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HISPANIC MARKET OVERVIEW 2019 Powered by HispanicAd.com
THE HMO INTERVIEW
‘BLENDED’? PUT THAT IN A BLENDER!
This year's report, our 10th edition, is built around the theme "Blending." Yes, we see Latinos blending into the American mainstream more than ever.
Liz Castells-Heard, CEO and Chief Strategy Officer at bicoastal ad shop Infusion by Castells, was less than pleased with that assessment.
She was asked if this “blending” is coming at a cost, and if Hispanic media and marketing is suffering -- or thriving -- as marketers understand that Latino consumers are integral to the "total market" pie.
“This is a loaded question with so many moving parts, so it’s going to take a while for me to answer this, especially since I have both a professional and personal distaste for the term ‘blended’ and its misuse,” she says. “Blending anything makes little sense when personalized marketing is ever more prevalent, unique cultural perspectives persist, and a blended approach rarely optimizes strategies or work to build Client ROI.”
Despite all the talk from clients about diversity and inclusion and
the desire to increase their multicultural brand relevancy, there is still a substantial gap between expectations and reality, Castells- Heard says.
“Biases still permeate and multicultural firms like ours do face challenges,” she notes. “However, in this ‘Multicultural’ America, multicultural agencies are best equipped to lead because it is our innate nature, as Thought Leaders and seasoned multicultural experts who always have to know the specific General Market and multicultural market differences and commonalities. Plus, we are
nimble, focused and cost-effective, and manage the client’s multicultural business from A to Z. Thus, we
actually have the advantage in this space. We just have to communicate it in a much clearer fashion and solidify a tangible value proposition.”
It’s that word – “blending – that just irks Castells-Heard, even with a clarification that it is Hispanic culture that is blending into the mainstream, and not that Latinos are “blending in” with the total population.
“Yes, it is a diverse, multicultural non-Hispanic white mainstream led by Hispanics, and there is no longer a ‘general market’ glorified by Madison Avenue,” she says. “Gen Z kids are already majority multicultural, as are the top states that drive companies’ sales. The 2020 Census will only reinforce urgency of ‘revisioning’ these high value super-consumers, and minority-majority is now officially an oxymoron.”