
The Media Audit is a multimedia, qualitative audience survey that covers over 450 target items for each rated media's audience.
Q) You’re in the elevator with Hispanic publishers, Advertising Agencies, and Fortune 500 clients and you’ve got 2 minutes to describe your company/service:
At Geoscape, we provide value-based market intelligence, connecting data, analytics and systems to the business results that make an impact on corporate success — we focus heavily on the rapidly growing Hispanic and other cultural segments in America.
Our American Marketscape DataStream provides unprecedented depth and accuracy for Hispanic consumers, by illustrating attributes such as acculturation, language, spending on products and services, down to micro levels of geography.
Our Geoscape Intelligence System, provides online access to a wealth of data, visualization, and analytics that enables the marketing professional to absorb and act upon the information, within specific marketing programs and media.
Our DirecTarget® suite of analytic services provides database and direct marketing fuel to ensure campaigns are executed effectively and efficiently — including the most detailed direct marketing lists available.
Our Media Target™ suite of data, visualization and analysis tools provides very comprehensive coverage data and core audience information for broadcast and cable TV, radio and newspaper.
Scarborough surveys more than 32,000 Hispanics annually, and provides a variety of studies and services to assist marketers and media in understanding the Hispanic consumer. Scarborough Hispanic studies measure more than 1,700 consumer categories and brands, and provide data on how Hispanic consumers of every important product and service are using media.
Scarborough’s Hispanic databases are available on a local, regional or national level, and our clients use the data to evaluate how to buy and sell media, acquire and retain customers, develop business plans, increase market penetration, roll out new products, distinguish brands, better understand the marketplace and monitor competitors.
The Media Audit provides qualitative data locally and nationally to media, marketers, advertisers, and advertising agencies.
Q) To date, how has print (newspapers) as an industry, utilized market data to give their individual media properties an edge in the marketplace vs. other media formats?
There is both the newsstand and the subscriber side of the picture. Newsstand circulation requires the precise ability to know where Hispanics will pick up the paper, maximizing circulation and minimizing waste. Subscriber development requires comprehensive databases and the analytics to ensure the maximum loyal subscriber base. Great newspapers do this fairly well, but many newspapers have not tapped the potential — we enjoy helping our clients get to the cutting edge.
I feel that newspapers have done a very effective job of positioning themselves as the source for data and information on their local market areas. This puts them in a position of being true partners to their local business communities, through the contribution of valuable market intelligence. The 135 newspapers who are Scarborough subscribers routinely share their Scarborough data with their current and prospective advertisers, providing them with data about consumer profiles, market share, cross-shopping patterns, and detailed media usage (not just of the newspaper, but of every key media available in the market). This gives the local newspaper an edge that other media are hard-pressed to match.
I agree.Newspapers have shown the value of readership within the community and region.
Q) Hispanic newspapers’ readership is dominant with a powerful consumer block that is Spanish only, or Spanish Preferred, in respect to language preference. This group tends to be a 1st or 2nd generation segment – recent news articles and research have leaned heavily towards the more acculturated, English dominant Latino. What can we look forward to from your firms, as far as research is concerned, in providing data necessary to make business case modeling for our readership/consumer segment?
Geoscape provides language segmentation and acculturation segments in a ubiquitous fashion. That is, it’s not just an idea or description, it’s a definition of a specific neighborhood (block group, ZIP code, etc.), as well as an individual and household. The most popular segmentation system has five components; you can read more about this on our website. Spanish is here to stay; however, English is too. As media marketers, we need to understand what each household and the individuals within them prefer to read and speak — that is part of what makes our role so interesting and important.
Among the measurements that Scarborough is currently collecting from Hispanics are four sets of detailed language preference questions: prefer to speak; speak most in home; speak most away from home; language spoken most in home. These responses have been rolled up to create groups that are Spanish only; Spanish more than English; Spanish and English equally; English more than Spanish; and English only.
This level of detail allows users of the data the flexibility to create very specific language segment groups for analysis. Additionally, all Hispanics are asked whether they are U.S. - born. Those born elsewhere are asked how long they have resided in the U.S. This level of detail allows users of the data to examine length of residency as an acculturation factor when creating segments for analysis.
As to providing data necessary to make business case modeling for a client’s specific consumer segment, Scarborough offers a variety of Hispanic Custom Research Solutions that can be designed to collect exactly the data needed to meet an individual client’s business objectives.
I think the biggest thing will be the Internet for those community papers for more interaction with the product development.
Q) How has your company modified its survey formats/process to properly perform language preference (Hispanic Market) surveys? Also, how do you incorporate sample sizes that are large enough for true data integrity?
One of the interesting surprises for Geoscape is that we have been able to shed new light on research and sampling methodologies to make them more accurate and efficient. This is better for the client, and for the researcher, because it presents efficiencies for both, that lower cost and increase the representativeness and reliability of samples.
