Blog

If Rosetta Stone hasn’t taught you que from quien, maybe a passion for pepperoni will do the trick.

Texas-based chain Pizza Patrón, which has locations in Las Vegas and has traditionally marketed to Hispanics, is offering a free, large pepperoni pizza to anyone who orders in Spanish between 5 and 8 p.m. on June 5. And, while pizza may hardly seem a topic that courts controversy, as USA Today reported last week, the campaign has drawn critics from all sides.

“Maybe they thought it was a cute thing to do, but I think it’s discrimination,” Marcela Gomez, president of Hispanic Marketing Group in Nashville, told the paper.

“It seems to punish people who can’t speak Spanish, and I resent that,” said Peter Thomas, chairman of the Conservative Caucus.

Pizza Patrón regularly targets Hispanics with promotions, and in 2007 the chain started accepting pesos, a move that also drew criticism, although it continues to accept the Mexican currency today. Eduardo Gonzalez, an owner of Pizza Patrón stores in Las Vegas, said the company was simply trying to thank its customers and have some fun. He said everyone was welcome to come in for the deal, and “una pizza, por favor” is all that’s needed to cash in on the free pie. In fact, Pizza Patrón is only giving away large pepperoni pizzas, so ordering should be easy, no matter how well you speak Spanish. READ MORE

The first Latino president of the United States already has been born.

Henry Cisneros, the former San Antonio mayor who was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration, made the suggestion three years ago in an interview with the Spanish-language news service EFE.

"I don't know if he or she's in elementary school or in law school or is already elected ... to public office, but I believe that that person is already alive, and we're 20 years or less away from having a Latino or Latina president," said Cisneros, whose own path to higher office may have been derailed by personal scandal and who today is executive chairman of CityView, an urban development investment firm.

When the day comes that Cisneros predicted, the man or woman behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office will represent an ever-increasing segment of the population. Latinos (or Hispanics, the official government term) made up 15.5% of the U.S. population in 2010, but by 2050 they're projected to approach 25% of the population.

The American, the online magazine of the American Enterprise Institute, calls the Hispanic electorate a "sleeping giant" yet to wake. READ MORE

Sketching impressive contributions to society in intensely personal terms, President Barack Obama presented the Medal of Freedom to more than a dozen political and cultural greats Tuesday, including farmworker union trailblazer Dolores Huerta.

Other honorees included rocker Bob Dylan, astronaut John Glenn and novelist Toni Morrison.

In awarding the nation's highest civilian honor to 13 recipients, living and dead, the president took note of the overflow crowd in the East Room and said it was "a testament to how cool this group is. Everybody wanted to check 'em out."

Huerta is co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America. Obama recalled reading about Huerta when he was starting out as a community organizer.

Obama spoke of his personal connection to a number of this year's recipients, calling them "my heroes individually." READ MORE

Future physician Maria Garcia-Jimenez was planning a nutrition class for at-risk Latina teens when it became clear, in discussions with her community partner, that the girls had other, equally pressing needs. Which is how García, 23 at the time, found herself designing an eight-week sex-education workshop.

Health was Garcia’s area of expertise — she’s a medical and masters-degree student, after all, in the UC Berkeley-UC San Francisco Joint Medical Program (JMP). Yet it felt like a tall order — earning the girls’ trust, keeping them engaged, being “science-y and factual” on delicate topics like contraception and sexually transmitted infections, all without imposing her own moral values.

“I was pretty anxious,” Garcia says of her mindset as she overhauled her plans.

On a hunch, she decided to rely largely on peer teaching. In one workshop, for instance, the girls worked in groups to identify pros and cons of different contraceptive options, then presented their findings to one another — a great way, it turned out, “to address their true interests and questions, and have more material actually stick.” READ MORE

A social media-based group of Latinos is getting serious about influencing politics, online and off. Latinos in Social Media (LATISM) will hold a tech conference at Google's New York offices in June, and will give the White House a town hall style forum at its annual conference in October.

"It's the epicenter for all the Latinos in social media," said Elianne Ramos, vice-chair, marketing for the group [photo left], describing the LATISM 2012 conference to be held in Houston, Texas.

