Bicultural Hispanics are difficult media target

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MIB Reports HispanicThe fastest-growing major segment of the American population is the Hispanic group. That makes it an attractive target for advertisers and the media that aspire to connect the advertisers to the people. But that task is easier said than done, especially among bicultural Hispanics.


A study from Horowitz and Associates flagged by the Media Research Center notes that 53% of the Hispanic population have strong cultural ties to both the mainstream US culture and their own Hispanic subculture.

The bicultural Hispanics are said to be younger, better-educated and more affluent than the demographic as a whole. They are also “entertainment-oriented” and “tech-savvy,” says Horowitz. The combination of these elements makes them both enticing and difficult to pin down.

They are said to watch a multitude of television content, and do so on a multitude of video platforms. Many of them spend more time viewing streamed rather than live programming, are not averse to made-for-the-web programming, and will watch programming in both English and Spanish. On that latter point, Horowitz says that 75% of viewing is in English.

Even if you can pin them down, creating compelling content remains a challenge. Adds Horowitz’s Adrianna Waterson, “This audience (is)… equally at home among Latino and non-Latino peers… they reject inauthentic efforts to box them into cultural silos… or dictate to them what bicultural Latinos ‘should’ watch.”

RBR-TVBR observation: If you think this is a problem for mainstream media, think of what it is like to be a Hispanic media organization that sees a hard percentage of Hispanics in its market but cannot seem to reel them all in as much as they would like. This figures to be a population in flux in terms of media usage for some time to come.