Juan Tornoe

New Apple Product for Latinos: the iNo.

As in "iNo me diga" or "iNo se me había ocurrido" or "iNo quise decir eso" :-P

The Subtleties Of Marketing Beer To Latinos

October 10, 2011
by Elizabeth Blair


Any industry looking for major growth in the U.S. market can't ignore Latinos, who make up 16 percent of the U.S. population. As the Latino population grows, beer marketers are trying more nuanced ways of influencing this key segment.

"They love beer," says Jim Sabia, chief marketing officer for Crown Imports, which distributes Mexican beers including Corona and Modelo. "Hispanics are 19 percent more likely to purchase beer than the rest of U.S. consumers." On top of that, Hispanics will make up a large portion of the legal drinking age population in the future.

Mexican brands would seem to have a leg up with the Latino market. But Bud Light is their No. 1 beer of choice. Corona is No. 2. For the most part, the way all of the brands have tried to reach Latinos is through Spanish TV and radio, sponsorships of Major League Soccer events and concerts.

Juan Tornoe — whose favorite Mexican beer is Pacifico — is a marketing consultant based in Austin, Texas. Originally from Guatemala, he's watched the beer industry court Latinos for years, with mixed success. He points to a Corona campaign from 2008 called "Nuestro orgullo. Nuestra cerveza," or "Our pride. Our beer." Tornoe says it backfired.

"It makes sense for Mexicans, which is the largest percentage of Latinos living in the U.S., but if you're Puerto Rican or Salvadoran or Colombian, you're like, 'That's not my beer,'" he says.

Tornoe says it's important for advertisers to be aware of certain general cultural characteristics. "But don't overdo it. You don't have to make the culture the center of the show or be the spotlight of your ad," he says.

To reach bicultural Latinos, Tornoe tells his clients to treat them like you would the general U.S. market but give them subtle touchstones they might appreciate. He says Bud Light got it right with the 2007 Super Bowl commercials featuring comedian Carlos Mencia.

In one ad Mencia teaches a class of non-native English speakers from all over the world how to ask for a Bud Light. Tornoe says the commercials work because they're funny and because Latinos relate to Mencia "as a fellow Hispanic and relate to the experience of learning English." Also, they aired during the Super Bowl.

"It basically tells you, 'You understand that I am not glued to Spanish language TV all the time and I am not glued to soccer but that I actually enjoy watching the Super Bowl,'" Tornoe says.

The Latino population in the U.S. is so diverse, Sabia says, that it's broken into groups, and not necessarily by nationality. "We segment them by their attitudes as well as demographics," Sabia says. The segment names include "life indulgers" for Corona drinkers and "proud traditionalists" for Victoria.

Generational differences have influenced commercials for the Mexican beer Tecate, which is imported by Heineken. Felix Palau, vice president for Tecate's multicultural marketing, says until recently, the company's ads targeted only first-generation Mexicans, whom he calls the "newcomers."

"A consumer that has to work three jobs, who sends most of his earnings home to his family in Mexico. He's had a tough life," Palau says.

But he says many second- and third-generation Latinos would not relate to those ads. So now, instead of showing Latinos working at a restaurant, for example, the ads show them eating there. Palau says these ads show "a much more joyful, celebratory slice of life."

Source: NPR's Morning Edition

Latinos, Cars, and Ford Motor Company

An interview with John Felice, General Manager Ford Lincoln Marketing

By Juan Tornoe

Through my good friend Alvaro Cabal, I had the opportunity to connect with John Felice last week. As mentioned above, John is the man at the wheel – pun intended – of all marketing efforts for Ford. He was kind enough to share with me many interesting insights on what’s going on in the industry, and specifically at Ford in regards to the Hispanic consumer and his company’s efforts to establish a strong relationship with Latinos.

Enjoy…

Juan Tornoe: Over the last year auto sales volume growth among Hispanics has over indexed in comparison to the General Market. What has Ford specifically experienced regarding Latino auto purchases?

John Felice: According to the data we have through June 2011, the Hispanic auto market is growing and recovering faster than its general market counterpart. Specifically, the Hispanic market has increased 23.8% and the general market has increased 17.5%

Year over year Ford’s Hispanic car mix has increased +6.0 ppts, 32% to 38%. Hispanics are back buying vehicles and looking for full efficient small cars with great design and features that complement their lifestyle. Ford Focus and Ford Fiesta are hitting that sweet spot.