The three-year-old organization, which has 150,000 U.S. members, also plans to host John Berry, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, during one of LATISM's weekly Twitter chats to discuss federal opportunities for Latinos. Weekly chats focus on subjects like the economy and jobs, the environment, and cultural issues.

And the group recently held an event for Latina bloggers in Washington, D.C. that included a briefing at the White House.

"It's time for Latinos to become more active in the civic life of the United States," Ramos told ClickZ News during an April interview.

The White House's director of social media was at LATISM's annual conference last year, she said. Ramos stressed that LATISM is non-partisan and doesn't accept money from political entities. The main goal of the group's government interactions is to help people register to vote and give members a platform to communicate messages important to Latinos directly to the government. READ MORE

Latina mommy bloggers are gaining clout across South Florida, reflecting an explosion in Hispanic buying power and the vital role of women in household purchasing decisions.

Hundreds of Hispanic moms now write blogs in English, Spanish or both, exploring such topics as family and children, food and recipes, immigration, fashion, coupons and deals. Some have made the blogs their jobs, making money through ads or often from companies whose products they discuss.

West Palm Beach resident Denisse Icaza, 26, writes ahorrosparamama.com, or Savings for Mama, a site that helps save money through coupons and other deals. The Florida Atlantic University graduate started the blog in her spare time in 2009 when she saw few sites with information on deals in Spanish.

Now, Icaza has more than 4,000 subscribers to her blog and more than 3,000 fans on her Facebook page. READ MORE

Eva Longoria actually tried to defend a series she had agreed to co-produce about Latinas cast as housekeepers. But in the process, the Hispanic television star came across as, well, desperate.

The program — “Devious Maids,” which was set to debut this fall on ABC — was, if you'll excuse the expression, the brainchild of Marc Cherry. One would expect more from the creator of the hit show “Desperate Housewives,” which starred Longoria and recently wrapped up its final season.

Casting Latinas as maids isn't much of a stretch creatively. In fact, Lupe Ontiveros, a Mexican American actress from an earlier generation, estimates that she has played a maid on screen as many as 300 times.

Fortunately, ABC decided not to pick up the series.

Based on the popular Mexican telenovela “The Disorderly Maids of the Neighborhood,” it would have revolved around four women who worked as maids in Beverly Hills.

When critics sounded off, Longoria got defensive.

“They are the leads of the show, and they are playing maids, which is a realistic reflection of our society today in America,” she told the Huffington Post. “When we get any sort of backlash for — ‘Oh, they're playing the stereotypical maids' — my immediate response is, ‘So you're telling me those stories aren't worth telling, that those people are lesser than, that their stories aren't worth exploring, that they have no complexity in their life because they're a maid?'” READ MORE

In the most predictable demographic revolution ever, the Census Bureau reported that nonwhite babies now make up a majority of all births.

This shift was inevitable as long as the basic architecture of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act remained in place. It ended the old system of per-country quotas and -- together with subsequent liberalizations -- unleashed a flood of immigration from Latin America and Asia. So long as about a million new immigrants entered the country every year, a demographic transformation was ensured as a matter of mathematics.

By 2010, the immigrant population was 40 million, following the highest decade in immigration in our history. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the immigrant population had doubled since 1990, nearly tripled since 1980, and quadrupled since 1970. Hispanics went from about 4 percent of the population in the mid-1960s to 16 percent in 2010.

Ted Kennedy and other architects of the 1965 law predicted that nothing much would come of the law's changes. "Our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually," Kennedy insisted, and "the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset." Forty-five years later, Hispanics are roughly 26 percent of all births, blacks 15 percent, and Asians 4 percent.

These categories aren't quite as clear-cut as advertised. About half of Hispanics identify their race as white on the census, a phenomenon that was neglected until the New York Times started calling George Zimmerman a "white Hispanic," apparently on grounds that an unambiguously Hispanic man couldn't possibly be involved in a racially charged shooting of a young black man. READ MORE

Hispanic voters are a crucial constituency in the presidential election, but reaching young Hispanics will require new tactics – and some experts say mobile-phone outreach will be key.

