With more than 46 million people, Nuevo Hispania is the 27th-largest nation on Earth and the fourth largest in the Western Hemisphere. Its residents wield $1 trillion of buying power in the marketplace. Even as the rest of the economy contracts in the global recession, Nuevo Hispania remains a thriving, even booming, market that’s expected to grow by 48 percent in the next four years.

And it’s not even a real country.

The imaginary “Nuevo Hispania” is actually a substantial segment of the U.S. population. Hispanics now account for more than 17 percent of the U.S. populace as the nation’s largest minority group. And while other demographic sectors are growing only incrementally, the Hispanic population is exploding: The Census Bureau projects 30 percent of Americans will be Hispanic by 2050 and by 2097, 50% of all Americans will be Hispanic.

The Hispanic market’s growing clout comes even as the recession takes a harsh toll on Latino workers. The elimination of tens of thousands of construction jobs has hit the sector particularly hard, sending the national unemployment rate for Latino males to 11 percent.

For decades, businesses and cultural institutions could afford to ignore the Hispanic market. Now, they are chasing it aggressively, because that’s where the money is.

That poses a big challenge. Underrepresented for decades in U.S. commerce and media, Hispanic Americans long ago developed their own commercial, cultural and media channels. And that means companies and institutions can’t just throw open the doors and expect Hispanics to come in.

Those companies and institutions must go to the customer.

“For companies to grow in the coming years, it is critical to understand how to reach and connect with these consumers,” said Reinaldo Padua, assistant vice president for Hispanic marketing for Coca-Cola North America.

Identifying the audience crucial

The word “Hispanic” is misleading. Unlike many other minority groups, “Hispanic” is not a race — it is an umbrella word collecting people of Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican and any other Spanish or Latino cultural origin.

They are not united by culture or by history, said Jeffrey M. Humphreys, director of the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, and Hispanics from different cultures tend to cluster in cohesive urban neighborhoods. What unites them, Humphreys argues in “The Multicultural Economy,” is simply the Spanish language.

That means a generic appeal is not enough, said Lorenzo Lopez, director of multicultural media at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

“It’s not a matter of checking the ‘Spanish’ box” and calling it a day, he said.

The goal is to connect to the culture in a socially relevant way and make sure each community’s specific needs is served. For Wal-Mart, that means tailoring individual stores to meet to the demands of the local market.

The company installed a tortilla machine in its store in Garland, Texas, a heavily Hispanic area, and built a Pollo Campero, a fast-food chicken chain hugely popular in Central America, in a store in nearby Rowlett. It put up bilingual signs, stocked produce geared toward Latino appetites and sold movies and music skewed toward Latino tastes.

More than the Spanish language

AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, began applying the same principle about seven years ago. Today, the organization has 1.2 million Hispanic members.

“Reaching the Hispanic community will continue to be a key focus for us, and we will continue to expand outreach efforts to this demographic,” said Emilio Pardo, AARP’s executive vice president and chief brand officer.

The crucial point, he said, is not just to translate existing programs, publications and services into Spanish. Instead, you have to “transcreate — to be in the community.”

AARP “transcreates” through its magazine Segunda Juventud, or Second Youth. Billed as “the only publication for 50+ Hispanic Americans,” the bilingual magazine tailors AARP’s five universal pillars — health, financial security, community, intergenerational issues and fun — to the needs of Hispanic communities.

Hispanics, for instance, tend to have “stronger intergenerational ties than the general population, with multiple generations living under one roof,” Pardo said. So the AARP’s caregiving and financial advice is geared more toward family-oriented caretaking at home, as opposed to more independent caretaking for its general audience of retirees living alone.

Similarly, as its Hispanic members tend to be younger, AARP may focus more on college advice and tuition management.

In addition to the magazine, AARP also uses an arsenal of podcasts, Spanish-language radio broadcasts and live events to get its message out.

In May 2007, AARP sponsored its first national Hispanic event, drawing 16,400 people to Feria de la Segunda Juventud (the “Festival of the Second Youth”) in Puerto Rico, a two-day event that featured 60 exhibitors, music, food and celebrity appearances by the likes of Gloria Estefan. A similar event is planned for this May in San Antonio, Texas.

“Nearly 8 percent of Hispanics are over 50, but what is much more important is that this number is expected to more than double by 2025, according to the census,” Pardo said. “The considerable population growth dictates that we look at it as a business imperative.”

Hispanic ad firms thrive
 

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the explosion in Hispanic buying power is the U.S. Hispanic advertising industry, which the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies estimates is growing four times faster than all other sectors of the ad industry.

“Marketers now see that the Hispanic market in the U.S. is a great business opportunity,” said Sergio Alcocer, president and chief creative officer of LatinWorks Marketing Inc. of Austin, Texas, whose accounts include Anheuser-Busch, ESPN and Burger King.

It’s a sharp contrast from only a few years ago, during the first wave of Hispanic advertising in the 1980s and 1990s, when companies invested in the Hispanic market “almost kind of like a good citizen-type thing.”

The competition is especially acute within the cell phone industry.

In 2006, industry research found that Hispanics “over-index” in almost every category: They use more minutes, make long-distance calls, text more and download more ring tones.

“Family and social bonds are stronger than in the general population, and Latinos communicate more with each other,” said Isaac Mizrahi, director of multicultural marketing communications for Sprint Nextel Corp.

Both Sprint Nextel and AT&T Inc. have a wide array of tools with which to attract the Hispanic user. AT&T, for example, has developed 716 Hispanic Intensity Traffic (HIT) stores, where all sales material and staff are bilingual, in high-density Hispanic areas.

In addition to a similar network of bilingual stores, Sprint Nextel last year sponsored the tour of the Colombian rock star Juanes. The company released singles for download before his album “La Vida ... Es un Ratico en Vivo” was released and provided video, ring tones, concert information and the ability to purchase tickets over its Sprint mobile devices.

For Hispanics, Coke is it
 

Perhaps no other mainstream U.S. company has been building bridges to Hispanic customers longer than Coca-Cola.

Coke’s forays in targeting Hispanics go back more than 30 years. It has been a worldwide sponsor of soccer’s World Cup since 1978, frequently features Latino players in its ads, and it had the advantage of having had a strong presence in Latin America: When immigrants came to the United States, they regarded the brand as an iconic representation of their new homeland.

This month, Coke is launching a marketing campaign centered on the “American dream,” emphasizing the company’s historic role in Hispanic America’s immigrant narrative. The ads will be bilingual, highlighting Hispanics’ growing acculturation and placing Coke itself as a bicultural product.

“As a company, we identified the burgeoning Hispanic market many years ago and have strengthened the bond that exists between Coca-Cola and Hispanics,” Padua said.

“Any company who wants to grow must look at the Hispanic market.”

Coming later this year

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