"Aspirational"

A good friend just sent me a very interesting piece written by Laura Martinez for Ad Age. Laura is a journalist who also keeps the excellent 'Mi blog es tu blog'. Laura tells a couple of stories, one related to how Mexican advertising tends to go 'aspirational' (i.e. portray whiter, blonder people in advertising) and another on how she was rejected to participate in a focus group, most probably because she's a successful / educated Mexican living in the US. She writes with a journalist/social commentator's sensibility. Being a marketer, I'm a lot more cynical than that.

When I worked in Mexico, we had the very handy SEL (socio-economic level) definitions. This is always the first line for segmenting markets in Mexico, at least for less sophisticated companies. The SEL definitions use letters, and it used to go from A to E (A being the highest). Nowadays, the definitions look a bit more complex: A/B, C+, C, D+, D, E. According to researchers, the breakout between socioeconomic levels works like this:

A/B 7.4%
C+ 7.2%
C 25.0%
D+ 23.5%
D 27.9%
E 9.0%

The way that researchers put people in different segments is fascinating. They use 13 variables like education, number of lightbulbs in the household, number of rooms without bathrooms, number of bathrooms with showers, and also whether you own (or not) things like cars, water heaters, vaccum cleaners, computers, microwave ovens, washing machines, toasters and VCR's. The way they define the segments themselves is also fascinating. The A/B segment, for instance, "includes those segments of the population with the higher standard of living. The head of the household will have a college degree or higher. The households in this segment are luxury apartments or houses with full services and comforts". In contrast, the E segment: "(rarely included in market research [sic]) is the lowest segment in the population. The head of household will have not completed primary education. These people [sic] don't own a place and they have to rent or otherwise manage to find somewhere to live. There's usually more than one generation living in the household,which is totally austere". You can read all about it (in Spanish) here.

Why is this information even relevant to the topic? There's a point to be made, and, as always, it boils down to economics. Just to illustrate, and according to the same data source, the A/B C+ segment, which makes 14% of the population concentrates almost 60% of income. The remaining 86% of the population keeps 40%. If you're a CPG company, however, who are you going to sell to, regardless of income levels? To 14% of the population? Or to 86%? If you want to build a decent volume level, you need to work with the larger parts of the population. Your product needs to work with the larger segment, and that's why Laura did not pass the screener for the focus group interviews.

The other side of the story concerns advertising. One time, a visiting professor I had in college told me something that stuck with me, he said: "In Mexico, you can take a look at a person's skin color and facial features, and you can estimate their social level with amazing accuracy". I thought that this was a very racist remark at the time, but after a while I was forced to concede the point. He was (kinda) right. I guess that Mexico inherited this from the social dynamics in colonial times, and while it is becoming less true as time goes by, it is still a valid observation. It sucks, I know, but I do believe that it is changing for the better. From a marketer's perspective, you want to make your product desirable, so what are you going to do when you produce an ad? What kind of imagery will work best? What kind of people do you want to show using your product? How do you make it 'aspirational'?

I'm going to leave the question open for now. I'm sure it will come back.

CB

There's a new order in my world.

To my one reader:

As mentioned in the first post in this blog, we were about to have a baby girl. This just happened last Sunday. I had heard a lot about how intense this experience is, but never really understood it until now. I don't want to dwell on the countless cliches that could be said at this time, so I'll just say that I'm in awe with nature, that Ana, my wife, is my hero, and that I'm in love with my daughter.

I have three posts in the works, and they should come out in the next few days.

Thanks!

CB

Funny... more on the issue later

Where are Hispanics from?

There was an interesting article by Nick Mendoza on hispanicad.com. He argues that many "Hispanic" ad agencies are much more focused on winning awards than in working with their clients. He mentions a few cases about Argentinian Creative Directors who "are untilizing actors from Argentina, South and Central America and most fly to those countries to do so spending unnecessary client funds and worse than that utilizing actors with accents that don‚t coincide with majority of the Hispanic market in the US (sic)"

While Mr. Mendoza certainly demonstrates passion for his ideas (a little too much, perhaps), I believe that he completely misses the most significant point: what is a "Hispanic"? Is there such a person?

In many companies, "Hispanic" advertising is little more than a person or two that work with whatever money is left in the budget after funds are allocated to the "General Market". They use "Hispanic" advertising and "Spanish language" advertising interchangeably, and they seem to believe that spending a couple million on Univision, using a spot directly translated from English, is enough to cover "Hispanics".

Reality, as always, is much more complex. Just to put things in a bit of perspective, there are more than 40 million "Hispanics" in the US. If US "Hispanics" were a country, they would be the second largest Spanish speaking country in the world, ahead of Colombia but behind Mexico. There are 7 states in the US with more than 1mm Hispanics (CA, AZ, TX, IL, FL, NY and NJ), and 21 states with more than 100k. They have a combined buying power of $570bn, which would make them the 17th largest economy in the world, larger than Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium or Austria. They come primarily from Mexico, but also from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and the more than 20 countries that make up Latin America.