There are more than 21 million eligible Hispanic voters – and more than 30 percent of them are 18 to 30 years old. About 50,000 Hispanics reach the voting age of 18 each month.

But Hispanic voters under 30 have the lowest turnout of any group: Only 41 percent of them voted in 2008.

Young voters and Hispanic voters are far more likely to use their phones to go online than older generations are, so campaigns that use mobile technology are most likely to reach young Hispanics, according to Peter Levine, the director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

That’s because a mobile phone and an app are personalized and engaging – a far cry from a robocall or a TV ad. Young voters are deeply skeptical of one-for-all marketing and respond best to one-on-one, Hispanic-to-Hispanic marketing, according to research by Levine’s group.

It’s “particularly effective in overcoming issues of trust and motivation that would otherwise be in the way of voting,” Levine said.

Alex Velasco, a 26-year-old first-generation Mexican-American, said Levine’s assessments were right on.

“It’s really easy to reach me on my phone because I have it with me all the time – when I’m on the train, when I’m walking,” Velasco said. “If you send me something political (on my phone), I would be way more likely to read it because it is so easy.” READ MORE

Chicago’s population is more than one-third Latino, but you’d have never known it by looking at the protesters who marched against NATO last weekend.

I covered most of the events held by the anti-NATO demonstrators, from the People’s Summit on the South Side to the die-in at Boeing on Monday, and I was hard-pressed to find a Latino to talk to about why he or she was protesting.

Even at an immigration rally, only about 50 Latino activists marched from Little Village to the Immigration Court Building on Van Buren. There, they joined a group of mostly white young activists from Occupy Chicago to demonstrate against deportations.

I found a more diverse crowd at the nurses’ rally at Daley Center Plaza on Friday. The nurses stole the anti-NATO show wearing Robin Hood costumes and dancing to the Beatles. More importantly, they sent a clear message that the United States should impose a tax on finance house trades to help pay for health care for all those people hurt by the economic crisis that, the nurses say, the banks and financial institutions created.

I found Omara Chiardello, a nurse from California, who captured in a few words what a lot of Americans are going through.

“Many of my patients have to decide between buying food for their children or their medicine,” she said. READ MORE

Spanish or English – Espanol o Ingles?

To reach young Hispanic voters, most politicians and organizations have taken a bilingual approach, to varying degrees.

But most young Hispanics lead English-dominant lives, raising the question of whether the Spanish-language campaign communication still is necessary.

“What both Romney and Obama need to start doing to the Latino community – they need to start talking to them in English,” said Maria Teresa Kumar, the executive director of Voto Latino, a nonpartisan voter-registration organization. “The best way to get their votes is to talk to them in an acculturated tone.”

Voto Latino’s website, Facebook page and Twitter feed are all in English.

But President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, as well as the national Republican and Democratic parties, use varying degrees of Spanish communication.

The Obama campaign launched Latinos for Obama, a predominately English site, but the main website also can be viewed in Spanish. The campaign sends tweets and news releases in both languages.

Campaign officials say they recognize that many young Hispanics speak English, but that doesn’t mean that Spanish isn’t still an important way to reach Hispanic voters.

“Spanish-language news consumption among Hispanic families is huge,” said Gabriela Domenzain, the director of Hispanic media for the Obama campaign. “If it’s not the young Hispanic who is watching, it’s maybe grandparents or the parents.” READ MORE

During my time in New York City last week, I had the pleasure to attend a special event hosted by Cosmos for Latinas at Macy’s Herald Square to celebrate the beauty and culture of Brasil. As part of their “Brasil: A Magical Journey” campaign, Macy’s has put together an amazing display of limited-edition capsule collections created by renowned Brazilian designers, Brazil-inspired fashion from other designers, including existing Macy’s brands.

After a brief introduction from Donna Kalajian Lagani, editor-in-chief and SVP, publishing director and chief revenue officer of Cosmopolitan and Michelle Herrera Mulligan, Editor-In-Chief of Cosmo For Latinas, I got to meet with many of the beauty brands participating in the campaign including Estee Lauder, Clarins, Shiseido, Lancome, and Coty Fragrances.