If I was to pick a strategic priority for us, the one thing we could do better and put more emphasis on is growing our relationship and customer base with the Hispanic consumer.

It is time to raise awareness about the importance of the Hispanic consumer, because now Ford has a wider vehicle portfolio, beyond the trucks and crossovers; now we are right in the process of launching world-class small cars and crossovers. That gives us a great opportunity to have the right products at the right time for the Hispanic consumer.

Interestingly enough, each year we get our dealers together from around the country, and next week they are going to be here in Dearborn for our annual dealer meeting, and as the marketing guy, one of the few things I am talking about is the importance of the Hispanic market for them and their business. That’s how important it is to us.

JT: Could you share with us the themes that you will be covering during that meeting?

JF: We want to make sure that all the dealers are aware of the growth and importance of the Hispanic market, so we will be sharing some of the demographic trends, some of the industry trends – which I just mentioned. Also, we’ll share some hopefully eye-opening statistics around recent Census data showing the distribution of the Hispanic market; because people usually think of California, Texas and Florida, buy you look at the growth and it is everywhere in the U.S.! It’s not just a regional opportunity. Then we will be sharing them some of the marketing platforms that we have to improve our marketing to Hispanics. Things like increasing efforts in our Tier 2 (our Dealer Association), that is, working with our dealers collectively in our advertising to dedicate more resources to the Hispanic Consumer. We will also talk about some of our other very successful platforms, like Drive One 4UR School, which is a very successful community base program that we’ve had for many years, where the local dealer partners with the school and they set up a test drive event at the school property, and for every test drive there is a donation made to the school. Then the dealer gets to go to the school to support one of their sports teams or a building project, presenting them with a check for $4 or $5 thousand. It is a great win-win program because we get people exposed to our products and we get to give back to the local community. This year we have done these specifically targeting areas with high-density Hispanic populations, having all the language and making sure we have bilingual staff present. We are going to be expanding this effort going forward. Then we will talk specifically about them, about their staffing in their dealerships; do the local dealership’s sales and service teams reflect the community. 


JT: I understand that not only Latino auto purchases are increasing, but also there is a shift in the types of vehicles they are buying… Tell me what has Ford seen on this regard.

JF: A couple things we are seeing is a continued shift in segment preference, obviously Trucks and SUV’s have always been an important segment for the Hispanic market, but we are seeing more and more buyers – and this have been a trend over the last 10 years – shifting to smaller cars. That may be driven a lot by fuel efficiency or the makeup of the industry, but it is one of the trends we are seeing, especially towards the C Segment (like the Ford Focus or the Honda Civic) or the CD segment (like the Ford Fusion or the Toyota Camry), small and mid-sized cars.


JT: What are the main reasons Hispanics are migrating towards small cars, as you mentioned earlier?

JF: We have seen the same trend in the general market; in recent times fuel efficiency is so much more important, as gas prices have risen from $2 per gallon to $3 or $4 per gallon. The economic elements of that have given consumers the motivation to think about other alternatives. Do they really need the capability of a big SUV or can they have a car instead? The other systemic issue in the industry is that traditionally in the U.S., small cars have been “cheap and cheerful”, haven’t been with the latest technologies and features and all the things that consumers – both Hispanic and general market – want in a vehicle. This has quickly changed. For example, the new Ford Focus has all the latest technologies, has best in class fuel economy, the MyFord Touch and SYNC Technologies, Active Park Assist where you can literally take your hands off the wheel and the vehicle will parallel park itself, just by using the gas and break pedals. That is technology that you would only find in luxury cars before!

So again, the two big trends or key drivers would be the strength of the product offering in smaller vehicles and fuel efficiency.

We feel we are in a very good position to be in the right place at the right time with a product portfolio for the Hispanic consumer.


JT: What has Ford specifically done through their marketing efforts to connect with the Latino consumer?

JF: Part of it is having a dedicated Latino agency – Zubi Advertising – that works with us to be relevant to the Hispanic consumer, so we try to tailor our marketing messages specifically. It is a very important part of our marketing strategy to make sure that we are relevant and bilingual in our marketing communications. Also, we are very specific in tailoring our creative and other marketing assets to resonate with the Latino consumer; we get a lot of help from Zubi on that and that won’t change.

