Time was Hispanic marketing meant translating your general market advertising slogan into Spanish. There were a few hiccups as when the ubiquitous “Got Milk” phrase literally translated to “are you lactating?” But for the most part, advertisers were content to run bilingual campaigns to get their message across. Fast forward a few years. In some states, like California, Latinos are a minority by only the smallest of margins, if at all. They come from any number of countries and generations. They may not even speak much Spanish anymore. A common background may tie them all together, but the similarities often end there, a shift that has created a niche for companies like Santiago ROI and its sister Santiago Solutions Group, consultants providing Hispanic market intelligence, strategic planning, marketing communications and advertising services. Since it opened six years ago, with offices now in Encino and San Francisco, the company has grown to 18 employees and boasts a client list of Fortune 500 companies including Johnson & Johnson and its McNeil consumer unit, makers of Tylenol among other products; Humana healthcare; Pernod Ricard, distributors of Chivas Regal, Stolichnaya and Beefeater among others; Nestle, and Telscape, a Hispanic telecom company. Carlos Santiago, a featured speaker and expert on Hispanic marketing, says he never had a burning desire to be an entrepreneur. Rather, after two decades in corporate strategic planning and marketing posts for Anheuser-Busch, Pacific Bell, NYNEX and Verizon, he realized that the Fortune 500 were paying exorbitant fees to consultants for intelligence on Hispanic marketing and their accounts were often serviced by MBAs with little experience with the market. Born and raised in Puerto Rico and educated in the Midwest, Santiago figured he could fill what he saw was a gap in expertise for what was becoming a highly sought-after and increasingly complex service. Question: How have corporate perspectives about Hispanic marketing changed recently? Answer: I believe after the 2000 census there was a major awakening for most marketers in the U.S. The census made it absolutely clear that it is no longer a quote, unquote niche market or an emerging market. It was not small potatoes anymore. It’s no longer (a matter of) if you have extra money you do it. It’s an absolute requirement to succeed in making money for shareholders in corporate America. If you don’t have a Hispanic strategy, competitors will figure it out and they will have an advantage that will make you unsuccessful. Q: What has that meant for your business? A: I believe clients now are ready to do it the right way, to come into the market with the same preparation that they would go after the women’s market or the teen market. They don’t want my gut feelings. They want my scientific approach, so for us, because we are quantitative and strategy driven, it’s been fantastic. Before, they used to go directly into communications strategy. Now they want to begin with business strategy. It’s not just about translating. It’s do I have the stores in the right place? Do I have the right merchandise? How do the stores look and feel? As opposed to how do I say this in Spanish? Q: Everyone reads the same demographic statistics on the growth of the Hispanic population, but yet some companies have been very aggressive in their Hispanic marketing efforts and others have not. What typically has to happen at a corporation to persuade the company to make the necessary investment? A: Some companies are kind of monkey see, monkey do. Their top competitor is having substantial success, whether it’s in the Hispanic market or states with high Hispanic populations. They start peeling the onion. Why are they opening more bank accounts than I do? Why are their sales per square foot higher? Declining growth while there is an acceleration from other competitors is oftentimes the biggest motivator. The chief marketing officers don’t call the shots anymore. It’s the CFOs. Q: How does a company know when a brand can benefit from Hispanic marketing? A: The first step into what we do is to design an opportunity sizing analysis that looks at the current state of the brands in the Hispanic market and uses competitive analysis and the Hispanic perception of the brand to forecast its full potential. What is the size of the prize and how many years of investment will it take me? We have clients where Hispanic growth accounts for two-thirds of the entire growth of the company. That’s how much power can be mined in some categories out of this market. Q: What are some of the things companies typically do wrong when they enter this field? A: They try to simplify it into terms that don’t exist in the general market. For example, what colors do they like? They like vibrant colors. They paint the store red, they want to change the logo to red, everything red red, red, red, red. They say they like music, so they pump music into the store really loud. The last time I went to Mexico there were logos that were red, blue and green just like here. I think they get into wanting quick answers. They say tell me three things I should do. My answer is, did it only take you three times to figure out the general market? There’s nothing easy about the Hispanic market. It’s not more difficult than the general market, but good marketing takes a thorough array of tactics that don’t touch the consumer just one way. Q: Who are the companies doing the best job marketing to Hispanics? A: Wal-Mart is doing great. They have identified a large number of stores they designate Hispanic where they increase the merchandise displays, stock maybe the same product but in different sizes. They may bring in that product as it was formulated in Mexico. They make the store experience more appealing by having bilingual signage and a bilingual sales staff. They will have parking lot fiestas or carnivals tied to some of the manufacturers to add to the connection between the retailer, the manufacturer and the consumer. Obviously, they’ve also integrated communication strategies that are not a direct translation of the general market efforts. Q: What are some of the typical differences in Hispanic consumers versus the general market? A: Even after normalizing variations in income level, Hispanics are significantly more brand driven and loyal than non-Hispanics for most categories. There are two drivers, one emotional and one rational. The emotional is that this is a way of showing my family how much I love them. I’ll bring Foster Farms chicken. It costs more but I’m not going to bring chicken that has no name. And then from a rational point of view I’m taking less risk because I know that from my mom’s time this was the brand at the table. So why should I save some money to take the risk that it’s not going to be good? Then they’re going to say I don’t love them enough. Q: You split your company into two groups, Santiago Solutions Group and Santiago ROI last May. What does each do and why split them up? A: The division here in Encino is Santiago ROI. Santiago Solutions Group in San Francisco focuses on strategy and consulting. In Encino, we get into communications and execution. Santiago Solutions determines the size of the opportunity identifies the most promising brands in the portfolio, identifies the sub-segment to go after, whether they’re first generation, second, country of origin. And then it develops strategies for pricing, product, retail and communications. Then Santiago ROI takes the communications strategies and creates powerful ideas creative, branding to take them to the marketplace, all the pieces that customers will see throughout every touch point. SNAPSHOT – Carlos L. Santiago Title: President, CEO Santiago ROI and Santiago Solutions Group Born: 1963, Puerto Rico Education: B.S. architecture, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; MBA, marketing and strategy, Washington University, St. Louis Most Admired Person: President John F. Kennedy Career Turning Point: “While a strategic planner at Anheuser-Busch it dawned on me I wasn’t growing as a leader, so I decided to go into telecom where I was not only serving a business unit, I also had sales reps and union telemarketers under my control. Personally, I just blossomed. And from there, I became a leader in the community. I serve on the boards of the National Latino Children’s Institute, Hispanic Federation and the Latino Community Foundation.” Personal: Single
