For diverse Hispanic market, a wide range of answers ... and questions

MIAMI - The 21 newspaper executives from newsrooms, and advertising, circulation and online departments from across the country who gathered in Miami this week for API's Reaching Latino Audiences seminar are finding there are more questions than answers surrounding whether and how newspapers should reach this growing target audience. Should they create a new publication, put special content into their existing newspaper, or develop Web sites? Should it be written in Spanish, English or a combination of both? Should it be weekly, daily or monthly?

There is one piece of advice every discussion leader agrees on: Know your market. What works in the Miami market, which is heavily Cuban, won't necessarily work in the New York City market, which is predominantly Puerto Rican, Dominican and Central American.

"The only thing we have in common is the word Hispanic, " said David Hume, president of Mediamericas in Alexandria, Va., who was born in Argentina. "We come from very different countries. We have very different cultures. We don't all get along. "

He knows this firsthand, having supervised a newsroom of 42 people from 12 different Hispanic nationalities at New York City's El Diario/La Prensa. "Don't think of Hispanics as monolithic people. You have to find out who they are and what they want. "

Defining the Hispanic Market

Aurora Losada, Editor of Spanish Publications for the Houston Chronicle reviews some notes during a break in the seminar. (Photo by Joshua Prezant)

• Euro-Latins mainly from Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Costa Rica.


• Euro-Africans who are dominant in Brazil, Cuba and Dominican Republic


• Euro-Indians from Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru.

In the United States, he said, there are three different groups of Hispanics and it's important for newspapers that are trying to reach this market to understand each group. They are:

• Core Hispanics, who live, think and act Hispanic. About 30 percent of Hispanics in the United States fall into this category.


• Transitional Hispanics, who comfortably go back and forth between their country of origin and the United States.


• Peripheral Hispanics, who are essentially Anglo but are Hispanic "in their heart. " Newspapers are unlikely to reach this group with a Spanish-language publication.

Soruco, who was born in Bolivia, considers himself a transitional Hispanic. "I've been here since 1964, " he said. "I've lived here longer than I lived in Bolivia. I no longer know Bolivia. "

Interestingly, his daughter considers herself a Hispanic while his son says he is an Anglo. His daughter, he said, is Hispanic "in her heart. "

"This issue of identity, who am I as a Hispanic, is very personal and affects behavior, " Soruco said.

Competition in the New York Market

Members of API's Reaching Latino Audiences seminar. (Photo by Joshua Prezant)

The paper attracts the largest number of Hispanic readers in the New York City area, said Jorge Ayala, general sales manager of El Diario/La Prensa. "They understand their market well. They constantly have coverage about the Hispanic market and they understand that Puerto Ricans are the most acculturated Hispanic group so they target them. "

El Diario/La Prensa used to target Puerto Ricans but, he said, as Puerto Ricans have started reading the New York Daily News, his paper has focused more on Dominicans.

Throwing a Curve Ball

Hume, who worked in the newsroom at El Diario/La Prensa for a year after it was bought by impreMedia, surprised the group when he said, "I'll tell you quite frankly, if I had to do it over again, I'd go online. "

Hume was brought in to invigorate the newspaper. He redesigned it, added content on business, health, entertainment, finance and legal issues. despite these changes, however, circulation of the oldest Spanish-language publication in the United States didn't budge.

"It was very, very frustrating, " Hume said. "It will be tough for Spanish-language newspapers to be successful. "

Hume cited some obstacles like televison and the Internet that transcend all markets, but also advised seminar participants to look closely when evaluating financial statistics on Hispanics.

"We keep seeing figures about purchasing power of Hispanics, " he said, "but when you look at real figures there is not that much disposable income. The Hispanics who read Spanish-language newspapers aren't the ones who shop at Marshall Fields. " Last year, Hume said, Hispanics sent $30 billion back to family members in their home country. "We have to take that amount out of the total figure that everyone throws about on Hispanic purchasing. "

Hispanic Spending Tripled in 15 Years

The numbers do show, however, that Hispanics are "voracious consumers, " said Robert Montemayor, president of Montemayor Consulting in Bloomfield, N.J., and author of "The Latino Target: Strategies for Engaging the Hispanic Market, " a set of case studies written for the Newspaper Association of America's New Readers and Revenue initiative. (Read more)

According to statistics from HispanTelligence, spending among Hispanics has jumped from from roughly $220 billon in 1990 to nearly $700 billion in 2004.

"Never in the history of business in America have you seen that kind of jump in terms of consumerism in America, " Montemayor said.

Don't Forget the Internet

Montemayor urged participants to pay attention to the Internet. "If you are not already cultivating in that area, you should, " he said. By 2007, an estimated 16 million Hispanics will be online. "From research I saw, " said Montemayor, "the ability of Hispanics to use cutting edge technology is quite high, higher than most other ethnic groups. "

While there are opportunities for newspapers to create products for Hispanics, says Montemayor, it is very competitive.

"The landscape is likely to change, " he said. "There will be causalities, some will be squeezed out. "