But, as I mentioned before, something that will be a specific point of discussion during our dealer meeting, is our engagement with our retailers and getting them more active.  I believe that is it very important to us to reach the Latino consumer at the community level. This is done through people and marketing platforms. If you take a very successful platform, like Drive One 4UR School and make it relevant, through having the right language capabilities and everything else, it can really help you connect with the Latino community. So we are evaluating our internal programs to do that.

We have three forms of auto advertising here in the U.S. We have Tier 1 or The Factory – my advertising, Tier 2 or dealer associations, and then we have Tier 3, which is your local dealer advertising. We have always had a Hispanic effort at the Tier 1 level; we are greatly expanding our Tier 2 advertising through various initiatives in Latino advertising; and the next step is to work with our retailers to not only advertise but to work to better meld into the fabric of the Latino community. Those are some of the things that we will be talking about in the meeting next week.

JT: Are there any media outlets that have you notice working better for Ford in reaching out to Latinos?

JF: We use several of the traditional media outlets – TV, radio & print – that have been utilized to reach out to Hispanics, but we have also found success away from traditional media in more experiential events where you interact with the Latino community vs. just trying to run advertising on various dedicated media.

Digital has also been a very successful media; with penetration in social media outlets such as twitter and facebook. We just opened our new facebook “Ford en Español” page; it is in a soft launch, so it is not officially out there, but it is coming up. Also, through Zubi, our Hispanic marketing team, we are working online with AOL, Univision, and Terra; the have been really successful platforms for us. We launched a very successful program for the Ford Fiesta called, “Ready pa’ tu Mundo” (ready for your world), which included a feature called a Slider, where you go from full Spanish, into Spanglish, or full English. 

JT: Anything else you would like to ad?
 
JF: I want to emphasize my personal passion to raise our awareness and market presence with the Hispanic Consumer. It is to me a tremendous strategic opportunity to Ford Motor Company; we have the right products at the right time.  

Note: Interview conducted on September 23, 2011

Census Hispanic

Census Hispanic: /ˈsensəs_hiˈspanik/ (Noun) An individual who claims having Latino ethnicity, based on the Census’ definition of, “Hispanic is anyone who says they are”.

Latindoctrinate

Latindoctrinate /ˈlatəˌinˈdäktrəˌnāt/: (Verb) To teach someone the fundamentals, ideas, attitudes, customs, behavioral characteristics, history, and social institutions of Hispanic culture as well as Latino achievements throughout time.

Dallas Morning News: Hispanic Consumers Gain Clout

Today, I was quoted on the Business Section of the Dallas Morning News:

Thanks for your consideration Maria!

What is Cinco de Mayo REALLY Celebrating

Today I shared my two "centavitos" regarding Corona Day on Nevada Public Radio.

Check it out.

Reach Latinos through 'the culture,' speaker urges business leaders

March 22, 2011
By Ron Cammel

The growing Latino market is diverse and cannot be reached by clichéd sales pitches, Juan Tornoe told hundreds gathered for the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce awards ceremony Monday at the JW Marriott.

But that did not stop him from having some fun with stereotypes.

Tornoe, a national business consultant and blogger of Hispanic Trending, summed up the growth in the U.S. Hispanic population quite simply: Salsa now outsells ketchup.

But he was serious about businesses reaching the estimated 47 million Latinos in the United States, or 16 percent of the population, whose buying power has grown much faster than the non-Hispanic population’s.

How does a business connect?

“It’s the culture, stupid!” he said.

“Hispanic people overwhelmingly say they want to preserve their families’ culture,” Tornoe said. “If you speak to the heart of the Latino community, it goes a long way.”

He said Latinos value social harmony, social flexibility and social speed — they tend to become friendly faster. It’s important for sales people to spend a little more time on the small talk and getting to know a person in the Hispanic community before talking business, he said.

And family comes first, he said. Hispanic women are a growing force in Hispanic-owned businesses, not for the wealth, but to look out for the interests of their families, he said.

Don’t assume Hispanics want to be spoken to in Spanish, he said. The large majority of Hispanics who use the Internet regularly, for example, use English sites.

If you want to joke around with “Spanglish,” be careful, he cautioned. Some advertisements have turned off the Hispanic community. Regular English-to-Spanish translations are difficult enough: A T-shirt hawked after the pope’s visit to Miami read in Spanish, “I saw the potato.”

