Marketers fear ‘racist’ Trump supporters, says head of Hispanic advertising group

By: Gary Silverman in New York

A growing number of companies in the US are shying away from marketing efforts aimed at Latino consumers for fear of offending “racist” supporters of President Donald Trump, the chairman of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies says.

Linda Lane Gonzalez, whose trade group represents 45,000 marketing, media and research executives, said the change of heart has largely taken place at smaller companies that were in the early stages of such efforts and have either abandoned their plans or put off decisions.

Her Miami company, Viva Partnership, has seen four businesses — two retailers, a financial group and a manufacturer based in Mexico — step back from Hispanic marketing efforts since Mr Trump’s election as president, she said.“What they are saying to me is that they are concerned about whether now is the time to focus on minority markets because of — and this is how it was described — ‘the new political environment’,” she said.“I talk to a lot of mid-sized (Hispanic advertising) agencies and they have experienced the same thing.

We are all talking about three to four clients that we have lost in this new political environment — which I describe as open racism.”Ms Gonzalez said larger companies with longer histories in multicultural marketing have generally maintained their spending on advertising targeting the estimated 57m US Hispanics. She added that these companies stand to gain market share if the skittishness exhibited by their competitors persists.“The ones that are pulling back are going to suffer the consequences,” she said. “It’s very difficult to pull out and go back in because Hispanics are very loyal and if you aren’t loyal to them they won’t be loyal to you

.”Because the growth of the Latino population in the US is outstripping that of most other groups, winning the community’s allegiance has become crucial to corporate growth strategies in consumer categories ranging from cars to cosmetics. Since the election, racism at my business level has become rampant and open

Ms Gonzalez said the business climate changed quickly after Mr Trump swept to victory in November on a platform calling for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border.Some clients, she said, began to worry that customers and employees who had backed Mr Trump would be angered by bilingual signage, cultural diversity training and other techniques used to reach Latino consumers. One asked whether their call-centre menu should continue offering a Spanish-language option.“It was the most dramatic change I have experienced in my career — it happened in weeks,” said Ms Gonzalez, who has been working in the advertising industry for a quarter century and started her own company 20 years ago.

“Since the election, racism at my business level has become rampant and open.” She said the animus is most apparent in areas of the US such as the midwest and south-east, where Latino immigrants are less numerous and more likely to hold down low-skilled jobs in sectors such as agriculture.Cultural divisions are less evident in cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Miami, where Hispanics tend to be better off and more established, she said. “I hope this will be a blip on the screen,” she said. “It might take a year to see how this pans out and for bold companies to do what’s right.”

These are just some of the reasons brands have gone out of their way to attract the Hispanic-American market. However, not all marketers are feeling bullish about the potential of the Hispanic consumer, at least for the moment, according to Linda Lane Gonzalez, chairman of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies.

She told the Financial Times this week that five clients of her firm, Miami-based Viva Partnership, have delayed or shelved their plans for Hispanic-focused campaigns this year. The pushes were to include ad campaigns, bilingual signage, and cultural diversity training.

Lane Gonzalez contends the timing of those decisions and President Donald Trump’s election victory last November are no coincidence, saying those companies are scared of crossing some racist and xenophobic supporters of the president.

“Many of my colleagues have also experienced similar pushback,” Lane Gonzalez tells PRWeek, via email. “Others have reported a continued commitment or even increased investment by their clients.”

Executives at agencies that specialize in targeting Hispanic consumers say they haven’t seen a similar drastic retraction in PR campaigns. Andy Checo, senior director at Havas Formula and past-president of the Hispanic Public Relations Association, says brands haven’t retracted their PR activity, but some want less visibility in their messaging to the Hispanic community. As a result, Latino-focused advertising could be taking a hit, but not media relations, influencer programs, and other PR pushes, which are also less costly than paid media campaigns.

Other firms aren’t seeing a retraction in spending, but slowing momentum. Cross-cultural marketing agency Pinta has been working with companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and T-Mobile that are “heavily invested in the long-term potential of the Hispanic market despite the political environment,” says Mike Valdes-Fauli, the firm’s president and CEO.

“We haven’t been seeing a huge volume of RFPs, and perhaps clients of ours who would have been doubling their spending aren’t,” he says. “You don’t know what you don’t know, but it’s entirely possible we’re in a somewhat softer market for Hispanic comms.”

Valdes-Fauli contends Trump has damaged the “Latino brand,” but says advertisers showing hesitancy aren’t necessarily cowering to xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Instead, he cites the unpredictable nature of the Trump administration.

“Markets and businesses like predictability, and so I think that may be the issue,” he says. “[Bands] just don’t know what Trump might do around the immigrant community.”

