Hispanic Tipping Point

Article from AdAge, July 26^th:  “Hispanic market hits the tipping point” No kidding, really?  “Over 50 million Hispanics expected to report in the 2010 Census, “a sweet market for consumer goods and services,” “more vital to future growth in consumer spending than at any time in the past.”  WOW.  But here’s the rub, “The youthful US born Hispanic population means that children of immigrants, who typically attend public schools where they learn English, will acculturate much faster than their parents did.”  Here we go again.  I need to inform my 14 year old son and his three friends that begged me for tickets to Premio Juventud and refused to leave early, even when bribed with a limo ride home, that they need to begin that acculturation process immediately.  My son, who was born at Mercy Hospital in Miami, never saw Cuba and goes to a high end private school where English is by far the primary language.  His friend Carolina, who swears she is Brazilian even though she has never been there and two other 14 year olds that knew the name of every novela star that was in the audience.  These are the future vital consumers that will wake up one day and realize there is no longer a need to watch Spanish TV, listen to Spanish radio or chat with their friends in Spanglish.  You have to read their Facebook posts, it’s amazing how they mix the language and the culture so fluidly that not even the best copywriters we have could come close to matching the originality of it. 

So I guess that Univision’s number one ranking (of all major networks, including ABC) in Nielsen against Adults 18-34 is just a fluke and that Enrique Iglesias’ new album will sell more copies in the US than any other record debut this year is due to a sagging record industry, what the heck, it took him three years to record it.  BTW, the Spanish language television ratings against kids 12-17, again according to Nielsen, show year to year increases in viewership, with the same population base, but those kids must not be attending school and learning English.

 The bottom line is when I joined Zubi in 1990, I heard the same story, you don’t need to reach Hispanics in Spanish, they all will be speaking English soon.  Flash forward 20 years and I still believe that when you are free to choose, without fear of repercussions, you’re going to exercise your right to speak from tu corazon.

 So, while I enjoyed reading Peter Francese’s article, let’s not lose sight of the fact that he is the founder of American Demographics, not America’s demographics and an analyst for Ogilvy and Mather, which, to this day, has not officially aligned themselves with any Hispanic agency.