Tornoe said businesses reaching out to Hispanics need to remember the broad range of income, education and social levels, while recognizing some common cultural characteristics.

But in any case, the Hispanic market is here to stay, he said. “It’s not a matter of when you reach them. You will. It’s a matter of understanding them.”

Source: MLive.com

Diferencias Generacionales entre Hispanos

Por Juan Tornoe

Cuando el empresario promedio dice, “Quiero alcanzar a los hispanos”, generalmente está tratando de alcanzar a un universo de personas mucho mayor de lo que su presupuesto, gama de productos, o su huella geográfica le permitiría.

Hay muchas formas de desglosar al mercado latino, pero una que es bastante práctica y permite tiempos de reacción/adaptación cortos es el separar a los hispanos por generaciones.

Primero definamos, de manera general, a que nos referimos con esto de generaciones:

1ª Generación: Aquellos miembros de la comunidad hispana que nacieron y crecieron (una buena parte de sus vidas) en Latino América; son aquellos que migraron hacia los Estados Unidos. Lo que nuestros amigos Americanos llaman, “foreign-born;” nacidos en el extranjero.

2ª  Generación: Nacidos en los Estados Unidos de padres – por lo menos uno – inmigrantes; aquí incluyo a aquellas personas que a una temprana edad migraron con sus padres desde Latino América y han vivido y crecido la mayor parte de sus vidas en los Estados Unidos.

3ª Generación o más: Nacidos en Estados Unidos de padres nacidos en los Estados Unidos. Aunque pueden identificar una conexión con Latino América en su árbol genealógico, todo lo que ellos (y sus padres) han experimentado la gran mayoría de sus vidas, por no decir toda su existencia, es la vida en los Estados Unidos.

Podríamos entrar en mucho más detalle al respecto, pero desde ya estoy seguro que usted ha comenzado a ver las claras diferencias en cuanto a puntos de vista y experiencias entre estos tres grupos.

El Hispano de primera generación va a estar intelectual y emocionalmente mucho más conectado con su país de origen. Por ende, mercadearle productos de “nostalgia” – aquellos que le son familiares y le recuerdan de alguna forma a su país, representa una gran oportunidad. Otro aspecto igual de importante es el idioma en el que puede mercadearle a este grupo. Especialmente a nivel de su local o tienda, el ofrecer la posibilidad de escuchar y leer información en español acerca de sus productos o servicios harán una gran diferencia. Aunque esta persona sea bilingüe, el darle la oportunidad de interactuar en su idioma natal representa una gran ventaja competitiva.

El Latino de segunda generación se identifica de cierta forma con la canción interpretada estupendamente por Facundo Cabral titulada “No soy de aquí, no soy de allá”.  Ellos viven una doble realidad; en sus hogares, con sus padres inmigrantes, viven vidas “en español”, siendo educados, interactuando, comiendo, y entreteniéndose de manera muy similar a la que sus padres lo experimentaron en sus tierras natales. Al cruzar el marco de la puerta de entrada de sus hogares entran en el mundo estadounidense en el que han crecido y se han desenvuelto desde que comenzaron a ir a la escuela o guardería. En su mayoría entienden muy bien ambas culturas y consumen indistintamente productos/servicios de ambas. Aunque hablan – y hasta quizá lean – español, con distintos grados de competencia, el ofrecerles información e interacción es inglés hará que se sientan más a gusto al interactuar con su negocio.

Aquellos que forman parte de la tercera generación o más (4ª, 5ª, etc.) aunque retienen ciertas costumbres y tradiciones de sus antepasados, están mucho más asimilados que los otros grupos, es decir, con cada generación de cierta manera se va “olvidando” la hispanicidad  y se va adoptando más la tradicional cultura estadounidense. Esta última afirmación parece ser algo contradictoria, pues dado que los Latinos son la minoría más joven y de mayor número en el país, están influenciando y redefiniendo de manera pronta y poderosa a lo que se conoce como “mercado general”. Independientemente, existen diferencias con las generaciones anteriores. En cuanto al idioma, es probable que aunque entiendan español, no tengan vocabulario suficiente o se sientan lo suficientemente cómodos para hablarlo. Ya que tanto ellos como sus padres han vivido en los Estados Unidos toda su vida, están sumamente familiarizados con todos los productos y servicios que se ofrecen en el país y dependen/utilizan mucho menos productos que tradicionalmente son categorizados como Latinos.