I want to pick a favorite to tell you all about but I just can’t! I’m a Miami girl and in love with bursts of color so everything I’m about to share with you is totally a “must buy.” Plus, I’ve been to Brazil and think this is the perfect way to experience all the beauty and electricity that the South American country has to offer without sitting 9 hours on a plane and spending large amounts of money on travel expenses! REMEMBER

Swing states with large Hispanic populations are generating higher mobile ad prices for political advertisers than other 2012 election battleground states. Though it's not clear that the desire to reach Hispanic voters is driving up prices, the data from mobile ad firm Pontiflex suggests it could cost campaigns more to target mobile ads to them.

Political candidates and groups using the firm's mobile signup ads are spending nearly $1 more per lead on average in Nevada and $2 more per lead on average in New Mexico, compared with average costs of the same types of ads targeting people in other swing states.

The battleground state prices, however, are highest in Montana, which has the smallest population of all the states measured, and where the Hispanic population is tiny in comparison to Nevada and New Mexico.

"The more populous a state is, the lower the cost per lead," said Zephrin Lasker, co-founder and CEO of Pontiflex. "Though prices will go up in more sought-after states due to increased demand at some point in the future - as we get closer to the election - this has not happened yet," he said.

Pontiflex serves ads in mobile apps that allow users to signup with campaigns by providing email addresses, names and Zip codes without leaving the app. The company charges advertisers when people signup via the app ads.

Rather than targeting ads to certain types of mobile apps, or based on demographic data, political advertisers mainly are targeting the Pontiflex ads geographically in the hopes of building their lists in key locales, said Lasker.

AT&T to Launch Univision’s Telenovela, Sports and News Networks

NEW YORK , NY/ DALLAS, TX – MAY 11, 2012— Univision Communications Inc., the leading media company serving Hispanic America, and AT&T*, the nation’s fastest-growing TV provider**, today announced a multi-year, multi-platform content agreement to deliver Univision content across all of  AT&T’s platforms, including U-verse® TV, online, smartphones and tablets.

The agreement will bring the most comprehensive selection of Spanish-language networks and content to AT&T customers, including the launch of Univision’s new networks - Univision Deportes, Univision tlnovelas and FOROtv. The deal will also give U-verse TV customers the freedom to watch more Univision content across various platforms and devices, including live feeds of Univision networks in and outside of the home.

In addition, the agreement also includes distribution of Univision’s networks: the Univision Network, TeleFutura, Galavisión and a suite of five TV channels - De Película, De Película Clásico, Bandamax, Ritmoson and Telehit.  Univision Deportes and Univision tlnovelas will launch in the coming weeks and FOROtv will launch later this year.

“Our agreement with AT&T speaks to the importance of the booming Hispanic consumer demographic and the opportunity to deliver subscriber growth through Univision’s platforms,” said Chris Fager, senior vice president of Distribution Sales and Marketing, Univision Communications Inc. “We are excited to expand our deal with AT&T as they maintain an ongoing commitment to the ever growing Hispanic community. This agreement allows both companies to continue to offer robust content options across all AT&T platforms to U.S. Hispanics.”

“We’re proud to expand our agreement with Univision to make more of their programming, including Spanish-language content, available to our U-verse TV customers,” said Richard Levine, executive director of content, AT&T. “This agreement helps us with strategic content initiatives, and is another example of how we continue to bring our customers more value with high-quality content available on the screens they watch most.”

The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

AT&T U-verse TV is the only 100 percent Internet Protocol-based television (IPTV) service offered by a national service provider, making AT&T U-verse one of the most dynamic and feature-rich services available today. For additional information on AT&T U-verse or to find out if it’s available in your area, visit www.att.com/u-verse.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

** Claim based on comparison of major TV providers’ percentage growth in subscriber counts and national market share data over the last 12 quarters combined.

CONTACT: Rosemary Mercedes

                        212-455-5335

                        rmercedes@univision.net

About Univision Communications Inc.

