Last week I came across the news that Proctor & Gamble decided to lay off 1,600 employees after discovering that it’s free to advertise on Facebook. It made me wonder if P&G is going to fully rely on digital for most of its marketing efforts.

Procter and Gamble has the world’s largest annual advertising budget, at $10 billion, most of which is spent on traditional media. That aside,  advertising on Facebook and Google is “more efficient” according to CEO Robert McDonald. One example would be the 1.8 billion free impressions that the Old Spice campaign received. However, according to an Ad Age article from last summer, while YouTube videos of the Old Spice campaign have been viewed by millions of people, it hasn’t necessarily translated into more sales.

I believe that while it’s important to make a bigger push into digital media, brands such as Procter & Gamble cannot solely rely on digital marketing. I believe that as time goes by digital will play a bigger role in all ad budgets, but it should be seen as part of an overall marketing strategy, rather than the sole component of any marketing efforts.

Young Latinos

Hernan Lopez, President of Fox International Channels, recently wrote in Ad Age about the changing Hispanic community, and in particular, today’s young, acculturated Latino. He begins his article with a fascinating fact: With 50 million Latinos making up 18% of the population, the number of U.S. Hispanics is greater than the entire population of Canada.

But as the title of Lopez’s article suggests, this is indeed not your abuela’s Latina community. Much of the growth of the Latino community is due not to immigration, but to births of Latinos in this country. Thus, millions of young Hispanics in the U.S. speak English in addition to Spanish, and are as familiar with American culture as they are with their parents’—if not more so. So the key for advertisers, according to Lopez, is to create high-quality content that resonates with Hispanics who identify with both cultures. This means going beyond advertising during prime-time soap operas on Spanish-language TV, it means having online and mobile components to ad campaigns, and creatives that are relevant to the young Latino.

Reaching Young Hispanics

Deena Montoya-Crawley of McKee Wallwork Cleveland has written, in Ad Age,  a concise primer for anyone wishing to reach young Hispanics, and her advice is simple: do your research.  Specifically, she advises advertisers to target the whole person rather than some amorphous idea of what constitutes “Hispanics”.  Interestingly, she also draws an analogy with a successful boomer, Anastasia Goodstein, who works on targeting young, “Generation Y” consumers.  The bottom line? You don’t have to be a member of the group you’re looking to market to.  You just have to do your homework about who they are and what they want.

Montoya-Crawley also describes a successful case study, when Toyota sought to market its Yaris line of cars to young U.S. Hispanics.  They sent out a team of researchers to the homes of young Hispanics, who were interviewed on a range of subjects, except cars.  The Toyota representatives then took away two key factors from their interviews: the young people they spoke to wanted to “break free from typecasts and…weren’t interested in following a traditional path. This insight led to a campaign called “Mundo Yaris,” which recognized the group as trendsetters.”  Yaris is now the most recognized sub-compact vehicle among Hispanics.

So marketers take note: campaigns featuring margaritas, soccer, pinatas or palm trees- basically, anything found on a cursory Google search for “stuff Latinos like”, will most likely not resonate.  Look into targeting the whole person, their wants and needs, and you’ll have more success.  And respeto.

Targetting Hispanics

The results of the 2000 Census have given some strength to the argument of those working with the Hispanic market that the Latino community is a significant part of the U.S. market and that marketers need to actively engage.   With varying success, Hispanic and multicultural-focused advertising shops have continued their work to increase the investment of companies towards the market.

In a recent article in Advertising Age, apparently one of the groups listening to this message is the general market agencies.  One of the cited examples is Home Depot’s change of their $37 million account from the incumbent Hispanic shop The Vidal Partnership to the lesser known Hispanic arm of the Richards Group, Richards/Lema.  This is just the tip of the iceberg, as there are numerous general market agencies putting together multicultural teams to gain a bigger share of the fast growing Hispanic market.

Some other examples include Havas Worldwide hiring a top Hispanic creative director to buid a Hispanic agency to serve Euro RSCG Worldwide and Anold clients, as well as to replace Euro RSCG Latino, which had only limited success.  According to the article, DraftFCB has assembled over 50 multicultural specialists at their Chicago office to work on multicultural business.  Regardless of their abilities, most agencies are interested in pitching the multicultural business rather than just passing on to a focused Hispanic shop.

Obviously with almost any decision one of the key factors is money.  While Hispanic shops in many cases may have the multicultural experience, the larger advertising agency groups combine the economies of scale and infrastructure with the ability to create a team of top talent quickly by havinh the financial resources at their disposal.  It will be up to the clients and their individual case to determine what will work best for them, consolidating their multicultural efforts with the larger shops or if they work with the specialized shops which in many cases can offer a very personalized service and have years of experience working with the market that many are just now becoming interested in.

Driver Wanted

There is an excellent post on Advertising Age’s site today about the seemingly random use of Spanish in some promotional materials for major brands.  Rochelle Newman-Carrasco describes her experience receiving mailers and door hangers for Domino’s and Kotex, among others.  The use of Spanish is mixed in with English- sometimes a direct translation, sometimes only a tagline or warning label is translated, but inconsistency is the constant factor.  The provided door hanger for Domino’s is not only partially translated, but poorly translated. The message is clear: we put this together at the last minute.  Someone told us we should do something, anything, in Spanish.  This is our lame attempt to reach you people.

The line that Newman-Carrasco ends her piece with sums it all up well: Whether a consumer speaks Spanish or Swahili, he wants you to talk to him — not translate to him.  Many agencies would do well to heed these words.