Los porcentajes de estos grupos generacionales varían según los distintos mercados, pero una cosa es cierta: Aunque el número de hispanos de primera generación continuará en crecimiento conforme pasa el tiempo, estos representarán un porcentaje menor de la totalidad del mercado latino. Es decir que cada día los hispanos  de segunda, tercera y siguientes generaciones representarán un mercado más y más grande. Si desea expandir el alcance de su empresa entre todos los hispanos y hacer crecer su negocio, debe entender las diferencias generacionales y utilizar este nuevo entendimiento para poder mercadear efectivamente a todos.

Aculturación Inversa - Nuevos Mercados para sus Productos

Por Juan Tornoe

Todos estamos conscientes del tremendo crecimiento de la población hispana a través de los Estados Unidos. En cualquiera de los cuatro puntos cardinales que usted se dirija – unos más que otros – encontrará señales del la expansión de ésta. Sabemos que por costumbre y/o nostalgia el latino, especialmente aquel de primera generación, busca ciertos productos alimenticios, de limpieza personal y del hogar, vestimenta, decoración y hasta información que le mantienen cerca de “sus raíces.” Todos estos y otros más han generado toda una industria que seguramente usted ha visto crecer y se ha beneficiado directamente de la misma, sirviendo principalmente, si no únicamente a individuos de descendencia latinoamericana.

Por aparte también hemos visto, y muchos hemos vivido en carne propia, el proceso de aculturación de nuestra comunidad a la cultura predominante en este país; cómo con el pasar de los meses, años y décadas vamos adoptando múltiples costumbres y aspectos socioculturales de la cultura anglo-sajona. Es un proceso que a través del tiempo se vuelve inevitable al vivir en este país, por mucho que lo queramos negar o tratemos de evitar.

Ahora la oportunidad de oro para su negocio es comenzar a diversificarse en cuanto a la clientela a quien sirve.

El mercado hispano ha llegado a tal tamaño – casi el 17% de la población del país – que ahora se esta dando el fenómeno de aculturación inversa o “Hispanización” del mercado general. Lo que esto implica es que el mercado general, influenciado en su mayoría hasta ahora por la cultura anglo-sajona, está siendo introducido cada día más y más, y está adoptando como suyos una variedad de productos, costumbres, tradiciones, etc. de la minoría más grande del país.

Algunos ejemplos bastante obvios son la celebración del “5 de Mayo” que se está volviendo casi tan importante como el Día de San Patricio (St. Patrick’s Day), el auge de los restaurantes de comida mexicana (y pseudo-mexicana), el consumo del agua mineral Topo Chico y el consumo de cervezas mexicanas como Corona, Dos Equis y Tecate. También vemos otros signos menos obvios como el hecho que desde ya hace más de cinco años se vende más salsa que catsup y que desde el 2009 se venden más tortillas que pan blanco en los EEUU.

Cadenas de supermercados en ambas costas, Mi Pueblo en California y Sedano’s en la Florida, han identificado esta tendencia y están capitalizando en ella. Siendo supermercados tradicionalmente conocidos como “étnicos”, atendiendo principalmente al mercado hispano, ahora se han aventurado a expandir su alcance dándose a conocer  al resto de la población por medio de promociones, publicidad y nuevas ubicaciones. El hecho de que el mercado general está siendo tan influenciado por la cultura latina presenta una excelente oportunidad para ofrecer a toda la población la amplia variedad de productos que hasta el momento sólo se han comercializado a ésta.

El estar consciente de la creciente receptividad del mercado general a los productos que usted ha estado ofreciendo por mucho tiempo y proactivamente y eficazmente  mercadearlos asegurará que usted alcance nuevos mercados – anteriormente impenetrados – en su región de operaciones.

Marcas como FUD, La Villita, Jarritos, Sidral Mundet, D'Gari, Cholula y Chocolate Ibarra sin lugar a duda llegarán a ser conocidas y utilizadas por todo el mercado de Estados Unidos. La pregunta es si usted forma parte del grupo de visionarios que están abriendo brecha para ellos o simplemente se ha quedado como un observador estático. ¿Cuál de estos escogerá ser?