Stanley Cup Playoffs

Obviously when one thinks of how to reach Hispanics, the first sport that comes to mind is………………………………ICE HOCKEY. After all, like the beloved fútbol, it is low scoring, features a cast of players where English is not often their first language, and at least in the U.S. is not even close to being the top sport by viewership or sponsorship dollars.

The NFL plays and markets to Hispanics in the U.S. as well as to Mexico, Major League Baseball has special events featuring Los Gigantes de San Francisco versus Los Dodgers, and the NBA has an outreach campaign éne bé a promoting the playoffs in select cities, but what is the NHL doing?
Éne ache éle may not quite resonate yet with a massive Hispanic audience, but if you attend a game in San Jose, New York, or Los Angeles you will notice a significant following by a Latino audience.  The 2012 Stanley Cup Finals are featuring the Los Angeles Kings, which play in a market with potentially 5.7 Million Hispanic fans…..oh and will be playing a team from the New York/New Jersey market with over 4 Million Hispanics.  While the NHL.com website is in 8 languages, Spanish is not one of them and with almost 10 million potential fans living in the metropolitan areas of these teams, that may offer a starting point.

The NHL has made tremendous progress in the 2011-12 season with NHL Gamecenter which offers live games, video highlights and more through mobile devices as well as an agreement to have the NHL playoffs completely available on NBC Sports networks for the first time.  As cited in a recent Digiday article, while other leagues have been trying to pull their content off video sharing sites, the NHL has been taking their product -what happens on the ice- and turning it into content, spreading it out to as many platforms as possible.

As we have cited in previous articles, the Hispanic market is a very digitally savvy audience, uses mobile, video and social media at a higher rate than the overall U.S. market.  It seems to me that while there are challenges to promoting hockey to the Hispanic market (lots of ice, Swedish accents, different rules and action that at times even the cameramen cannot follow), the National Hockey League has an opportunity to begin reaching out to a massive potential fan base.

Map

While it’s not the only factor, there is no doubt that being able to speak a local language is a key to doing business in any given country.  And while certain languages are common in large groups of countries (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic and others) there are some that may be limited in the number of countries spoken, but have a very important reach in terms of population numbers and of course, where a company may intend to do business.

According to a recent CNBC article “Language Barriers and Miscommunications are Stifling Growth“, almost half of executives surveyed admitted that communication misunderstandings have stood in the way of major international business deals and therefore resulted in significant losses for their companies.  Additionally, 9 out of 10 expect their number of international clients to increase over the next three years, highlighting the need companies have for language competency, as well as areas that future job seekers should consider.

As a U.S. company that deals with the Hispanic market within the U.S. as well as Latin America, we have worked to put together a multilingual team.  The benefits of this have been evident from evaluating clients’ marketing efforts to doing business in Latin America. I have come to the conclusion that not only is language and cultural understanding important for the employer, but is also a considerable plus for job seekers in their evaluation of a company.

As the article states, language competency does require focus on the part of companies, and while not easy to achieve, it is imperative that companies looking to do business internationally create an environment that fosters both linguistic and cultural understanding.

Ad Age Agency Issue

As a digital media organization we are always keeping an eye on which clients are reaching out to the Hispanic or Latin American markets.  Working with major media agencies as well as local full-service agencies, we are able to tailor our services to meet their needs.  While we have been aware of the efforts of major agencies to incorporate multicultural into their offerings as well as Hispanic agencies looking to enhance their total market business, I found the recent Ad Age Article about PR agencies increasing their media buying efforts to be very interesting.

At the end of the day, everyone is looking for new business opportunities and looking to fulfill their clients’ needs.  The article “PR Agency Media Buys Rising to New Heights” points out the recent example of Gatorade running a series of webisodes as well as online ads, not through its media or digital agency but through its PR agency.  According to the article, it is a growing trend in public relations, where the key “storytelling” prowess is not just translating to earned media, but also to paid media.

While the media billings are small in comparison to major agencies, you can be sure that there are many small/mid size agencies who would be very interested in these opportunities.  On the other hand, in order to continue growing, the PR agencies will need to invest in expanding their teams to service these new opportunities.  For media planners who have been made available in the frequent contraction of agencies when they lose a large client, this may offer another avenue to continue with their career.   And for media providers, this is a new area that warrants watching.

Pay with cash

An estimated 7.7% of U.S. households are unbanked (do not have a checking or savings account) and 17.9% are considered underbanked (have checking or savings but rely on alternative financial services) according to the FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households. (LINK FDIC survey) For certain racial and ethnic minorities this percentage is significantly higher:

Hispanic Population

Unbanked: 19.3%

Underbanked: 24%

While there are many challenges for major banks to gain traction in the Hispanic Market, it is very interesting how one major retailer is offering a solution that allows shoppers to purchase online without a major credit card.   Other than feeding dollar bills directly into your computer this may seem like an impossible solution; however, as cited in a recent CNBC article, “Wal-Mart to Offer Cash Option for Online Purchases“, there may be a work around.

The Solution: Shoppers on Walmart.com can add their selection to the shopping cart and select “Pay with Cash.”  Then within 48 hours the customer must bring an email receipt to a Wal-Mart store within 48 hours.  At that point the customer can choose to receive their items for pick up at the store or shipped to their preferred address.

According to a recent customer poll by Wal-Mart, more than two thirds of their customers identify as “unbanked” or “underbanked.”  So with Wal-Mart’s key customer base being a low-income consumer with little access to credit cards, they could just assume that they are also a segment that does not shop online or have internet access.   Wal-Mart does their homework and realizes that 63% of the underbanked population has access to broadband internet and therefore should not be overlooked.

While this may not be as convenient for those of us used to making an online purchase with a credit card, this is a unique work around by a major retailer to boost their online business while opening up options for their clientele.

FDIC Survey: http://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/

London Olympics

Since I’m always one to review just about anything related to sports, the article “Sports Marketing: How Media Powerhouses will cover the Olympic Games” in Portada caught my attention.

Everyone is aware of the interest of the Hispanic market in soccer, however at times it feels like the perception is that it is the only sport that Latinos in the U.S. or Latin America take any interest.   In the U.S. major sports organizations such as MLB, NBA,RH/NBA, and NFL have most definitely taken notice and continue to increase their marketing efforts as well as their relationships with Hispanic media.

The Summer Olympics XXX in London are set to take place between July 27 – August 12, 2012 and according to the Portada article, major networks such as Telemundo and Univision are ready. In 2008 during the Olympic Games in Beijing Telemundo averaged 1.1 million viewers, which compared to major soccer events is very low but does show that there is interest.  The fact that during the Beijing games NBC drew 2 million Hispanic viewers to their English coverage brings to light the interesting point that many Hispanics interested in the Olympic Games may not tune in to Spanish TV.

Whether due to lack of coverage or language preference this year the Olympic Games are assured to get more coverage.  From Athens to Beijing, viewership increased 20% and this year with a distinct “Latin flair” the expectations are high.  Unlike past years where the likes of the Vancouver Olympics competed for ad dollars with the World Cup, the XXX Summer Olympics are definitely going to be a highlight of the 2012 sports landscape.

Some estimates suggest that $1.7 billion will be lost by employers in productivity and that over 37 million workers will be participating in office pools.  Not surprising is the estimate that 1.5 million people will watch games online from their desks.