.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Christina Fernández-Morrow remembers that when she moved to Des Moines 10 years ago, the state had only two Spanish-language newspapers. Today there are 10, and one publisher claims he can’t write enough content to keep up with the number of people wanting to advertise.

“It just goes to show more companies are seeing the value in targeting these communities,” she said.

As clients began demanding more Hispanic marketing resources, Strategic America decided to hire Fernández-Morrow as its multicultural marketing manager about eight months ago. Though most major advertising agencies in Central Iowa have conducted marketing campaigns directed at Latinos, Strategic America is one of the first to add the resources needed to handle this task in-house.

“In the national marketplace beyond Iowa, multicultural media is required,” said Strategic America CEO Michael Schreurs. “In Iowa, maybe people don’t understand it. In the national footprint and some regions, you have to be there.”

But as the Hispanic population continues to increase nationally, client demand may lead more ad agencies to staff for this kind of work or acquire firms that specialize in this area. Clive-based Hispanic marketing firm Vivamedia Inc. is already planning a major announcement related to an acquisition by or partnership with a larger advertising agency in the local market in the first quarter of 2008.

Latinos are the fastest-growing minority group in Iowa, with a 28.1 percent increase in population from 2000 to 2006, according to the State Data Center of Iowa. Currently they make up 3.8 percent of the state’s population, a figure that’s expected to grow to 9.1 percent by 2030.

Nannette Rodríguez, founder and president of Vivamedia, a five-person firm that handles mainstream and Hispanic marketing, said this segment also tends to have more disposable income (many don’t save money through a financial institution), is younger and has larger families than the state average. Plus, Latinos tend to be unusually brand loyal, which makes them an especially enticing target for companies selling products and services.

“I think for Des Moines, it’s pretty evident that the Hispanic and Asian markets are growing and contributing economically to the growth of this city and of the state,” Fernández-Morrow said. “Whether you like it or not, you can’t stick your head in the sand and think it’s not happening and think you’re going to successfully grow a business without paying attention to those markets.”

However, Rodríguez said that although agencies in Texas, California and other areas with high Latino populations have had a large number of Hispanic marketing firms or Hispanic marketing divisions within larger agencies for years, most Iowa firms have yet to go this route.

Jumping in

Before Strategic America hired Fernández-Morrow, it outsourced Hispanic marketing work. But that was not enough to satisfy client demand.

Strategic America President John Schreurs said adding a multicultural marketing department has allowed the company to better align itself with its major national clients, which have their own in-house marketers focused on this segment. Fernández-Morrow said the new approach has helped the agency retain some of its existing clients, and the agency plans to use this new resource as part of its pitch to potential clients.

“Now I think we’re better able to take care of the needs more immediately,” Schreurs said. “It’s a more integrated approach, so we’re looking at it more globally, rather than just a specific assignment. We see it as a growing area right now.”

Fernández-Morrow’s work primarily focuses on client services, working with clients on developing a strategy for reaching new diverse audiences, overseeing creative work and researching new trends and tactics in multicultural marketing. About 90 percent of Strategic America’s multicultural work has shifted in-house, with some outsourcing typically for proofreading. For Hispanic work, that includes proofreaders who are native to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America because of the variations in language and culture.

Wendy’s International Inc., Kum and Go L.C., Lennox International Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. are among the clients Strategic America has worked with in this area. Fernández-Morrow also helped add multicultural elements to Employee and Family Resources’ 2008 communications plan, including designing Spanish-language Web pages that address common needs of Latinos and developing key alliances with influential Latino leaders to help create future programs.

Strategic America has been updating its media database over the past two years to include multicultural media outlets. The firm licenses the software to major corporations, which use the database to obtain local market media information down to the ZIP code level.

Fernández-Morrow believes this department will grow as the agency’s public relations department did a few years ago. “We’ve just begun the journey,” she said.

Hesitations

Rodríguez of Vivamedia is concerned about traditional advertising agencies offering Hispanic marketing services. Having worked with Fernández-Morrow on community projects, she worries because the Chicago native, who grew up speaking several languages, is not a native of a Latin America country, which might affect her translation of marketing campaigns.

“They’ve been smart to adapt and recruit, but our job is to call it how we see it,” Rodríguez said. “We have a stronghold positioning in this market and we’ve been here much longer. … Our staff is bilingual and bicultural. Everyone who works for us is a native speaker. Strategic America can’t say that.”

