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Senator John McCain's presidential campaign kicked off its general election Hispanic voter outreach today on Cinco de Mayo, the popular Mexican holiday. New site; http://www.johnmccain.com/espanol/ Committed Hispanic outreach is a good sign and means there will be a nice competition with the Democratic nominee (either Obama or Clinton) come this summer, even if the Dems start with a huge advantage. McCain spoke in Phoenix and his campaign headquarters was decked out for a launch event. Lots of encouraging signs about the importance of this outreach effort within the campaign. Media eats it up: Associated Press reports (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iNxTApa2sQRu0Xx99P3jt2bEXw7gD90FL4OO0): "Republican John McCain on Monday said the focus on illegal immigration during the Republican primary race harmed his party's image among Hispanics." CNN reports (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/05/mccain/): "The senator from Arizona used Cinco de Mayo as a launching pad for a new Spanish-language Web site on Monday, and he emphasized his stance on immigration and border security as he tried to court the Hispanic vote." "McCain also pledged to attend the National Council for La Raza's convention in July, the largest national Hispanic civil rights organization which seeks to improve opportunities for Hispanic-Americans." Drudge gave it top-billing, wow (http://www.drudgereport.com): http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0541135620080505?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true Other coverage: CBS News blog (http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/05/05/politics/fromtheroad/entry4072857.shtml): "John McCain said today that Hispanic voters are tailor-made for the Republican message..." Boston Globe blog: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/05/mccain_courts_h.html The Hill: http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/mccain-courts-hispanic-voters-2008-05-05.html

Initial Findings: Spanish-Language Advertising in the 2008 Presidential Campaign The two leading Democratic presidential candidates spent millions of dollars on Spanish-language television ads, setting records for individual and combined Democratic expenditures in a presidential primary season. By combining original research, interviews and news reports, the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University estimates that the Democratic presidential candidates spent more money – at least $4 million – on Spanish-language television advertising this cycle, outpacing total spending in 2000 and total primary spending in 2004. “Three factors have likely contributed to increased spending on Spanish-language appeals: a front-loaded calendar and extended process featuring states with large Hispanic populations, a very competitive Democratic contest, as well as record candidate fundraising and overall spending,” according to Adam J. Segal, founder and director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University. The two remaining Democratic candidates, Senators Hillary Clinton (NY) and Barack Obama (IL) have continued to create and air Spanish-language ads as the Democratic primary contests have dragged on, with attention now turned to Pennsylvania (where both campaigns are airing Spanish-language TV spots) and eventually Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, Republican candidates also aired Spanish-language ads during the primaries and the campaign of likely party nominee’ Sen. John McCain (AZ) recently released its first general election Spanish-language TV spot. This information is the result of a research project that involved interviews with TV station managers, visits to TV stations to review the public political files, as well as Internet and news media research. The findings were released late yesterday at the “Understanding the Hispanic Vote in 2008” Conference sponsored by the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School at The University of Texas at Austin. The full report is now available online in PDF form at http://advanced.jhu.edu/government/hvp

A couple months ago a reporter with a major national news organization called to ask what I thought about the fact so little had been spent on Spanish-language TV advertising in the months before the presidential primaries, given how much growth we had seen in recent cycles. He or she reminded me of a press release I distributed years ago that screamed record spending. My reaction was that it was way too early to assume a decline and that the story is probably best written after the primaries were held in states with huge Hispanic populations.

Well we're nearing that point. I was excited to see Ira Teinowitz's (of Advertising Age) scoop on this subject. His story, out tonight, reports:

"Hispanic Spending in Texas to Surpass $2 Million"

AND

"Together, the candidates spent nearly $2 million advertising to Spanish-speaking Hispanics in California, and broadcasters are saying spending ahead of the March 4 Texas primary could top that."

AND

"TNSI Campaign Media Analysis Group reports that before Texas, a total of $2.6 million had been spent on Hispanic media. Texas already has seen $400,000 and the broadcasters said total spending is fast moving up."

Wow. It's nice to have access to these data.

I'll have to look back at my records before I can say for certain, but gosh this seems huge. Is it evidence of record spending in the Democratic primaries yet? Hmmm, perhaps.

Regardless, this seems to predict it will reach record levels by the time the Texas primary is held during the first week of March (on the 4th).

A side topic is the campaigns' choices of media consultants. Teinowitz points out the Obama campaign chose a Texas-based consultant, perhaps providing unique state-specific insights.

Visit my Hispanic Voter Project page for data from part cycles:
http://advanced.jhu.edu/academic/government/hvp/

It looks more and more likely that the next Democratic presidential candidate, no matter who they are, will be able to count on the Hispanic vote jackpot. Two new stories out today are really in line with this thinking.