Some firms are also worrying that client-side champions of Hispanic marketing are facing more internal resistance. “The general marketing guy wants to have as much budget as he can, and he doesn’t necessarily want to give some money to the multicultural team,” says Pablo Miro, VP of multicultural marketing at Newlink. “Under the Obama administration, no one would have questioned the importance of this growing minority group…now people feel like they can disagree with that notion.”

Hispanic-Americans number 54 million in the U.S., making them the country’s largest minority group with $1.3 trillion in buying power, according to Nielsen, prompting brands such as Chobani and Intuit’s TurboTax to join those like Coca-Cola and Walmart targeting the market.

In recent years, PR firms have created and grown practices specializing in Latino marketing in lock step and developed networking and thought leadership events for the market. Conferences such as the Hispanicize CMO Summit have also gained steam, attracting executives from PepsiCo and Wells Fargo.

Other brands see the Trump era as a reason to be more vocal in their support of the Latino consumer with political stances that reinforce support for both their customers and employees. For instance, technology giants have thrown their weight against Trump’s immigration policies, joining Hispanic leaders who have pledged to do the same.

Microsoft and Facebook have partnered on FWD.us, a push to pass comprehensive immigration reform cofounded by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Pinta has been working to promote the project.

“We believe that instead of just being good at selling products to Hispanics, brands should also get involved in supporting the immigrant community,” says Valdes-Fauli, who says a moral imperative exists alongside a growth opportunity. “There is often opportunity in crisis, and right now, brands would garner a tremendous amount of brand loyalty by being more vocal on the issue and publicly supporting the immigrant community.”

Other agency leaders, such as Isaac Mizrahi, co-president and COO of Hispanic agency Alma, contend that the sheer numbers of Latino-Americans will convince marketers to move forward with outreach to the demographic. By 2050, Hispanic-Americans are expected to account for a third of the people living in the U.S.

“The opportunity here is a business one, not a political or social movement,” says Mizrahi, who notes that Alma’s Hispanic work in the first quarter of 2017 is up from the year prior. “The Hispanic market in the U.S. is now the size of another country. It is those kinds of numbers that ultimately will continue to fuel the growth of Hispanic communications.”

By: Alejandro Martinez, Director, Market Intelligence at Dieste

Most people confuse shopper marketing with retail activations or in-store marketing, but that’s only a small part of it. Shopper marketing is much more extensive, and if done right, can deliver a higher ROI than many other marketing alternatives.

Some experts think that P&G started the shopper marketing revolution when they came out with the two “moments of truth” concept (first moment of truth–FMOT is when you’re at the point of sale and need to decide what brand to buy; second moment of truth–SMOT is the after-purchase experience with the product). P&G realized that if a brand wasn’t winning at the point of sale, then all the effort of spending millions of dollars to create awareness and/or communicate product innovation would go down the drain. P&G was especially frustrated because most diaper and baby product sales at Walmart were for lower margin products.

So, to win at the FMOT, P&G partnered with Walmart to leverage each other’s strengths and grow the category. Special in-store Baby Centers were created and soon thereafter consumers started spending more time and money around these products. This initiative went far beyond some additional displays at the store. It involved supply chain integration efforts, and a deep understanding of the consumer and shopper. Needless to say, this was profitable for both Walmart and P&G.

Since then, the path-to-purchase model has become more elaborate. There are new versions where there’s a Zero Moment of Truth (coined by Google), and described as the research you do before you go into the store; as well as a Third Moment of Truth (coined by Pete Blackshaw–ex P&G) which is when your customers become fans and engage with the brand on social media.

These path-to-purchase models are becoming increasingly popular as a tool to understand and influence the shopper, and a great complement to consumer research (consumer behavior is not always a predictor of shopping behavior). But as shopping becomes more experiential and social, the quantity of influences and interactions a consumer and shopper have with a brand increase exponentially. Now, if you think figuring out the path-to-purchase for your brand is easy, just think of mapping ALL the influences your consumer has in an average day and how each one interacts with each other. Then, figure out how that plays out for each one of your brands and channels where your brand is available. Next, customize the plan according to each retailer’s unique positioning in the marketplace. Finally, figure out how to positively influence the shopper along the different stages of the path-to-purchase. Not easy. To figure out what, where, and when your shopper buys you need business, consumer, and shopper insights from different parties/sources to tie everything together.

Where most marketers miss the mark is that shopping marketing is a strategy, not a tactic. Shopper marketing programs should be built around shopper and business insights in order to be effective. Objectives should be fully aligned with brand management, sales management, retailers, and agencies involved. For brands to reach a higher ROI they need to look at retail (brick & mortar, and online) from a more creative and solution-oriented point of view, since that’s the unique place where sales and marketing happen at the same time; and since shopping can take place at any moment. Only then can brands truly understand and influence the shopper along the path-to-purchase.