So this is not only a large, powerful and spread-out segment, it is also a highly heterogeneous one. Mr. Mendoza seems to be very concerned with accents, when the real issue lies WAY deeper, and both clients and agencies are equally responsible for this. I've been very fastidious in putting "Hispanic" between quotes, because I believe that "Hispanic" is nothing but a short hand that lumps all Spanish speakers together, and ignores the cultural differences that go way beyond accents. I would ask Mr. Mendoza, what is a proper US "Hispanic" accent? Is it how Spanish is spoken in Miami, with its Cuban inflection? Is it how it is spoken in Chicago (Mexican) or New York (Puerto Rican / Dominican)? Is it one of the myriad accents we hear on Univision? If so, which one? Like Maria Elena Salinas? Or is it more like Don Francisco?

In his zeal for lambasting agencies that use talent from outside of the US (with the union implications, his comment on Venezuela, his sarcasm on racking up miles), I believe that Mr. Mendoza fell prey to one of the most insidious problem in the "Hispanic" advertising industry: the sooner we stop using "Hispanic" for marketing purposes, the better we will be.

More on "memes"

Here's a short, yet fascinating talk with Daniel Dennett. He discusses the idea of memes and what they are and how they work (much more clearly than I can). Dan Dennett is a prominent American Philospher and a Professor at Tufts University. He's also one of the most engaging and interesting speakers that I've ever seen.

This talk is part of "TED Talks" (www.ted.com). They define themselves as "Inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers", and here's one of those rare cases where the promise matches the content. You can find many of their talks online, on their website and on Youtube.


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Random Post: B*tch = doubleplusungood

There's an article in today's NY Times on how the city council wants to symbolically ban the word "Bitch" because, they argue, it creates "a paradigm of shame and indignity" for all women.

I can understand that some words are extremely loaded and hurtful (i.e. the n-word) when they've always been used to denigrate individuals or races. I think that 'bitch' hardly belongs in that category. Yes, it can be used to hurt, but not always, and not necessarily. Maybe I'm biased because in Mexican Spanish, being a perro or a perra can mean being difficult, but also strong headed, tenacious, uncompromising and relentless. Nevertheless, I think that this discussion is nonsensical, and this flagging of words because some people find them offensive is a very dangerous slippery slope...

And where would we be without the immortal phrase "GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU BITCH!"? Or even worse, without Cartman's amazing rendition of "Kyle's mom's a bitch in D minor" (don't click play if you have a faulty sense of humor)

They come to America...

I've been travelling like crazy and all over the place for the past four weeks. It started with a LGA-ORD-ATL-DFW-FAT-DFW-LGA, then a LGA-DFW-LAS-DFW-LGA, then a LGA-RDU-DFW-LAX / SAN-JFK, and finally a JFK-LAX-JFK. Needless to say, I still don't know what time it is here.

Anyway, in one of those flights I got an upgrade to business class (yes!). As I settled in my seat with a new book that I was really looking forward to (Orwell's "1984", I hadn't read it before), the guy next to me decides to start talking.

After we chit-chatted about the usual topics (American Airlines sucks, travel sucks, airport food sucks, the weather sucks), he asked me where I was from. People usually have a hard time figuring out where I'm from; thanks to my parents, I believe that I can speak English with only a trace of an accent (and slightly weird grammar), so the guy was a little surprised when I replied that I was from Mexico. I thought that that was going to be the end of the conversation, because for a split-second his demeanor changed, before getting back to where he was before. We exchanged a few more plesantries, when all of a sudden he fell silent, turned in his seat, looked directly at me, and asked, point-blank:

"If your guys come to this country, why don't they at least speak the language and be proud about living here?"

I have seen this opinion / sentiment expressed in many forms before, but I had never been in a situation where someone asked me this question. The guy (sorry dude, I never knew your name) then told me how his great grandparents learned English by sharing a book, and how they started doing that right after they arrived in the country from Germany and Italy.

Immigration is, of course, a very complex and multi-layered issue, and trying to explain it is difficult, as every situation is unique. However, if we compare the European migration to the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries with the current wave of Hispanic immigration, we will see that they are fundamentally different. While both of them begin with economics, they differ because:

1. Distance: Moving from Europe to the US 150 years ago was hardly an easy venture. It implied saving money for a long time in order to secure a place on a boat that would take weeks before arriving. Going back implied as much planning and hardship as getting here. Crossing from Tijuana, MX to San Ysidro, CA, is easily done by foot if you have the right documents (and sometimes even if you don't). For crossing back, you don't even need the documents.

2. Relationship to the motherland: In the 19th century, when you left your country, you pretty much left behind all ties to that country. Getting back in touch with friends and family took months. When you arrived, you all but severed all ties to your past. Today, you can buy a phone card for $10 that will give you hours of talk time to any country in the world. You're much more connected to what's happening back home.

3. Cultural influence. Imagine the first Italian, Irish, German, or any other European immigrant in the 19th century. You arrived in a strange new land, where you don't speak the language and nobody speaks yours. Of course there are no newspapers, magazines, TV channels or internet that allow you to connect back to your roots. You could either speak English, or forget about communicating with anyone else. In modern LA or NY, you could function perfectly well without speaking a single word of English, if you wanted to. There are 7 National Spanish TV broadcasts, plus countless magazines, newspapers and radio stations in Spanish.

Why do immigrants come to the US? Again, it usually starts with economics (much more than politics these days), but today it is much easier to remain connected to the homeland and keep on speaking your language and living your previous lifestyle. The need to acculturate is much less than it used to be. Eventually, most of those who stay will immerse themselves in US culture and language, they just don't have the sense of urgency and the need for survival as earlier immigrant generations.

Hardly a satisfactory answer, but I think that there's no ONE answer to the question...

CB