First, skilled political writer Susan Page at USA Today reported from San Antonio for a cover story on "Hispanics turning back to Democrats for 2008." The headline itself is somewhat misldeading -- My sense is that Democrats have historically enjoyed 56% or more of the Hispanic vote (if you think the exit polls are usually wrong you start at 60% or more). But the premise of the piece is absolutely accurate: Democrats are poised to receive the largest share of the Hispanic vote in years if all goes in their favor in the walk-up to the 2008 presidential election. And with the immigration bill blocked in Congress -- by the GOP is you ask Democratic Party leadership in Congress -- it'll be a very big up hill climb.

Page reports on a new USA Today poll which finds: "A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll indicates that Hispanics, by nearly 3 to 1, say they're Democrats or lean that way. Of those, 59% support the New York senator [Sen. Hillary Clinton] over her presidential rivals — her strongest showing among any major demographic group and a huge potential asset for early contests in Nevada, Florida, California and other states with large Hispanic populations."

Page writes that Hispanic New Mexico Governor Bill "Richardson still has to introduce himself. Six in 10 Hispanics polled say they've never heard of the former congressman and Cabinet member, the first Hispanic to seek the Democratic presidential nomination."

Page gives the kicker quote to San Antonio advertising super-star, and a friend of mine, Frank Guerra. Guerra says Hispanic brand loyalty -- and political loyalty -- is up for grabs. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports today out of Orlando, Florida that "Republican presidential candidates made a major miscalculation this week by skipping the nation's largest gathering of Hispanic elected officials, local party representatives and event organizers said."

Can you say intra-party problems: "The Republican candidates have blown off Hispanics in Florida," said state Rep. Juan Zapata, a Republican who helped bring the NALEO event to the state.

More: "With many Hispanics already concerned about some of the candidates' opposition to a bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants which failed in the Senate Thursday and anti-Hispanic rhetoric accompanying the debate, top candidates can ill-afford to alienate those loyal to the party, especially in a swing state like Florida, they said."

Right on. Ok, sure most Hispanics never hear anything out of this conference but if you're a supporter and your candidate is doing little to stimulate interest among influentials, particularly Republican Hispanic elected officials, you're really upset they're skipping the NALEO conference.

Now for your added enjoyment, here are some recent articles that quote me or reference my research on Hispanic voters, Hispanic political outreach and immigration issues:

- Agence France Presse (AFP)
- The Washington Post
- The Washington Post (II)
- National Public Radio (NPR)
- U.S. News & World Report
- Christian Science Monitor

Today's New York Times has a fascinating Business section cover story on Mars company's effort to reintroduce Uncle Ben's rice and side dish products to the American consumer. The article points readers to a new website, unclebens.com, where the company has repositioned Uncle Ben as the chairman of the company.

I explored the site and found a calendar on Ben's executive office desk that has him speaking to the National Institutes of Health and meeting with a Senator You-Know-Who on a Friday in March.

It is a notable transformation of a brand character that has always carried with it the baggage of racial insensitivity that has also been associated with the brand and other brands such as Aunt Jemima's pancake syrup.

The Times was right to front-page this story. As advertising reporter Stuart Elliott writes in the story:

"The previous reluctance to feature Uncle Ben prominently in ads stood in stark contrast to the way other human characters like Orville Redenbacher and Colonel Sanders personify their products. That reticence can be traced to the contentious history of Uncle Ben as the black face of a white company, wearing a bow tie evocative of servants and Pullman porters and bearing a title reflecting how white Southerners once used “uncle” and “aunt” as honorifics for older blacks because they refused to say “Mr.” and “Mrs.”

Before the civil rights movement took hold, marketers of food and household products often used racial and ethnic stereotypes in creating brand characters and mascots.

In addition to Uncle Ben, there was Aunt Jemima, who sold pancake mix in ads that sometimes had her exclaiming, “Tempt yo’ appetite;” a grinning black chef named Rastus, who represented Cream of Wheat hot cereal; the Gold Dust Twins, a pair of black urchins who peddled a soap powder for Lever Brothers; the Frito Bandito, who spoke in an exaggerated Mexican accent; and characters selling powdered drink mixes for Pillsbury under names like Injun Orange and Chinese Cherry — the latter baring buck teeth."

This will certainly add a new layer to the discussion I initiate with students in my ethnic marketing course at Johns Hopkins University.

Click [here] to read the NYT article.

BusinessWeek magazine repoter Burt Helm has a piece in the print edition (and online) this week on the Goldman Sachs plan to gobble up Hispanic marketing shops and may spend $50 million.

I know of a lot of unique and effective PR shops, including my own The 2050 Group, that specialize in reaching Hispanic media on behalf of clients and would be wise investments as the market and business demand continues to grow.