Univision Communications Inc. (UCI) is the leading media company serving Hispanic America. Its assets include Univision Network, one of the top five networks in the U.S. regardless of language and the most-watched Spanish-language broadcast television network in the country reaching 96% of U.S. Hispanic households; TeleFutura Network, a general-interest Spanish-language broadcast television network reaching 88% of U.S. Hispanic households; Univision Cable Networks, including Galavisión, the country’s leading Spanish-language cable network, as well as Univision tlnovelas, a new 24-hour cable network dedicated to novelas, and a suite of six cable offerings - De Película, De Película Clásico, Bandamax, Ritmoson, Telehit and Clásico TV; Univision Studios, which produces and co-produces reality shows, dramatic series and other programming formats for the Company’s platforms; Univision Television Group, which owns and/or operates 62 television stations in major U.S. Hispanic markets and Puerto Rico; Univision Radio, the leading Hispanic radio group which owns and/or operates 69 radio stations in 16 of the top25 U.S. Hispanic markets and 5 stations in Puerto Rico; Univision Interactive Media, a network of national and local online and mobile sites including Univision.com, which continues to be the #1 most-visited Spanish-language website among U.S. online Hispanics, Univision Móvil, a longstanding industry-leader with unique, relevant mobile products and services, and Univision Partner Group, a specialized advertising and publisher network. Headquartered in New York City, UCI has television network operations in Miami and television and radio stations and sales offices in major cities throughout the United States. For more information, please visit www.univision.net.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries.  It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse® and AT&T │DIRECTV brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world.

Only one in 14 Hispanic adults nationwide have been screened for skin cancer, despite the disease's tendency to be more virulent in this population, according to a report released Monday.

Researchers at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, who compiled the study, said the lack of screening can be attributed to a lack of medical insurance, less access to health care and other socioeconomic factors.

"The findings show there is a need to develop interventions to promote skin examinations among Hispanics at risk for skin cancer," said a written statement from the institute, a part of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Hispanics tend to be diagnosed with a thicker, more advanced melanoma, the deadliest of all skin cancers.

Full body examinations may help discover melanomas before they reach such advanced stages that result in poor prognosis, the study states.

The report also showed that screening rates among Hispanics varied significantly by national origin. Six percent of Mexicans and Dominican Republicans go for screening, while those from Cuba or Puerto Rico have 10 percent screening rates.

"It is of concern that Hispanic individuals with a language barrier, lower level of education and lack of access to health care had especially low screening rates. While additional research is needed, it is clear from this study that this population may greatly benefit from interventions that promote these screenings, particularly for individuals at risk for skin cancer," said Elliot J. Coups, the lead author of the study and a behavioral scientist at the institute. READ MORE

It’s not just soccer. From NASCAR to the NFL Draft, growth in Hispanic sports viewership is climbing significantly. At the same time, sports advertising as a whole continues its steady jump, according to Nielsen.

In February, an average of 73,000 Spanish speakers watched the Daytona 500, up 55% from 2011. In April, an average of 492,000 Hispanics watched the NFL Draft, up almost 100% since 2008.

Also, for the recent NBA regular season, Hispanics accounted for 12% of the total viewers, a 20% bump from the year before. NBA games that were part of a Noche Latina (Latin Night) program saw increased viewership, highlighted by the March 5 game on ABC between Los Lakers (Los Angeles Lakers) and El Heat (Miami Heat), where Hispanics made up 15% of the audience.

Hispanic sports fans may be younger than the general population. Nielsen says in a new sports report that 6.9 million Hispanics watched at least part of March Madness this year. Median age was 39, lower than 44 for African Americans and 48 for whites.

In the first quarter of 2012, national network and cable sports generated $3 billion-plus in ad spending, a 9% increase from the same period last year.

Back at the Daytona 500 on Fox, Nielsen said brand recall for the full audience was up, with some of the most-recalled ads from Mountain Dew, Toyota and Sprint.