Fernández-Morrow points to her background growing up speaking Spanish, researching multicultural marketing in college and helping develop State Farm Insurance Cos. and H&R Block Inc.’s multicultural marketing platforms as giving her the experience needed to handle Strategic America’s Hispanic marketing work.

Vivamedia began focusing on becoming a specialist in Hispanic marketing in 2002 after seeing explosive growth in the Latino population in Iowa. Now the majority of its clients have shifted from mainstream marketing to Hispanic marketing as the agency has developed a reputation in Greater Des Moines for having this expertise. Clients include locally based companies with a national and international reach, such as Principal Financial Group Inc., and local organizations, such as the Iowa State Fair.

The advertising firm also has found a niche working with larger local advertising agencies, which used to include Strategic America, helping them adapt general market campaigns to the Hispanic audience or consulting with them on projects.

“Nobody’s been doing this work,” Rodríguez said, “and ad agencies know they can turn to us because we’re real specialists in what we’re doing.”

But Rodríguez also knows that Hispanic advertising agencies are prime takeover targets of larger mainstream firms and plans to make an announcement related to an acquisition or alliance early next year.

“Usually those types of arrangements yield better presentations to the client, more resources, you can work quicker, so there’s a good business case for doing so,” Rodríguez said.

Other local agencies have been slow to add the resources needed to handle Hispanic marketing in-house. One challenge may be finding employees who are both bilingual and well-versed in marketing in the Midwest, say Rodríguez and Fernández-Morrow.

Marketing experts agree that many times these departments are added because of a demand from one or two main clients and usually it is with agencies that primarily deal with consumer marketing and major national clients.

Trilix Marketing Group, which specializes in business-to-business advertising, versus business-to-consumer, has not had client demand for Hispanic marketing beyond minimal translation work, which it works with local firms to provide, according to President Todd Senne. “We’ve doubled in size last year, but that’s all traditional work,” he said.

Andy Flynn of Flynn Wright said his agency’s research department stays up-to-date on Hispanic trends and he sees it as a potential growth area in the future, but so far, the demand has not been there to develop a Hispanic marketing department. Many of the regional marketing firm’s advertising strategies involve translating marketing pieces into Spanish, a task it outsources to firms specializing in that area.

“Depending on the type of consumer products we get into,” Flynn said, “we take a look at that aspect all the time.” Yet, “the demand is not there enough to warrant having someone there full time to do it.”

As a larger firm with major national retailers among its clients, The Integer Group has a Hispanic marketing division based in Denver called Velocidad, which began in the early 2000s and specializes in retail activation (influencing the consumer at the point of sale through in-store tactics such as creative messages, and special promotions) in regional markets.

“We have people who are very entwined in understanding different cultural nuances,” said Al Tramontina, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Integer, “because it’s not just one big world called ‘Hispanic.’ It’s a lot of different pieces.” This includes developing different media campaigns for Hispanic audiences in different regions of the United States.

The department’s creation was driven by a need of one of Integer’s largest clients, Coors Brewing Co., and the division has grown to 60 employees since then. Locally, Integer also calls upon Vivamedia as a consultant when needed, especially in understanding the local market.

Integer sees Hispanic marketing as an area with strong growth potential. “It’s something that’s extremely important to the overall growth in sales of our clients,” Tramontina said.”

A foot in the door

As more companies see Hispanic marketing as a way to reach new markets and increase their business, advertising agencies will likely respond by expanding in this area.

Still marketers face challenges in reaching Latinos, which includes not just translating marketing materials but adapting them to their culture, which can vary greatly by region.

With nearly 40 percent of Iowa’s Hispanic population having migrated from another country, radio has been the primary means of reaching the local audience, because many are illiterate or don’t have access to a television, experts say. Rodríguez also points out that there is a strong sense of “familismo,” the belief that the family is the center and everything is done to improve the household.

But at the same time, Rodríguez said, “I think people are becoming more aware that this Latino audience can’t be pigeonholed. That it’s as vast and diverse as any other audience.”

One trend Fernández-Morrow has noticed in Hispanic marketing is that the language used in the message has become less formal and more conversational, mixing Spanish and English within the same piece.

“It really becomes how do you position this brand and this product so that it starts to have the same value in these communities that it has in the general market, and that’s definitely more than just a language difference,” Fernández-Morrow said. “You’re actually positioning it in a way that people want to try it and they want to trust it.”