Companies are paying more attention to Hispanic Americans

Hispanics are responsible for about half of US population growth. Considering that the majority of new Hispanic Americans are born in the US (~26% of American children under the age of 9 are Hispanic), it makes sense that companies are increasingly paying more and more attention to this demographic.

According to Ad Age’s Hispanic Fact Pack, digital ad spending on Hispanics was up almost 17% in 2016. This is no surprise considering over 50% of Hispanic Americans are under the age of 30, meaning we are mostly digital natives. It is also worth pointing out that the vast majority of those of us online use social media sites (almost 90%).

One thing I found interesting in the report, is that over 40% of Hispanics prefer some or all content in Spanish. I would likely fall into the category that prefers most content in English, but some in Spanish. I guess the reason this jumped out at me is because the vast majority of content isn’t really available in Spanish. Although almost 20% of the country identifies as Hispanic, there still aren’t that many national media outlets focused on serving the population (shoutout to Univision and Telemundo!). There are definitely some local newspapers within hubs like LA and Miami, but I expect media companies to start catching on (kind of like Buzzfeed launching Pero Like).

I will keep combing through this report for other interesting takeaways, but I can’t forget to give a shoutout to one of my favorite digital networks, Mitú (they’ve raised over $40 million). They are awesome about producing content in both English and Spanish. This is mostly important because, well, some jokes aren’t as funny in a foreign language :)