Visit [here] to see the article  on their site or see below:

BusinessWeek

February 5, 2007

MARKETING
It's Fiesta Time At Goldman

Every year at Hispanic street festivals across the country, millions of immigrant and U.S.-born Latinos throw back beers, enjoy live music, and feast on everything from empanadas to fresh mangoes. Now Goldman Sachs wants to join the fiesta. Over the next five years the company's merchant bank plans to spend as much as $50 million buying up marketing and advertising companies that cater to the growing Hispanic population in the U.S., even acquiring street fair operators along the way.

Virtually every ad conglomerate has a Hispanic unit. But Goldman will be the first to unite a group of Hispanic marketing and entertainment outfits into a holding company that will serve as a single stop for big brands hoping to navigate the promising but increasingly complex market. Even some competitors concede Goldman is on to something. "Clients are all asking for integrated services," says Carl Kravetz, president of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies and CEO of Los Angeles-based cruz/kravetz:ideas.

At the outset, Goldman is looking to snare one of the 30 to 40 independent Hispanic ad agencies that annually generate between $25 million and $100 million each in billings, plus a research firm and a festival producer. Goldman will be majority shareholder with management handled by Latin Force, a marketing consultancy. The idea is to tap into second-generation Latinos. Young and bilingual, they consume mostly English-language media but still retain aspects of their parents' heritage.

By 2010 the number of these "New Generation" Latinos could reach 15.4 million, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C. Practically all growth in the coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic comes from Hispanics, according to Pew. "The Hispanic market is getting so complicated and confus-ing," says Goldman Managing Director Kevin Jordan. "That's the reason to build a company like this."

ADWEEK reports on the announcement from media tracking agency TNS that they're projecting 5.4% growth for Hispanic advertising this year.

According to the article posted [here] on ADWEEK's site: "The Hispanic market is continuing to look very strong," said Steven Fredericks, president and CEO of TNS Media Intelligence. "The overall outlook for 2007 is relatively conservative at 2.6 percent, and the growth forecast for Hispanic media is more than double that.

Hispanic media buys have been smart investments for so many companies who have effectively reached into the Hispanic consumer market.

And many of the major investors behind Hispanic media ventures have seen their investments swell. This is exactly why Univision was able to sell itself for an astronomical amount of money to a team of investors. The Hispanic market continues to grow both in dollars and consumers and this is part of what makes tracking this market so exciting.

The Wall Street Journal today ran a lengthy excerpt from the new book by Stephanie Capparell titled "The Real Pepsi Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business." The Journal, which is published by the Journal and Free Press (a division of Simon and Schuster), published the excerpt on the front of its Marketplace section.

Capparell writes that Pepsi hired an all-black marketing sales division to go after the Black consumer market which she reports was valued at more than $10 billion. Her narrative covers the experience and historical significance of this sales team and reports on the ethnic marketing strategies they and the company employed.

She writes, "The mission of the black sales representatives at Pepsi-Cola was to win over loyal new customers - first by making personal appearances, then by placing ads in the black press and setting up displays at mom-and-pop stores in black communities."

The marketing team "visited bottlers, churches, 'ladies groups,' schools, college campuses, YMCAs, community centers, insurance conventions, teacher and doctor conferences, and various civic organizations."

[Here]  is a link to the book on Amazon and [here] is the description on the Simon and Schuster site. 

I'm excited to be able to alert to this and share it, in the form of a case study, with my ethnic marketing students at Johns Hopkins University.

In what I regard as a killer publicity stunt, Texas based pizza shop chain "Pizza Petron" announced it will begin accepting Mexican pesos as currency at its U.S. shops along with U.S. currency.

Pizza Petron launched as the pizza chain that aimed to attract unprecedented numbers of Hispanic American consumers to the popular American food and it has not been shy in trying to attract Spanish-dominant consumers. The company says its stores are "based in Spanish speaking or predominately Hispanic neighborhoods."

Today, the Dallas Morning News reported on the announcement [here].

Ethnic marketing exec Juan Faura, whose book I have assigned in past semesters for my graduate course in ethnic marketing, tells the Dallas paper:

"If you're not in a border town, I don't see the functional benefit," said Juan Faura, president and chief executive of Cultura, a Dallas-based marketing and advertising firm.

He and others saw the program more as a marketing effort than a badly needed service.

"I would see it as a move by the chain to communicate unequivocally to the Hispanic market that they are for them," Mr. Faura said.

"I don't see any other reason for it."

He's exactly right. This is a huge publicity stunt more than anything else. A good publicist might squeeze an extra couple days worth of attention out of this by helping attract a protest outside corporate headquarters or the various store locations. Free publicity can be enormously valuable.

Click [here] for the company's official announcement.