NEW YORK — Six in 10 Hispanic consumers in the United States who participated in a Horowitz Research study believe that if they see a company spend a substantial portion of their advertising dollars on media superserving them, it will positively impact their decision to purchase goods or services from the company.
The findings reinforce the concept of corporate social responsibility with respect to how certain multicultural groups are addressed, and incorporated, into a brand message.
Rather than sprinkle a few dollars in Hispanic media, whether it be in English or Spanish, these consumers would rather patronize a client that commits to Hispanic marketing, thus respecting them as buyers.
The data appear in Horowitz Research’s State of Media, Entertainment, and Tech: Consumer Engagement 2023, FOCUS: Latinx Edition report .
For 1 in 3 Hispanic consumers, the ad-dollar commitment has a big positive impact — and not solely for Spanish-dominant consumers, which percentage-wise continue to decline in numbers outside of South Florida.
Horowitz’s data find bilingual and English-oriented Hispanic consumers are even more likely to recognize and want to reward brands for showing their commitment to the Hispanic market.
Beyond showing support for Hispanic media and communities by investing in advertising, 65% of the Hispanic consumers surveyed in the Horowitz study say that when brands include Hispanic people and culture in their ads, it has a positive impact on their brand perceptions.
Specifically, having racial/cultural diversity overall (63%), having bilingual speakers (61%), and showing people with a variety of body sizes and shapes (59%) in their ads also has a strong positive impact on brand perceptions, with low negative impact, Horowitz finds.
However, Horowitz found some notable differences in terms of the positive and negative impacts of representation by acculturation. For example, bilingual and English-oriented Hispanic consumers are more likely than their Spanish-dominant counterparts to say that seeing women portrayed as just as strong as powerful as men, having people with darker skin tones, and including Black people and culture in their ads would have a positive impact on their brand perceptions.
Commenting on the findings, Adriana Waterston, Insights and Strategy Lead for Horowitz Research and thought leader in the Hispanic space, said, “The mistake many marketers and ad buyers make is thinking that they can effectively reach the Hispanic/Latinx market only through mainstream media buys. In fact, it speaks volumes when brands show their consistent commitment to the community by spending money supporting our media, especially today when so many media brands are fighting for ad dollars, and it resonates not just with the core Spanish-language viewing audience, but the broader audience of bilingual and English-oriented viewers who also tune into Spanish-language media on a regular basis.”