In baseball, Nielsen says social-media conversation in the first quarter leading up to opening day had the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox dominating the conversation, using a metric tracking Twitter and Facebook posts, message boards and other outlets. READ MORE

Healthcare marketers should target insured young Hispanic women, a rapidly growing demographic that increasingly serves as healthcare gatekeepers, according to a new national survey commissioned by Cultúr Health, a partnership between Hispanic marketing specialist the vox collective and healthcare public relations firm Cooney/Waters.

The survey found that Latinas aged between 25 and 35 are managing their own health needs and frequently those of their families, parents, grandparents and other relatives as well. At the same time, this group relies heavily on families and community sources for healthcare information and product recommendations, highlighting the importance of engaging all relevant influencers.

“Our survey underscores the need for healthcare marketers to specifically target Hispanic women 25-35 years of age in their communications programs,” says Fred Lake of Cooney/Waters. “Culturally relevant content is as important as ever to reach these Hispanic gatekeepers, but we also place particular emphasis on developing programs designed to increase word-of-mouth and drive family and community awareness of a product or service.”

When asked where they first go for help with a healthcare concern, the majority of young Latinas named a “doctor” (59 percent); however, more than 30 percent named other sources, including a relative, spouse, friend or pharmacist. READ MORE

Azteca America and Grupo Salinas are partnering with Voto Latino in an effort to educate and encourage the Hispanic community to exercise their right to vote.

The multi-media informational campaign includes public service announcements to be aired on Azteca America, a web-based campaign on www.fundacionaztecaamerica.org and printed materials that will be distributed by Azteca America affiliated stations in 75 markets throughout the country. The goal of the campaign is to engage with Latinos and educate them on the importance that each person can make by registering to vote and participating in the upcoming elections.

"Our commitment to incorporating more Latinos into the electoral process is one of the cornerstones of our activities," said Luis J. Echarte, chairman of Azteca America. "The United States is a changing landscape and it's important to make sure that our community is represented."

In coming months, Azteca America will take a leading role in the forums planned in Washington DC, Charlotte, and Tampa Bay to address relevant issues affecting the Latino community and how the Latino vote is an important part of the US electoral process. Azteca America's correspondent in Washington, Armando Guzman, will feature special coverage of all the conventions leading to the election. READ MORE

Democrats know the slow economy will significantly hinder President Obama’s efforts to win reelection, but they could at least take some solace in the notion that several voting blocks would still come out strong for the president, perhaps giving him the victory. But even that hope may be fading.

While the president could still win those voting blocks, it is likely that the turnout will be lower and the spread between the president and Republican Mitt Romney will be smaller.

The Women’s Vote. The latest CBS/New York Times poll shows Romney leading Obama among women, 46 to 44 percent. In April it was Obama on top with 49 percent and Romney at 43 percent.

The CBS/NYT poll relied on a small sample, 615 adults nationwide, and other recent polls still have Obama leading with women; so it’s too soon to know if a shift is underway. Even so, such a shift makes sense, because women have lots of reasons to be dissatisfied with the current administration.

In families, women are often the ones buying the groceries, filling up the car, providing or paying for the health care, and even paying the bills. All of those costs are up, way up, while incomes have barely moved. READ MORE

As the number and influence of Hispanics in the U.S. has steadily increased in recent decades, they have been celebrated and derided, welcomed and deported, courted for their dollars and lambasted for clinging to their culture even as they are bombarded with ads for the latest pseudo-enchilada at Taco Bell.

Hispanics have been sliced and diced by age, size, and gender. They have been measured by how they look and what they buy, what language they speak, where they live, and whom they vote for.

But what some people really want to know is: Do they melt? Specifically, are they following the traditional model of “melting pot” Americanization, or are they, as some recent studies suggest, impervious to the homogenizing foundry of acculturation? The answer to that question has important implications not just for Hispanics, but also for the social and economic well-being of all Americans.

With the 2012 presidential elections looming, and minority births outnumbering those of non-Hispanic whites for the first time in U.S. history, the argument over the nature and future of Hispanic acculturation and identity is reaching a crescendo, with plenty of data and emotion on both sides of the debate. READ MORE