To learn more about consumers and their shopping journey, follow Dieste Inc. and be sure to subscribe to Provoke Weekly for the latest trends in multicultural marketing.

Alex is the Director of Market Intelligence at Dieste

By Mario Carrasco, Media Post

For the third year in a row, Google has opened the doors of its New York office for its annual Multicultural Marketing Forum. Since its inaugural year, Google has expanded the focus of the then-U.S. Hispanic Marketing Forum to include African-American, Asian, and LGBTQ audiences. While the forum now covers more verticals, this event is still a game changer for Hispanic market researchers.

This year’s theme, “Marketing in a Multicultural World,” doubles down on the shifting demographic reality in the United States, informing attendees — primarily marketers and researchers — that multicultural marketing does not operate in a silo. It is a larger paradigm shift that all brands should acknowledge, especially when looking at younger generations such as cross-cultural Gen Z.

Presenting a fusion of proprietary Google research and client case studies, The Google 2017 Multicultural Marketing Forum (#MMF17) was a who’s who of multicultural thought leaders and practitioners.

Margie Bravo, the senior marketing manager at Nestle USA, revealed the secrets of how to get senior-level executives at large organizations to buy into the importance of multicultural audiences for topline growth. To make her case, she spoke from the perspective of the lonely internal champion and provided real-world methods for getting the c-suite to listen and take action.

Nikki Newsome, group director at OMD USA, walked through a compelling case study on how State Farm connects with Hispanics by understanding their audience and being intentional about engaging with them in ways culturally meaningful to them. Actionable research was the foundation of their strategy, and those insights were carried all the way through execution and measurement.

by Mario Carrasco - ThinkNow

Only seven weeks in, 2017 is already showing signs of being a big year for multicultural marketing. Corporations are doubling down on diversity initiatives. Strategic purchases and mergers have occurred and projected multicultural spend is trending upward for the year.

But despite this year’s momentum, I just can’t shake the notion that targeting and segmenting via ethnicity is weighing us down.

The execution and creation of quotas based on census demographic data is what drives market research. Essential to creating representative samples, especially in the multicultural space, is ethnicity. And for decades, this has given marketers accurate reads of ethnic cohorts across the U.S.

The Rise of Cross-Cultural Marketing

But times are changing and even the Census is grappling with how to ask about ethnicity in their surveys. When you combine that with the rise of cross-cultural marketing, one starts to ask the question, “How relevant is ethnicity when building representative samples?”

Cross-cultural marketing is quickly becoming a reality for many brands, and not because it’s trendy. Marketers have realized that culture is fluid and that different ethnicities are embracing a multitude of cultures other than their own.

We saw that play out in our recent “We Are Gen Z” report. The data revealed that the majority of Gen Z consumers across ethnicities are open to trying foods from other cultures. This is telling because food is one of the most critical components of culture. To see a cross-pollination of food choices and preferences across ethnicities, in my opinion, illustrates that this fluidity is here to stay.

Diluted Traditional Ethnic Quota Models

Traditionally, market researchers have built ethnic quotas based on ethnic background coupled with other demographic data such as census regions, income, and education. For example, a bicultural Mexican-American from Los Angeles would be representative of a West Coast Latino and a low acculturated Dominican from Brooklyn would be representative of an East Coast Latino.

This classification now seems dated as the bicultural Mexican-American could have more in common with an African-American millennial from the Bronx than a fellow Latino from Los Angeles.

Technology and Passive Behavioral Data

So how do we construct quotas that are inclusive of culture? And how do we define the different cultures that will comprise these quotas? I mentioned in my previous column that we need to move beyond segmentation for segmentation’s sake and that is a good place to start.

Technology has accelerated the cross-cultural makeup of the U.S. (and the world). With that shift comes a wave of data that marketers have barely penetrated due to the sheer volume of it.

The key to creating relevant cultural quotas, in my opinion, lies in the analysis of passive behavioral data. Specifically, mobile behaviors, which give us an unprecedented look into the habits and preferences of the majority of Americans.

Creating digital cultural buckets based on these preferences will enable market researchers to go beyond ethnicity and create meaningful quotas for custom market research.

Pairing this research with behavioral data will allow marketers to unveil key consumer insights at a deeper more meaningful level, empowering cross-cultural marketers with the tools to develop creative that resonates beyond ethnicity to what matters — culture.

Your Editor Explains It is not the ethnicity, it’s the culture that matters.