Scarborough’s syndicated studies are conducted in 80 top U.S. markets. In each of these markets, the telephone call initiating the interview begins in English, but can be passed to a bilingual interviewer, if the respondent indicates that they would prefer to do the interview in Spanish. About 60% of our interviewers are bilingual, and all have bilingual supervisors. They also receive additional training in conducting the interview in both Spanish and English.
In 27 of the 80 markets we measure, the proportion of adult population that is Hispanic is large enough to meet Scarborough’s guidelines for employing special procedures for data collection. These special procedures include higher cash incentives for completion of survey booklets, and all survey materials available in Spanish-language versions. Scarborough’s Spanish-language interview scripts and mailing materials are translated from English by TNS Market Development, Inc. -- a leading Spanish-language translation and market research firm. Scarborough also produces specialized Custom Hispanic studies in selected markets. These studies provide special focus on the Hispanic segment, and provide the large sample sizes needed to perform detailed analyses.
We have Spanish-speaking interviewers, along with additional sampling into high Hispanic metros, as sample size is extremely important to solid research.
Q) If you are willing to provide them, are there a few key statistics that you believe are “eye opening” that your research has uncovered?
Our "American Marketscape DataStream: 2006 Series" goes into unprecedented depth and breadth to accurately measure the American population, with special emphasis on cultural segments such as Hispanic, Asian, African American and other ethnic groups.
According to Scarborough’s USA+ data (Release 2, 2005):
Nearly 6 of every 10 Hispanic adults (58.5%) are reading a daily newspaper during a typical week.
Hispanics are more than twice as likely as the general population to have watched the World Cup on television (indexing at 258).
Mexican Regional and Spanish Contemporary are the most popular radio formats among Hispanics. One-quarter of all Hispanic adults listen to these formats during a typical week.
Hispanics tend to spend more on their cell phone bills and are more likely to switch their cell phone service than the general population.
First, Hispanics are presently financial optimists. Our data shows how Hispanics truly believe their financial outcome will be, and continue to get stronger within the next 6 months. Second, the percentage of Hispanics who plan to purchase a home within the next few years is 21.8%. While the average homes owned are valued between $100 - $200,000, Hispanics are over the index in the $400 - $500 value by 2%.
Q) Media consumption: Print/Newspapers are always in a constant battle for advertising dollars, with the lion’s share going towards broadcast/radio. From a research provider and expert role, what do you believe print should do, in respect to data, to better provide a true picture of the personal “touchpoint” print provides for the Hispanic consumer?
Each medium provides a unique experience. Newspapers create a more direct relationship, one of interaction. They also are extremely action-based —promotions tend to work very well in newspapers. Another strength is in the targeting that newspapers enable. As the Hispanic market matures in the U.S., and it continues to re-embrace its culture, the challenge for newspaper publishers will be to stay relevant, and develop a high degree of quality that keeps subscribers reading their newspaper as they acculturate — and few will fully acculturate.
Advertising sales representatives for newspapers need to promote the three key strengths of newspapers:
1. Superior reach compared to other media.
2. An affluent, upscale audience compared to other media.
3. Newspaper readers are engaged with the advertising in their newspapers. In a newspaper, the advertising is a welcome part of the content and not an intrusion or distraction, as it is in other media. An engaged audience is a key strength of newspapers compared to broadcast media.
Newspaper sales people must also become knowledgeable media consultants. The 135 newspapers who are Scarborough subscribers use Scarborough data as the resource for providing such a service to their accounts.
I feel that it is important for newspapers to keep positioning the value that print brings to an advertiser qualitatively. Buyers and planners buy broadcast, specifically radio, because it is an easy out to reach the masses.
Q) Down to business: As advertising efforts and budgets have increased significantly in direct to consumer efforts towards the Hispanic market, what categories of business, based upon data, do you believe offer the next untapped market potential from an advertising to ROI perspective for the Fortune 500?
I believe health care and pharma will continue to show impressive gains. They also are relatively untapped for the less-acculturated Hispanics. Related are the insurance sectors, especially the life and personal health sectors — both sectors are inarguably critical to the quality and longevity of life itself.
It seems that many categories are under-served, and have potential for the Hispanic market, but the areas we see as being of better-than-average potential include telecommunications (cell phones), financial services, health care, automotive and big-box retail. These are just a few categories where Hispanics index above the general population for their propensity to shop, buy and consume. In addition, we see the growth of FSI’s in Spanish-language newspapers as being a great opportunity for grocery and packaged goods advertising, and coupon distribution.
Ethnic foods and supermarket expenditures, clothing and specifically, specialty items, online access and computer technology, home buying and financial assets.
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