By Christian Filli / LatinWorks
As we see every year, 2012 started with lots of predictions, resolutions and good intentions. The marketing industry is no exception, as we hear perspectives from many experts across different disciplines and specialties about what will and won’t happen in our industry. This is always fun reading and often inspires at least a few minutes of reflection. The challenge, however, is to put our new year’s resolutions into practice. As soon as we get back to our routine, making any significant change becomes increasingly difficult, and we settle for doing business as usual.
A recent NYTimes.com article reminded me to stay committed to one of my own resolutions: listen to people. The article highlights the fact that more than 18 million Latinos answered the question about race by checking the “other” box in the last census. It proceeds to conclude that this is “an indicator of the sharp disconnect between how Latinos view themselves and how the government wants to count them”. It’s an interesting assessment and I agree. Despite the fact that the question presents a list with 15 (that’s right, fifteen) race alternatives, 36% of the total Latino population still has opted for “none of the above describes me”. This is not a minor finding, and I dare to predict that this type of sentiment will gradually spread across a broader portion of the population in the U.S., well beyond the Latino community. Why? Because the country is progressively becoming more diverse in many aspects and traditional segmentation systems are failing to provide an accurate portrait of real life.
Census officials are probably struggling with this because a big reason for having a census in the first place is to eliminate ambiguity. But we’re likely to see more and more ambiguity if we continue to ask the same questions over and over. What happens if that 36% grows to 51%? Or 75%? At what point will someone decide to modify the questions? Should we even still care about splitting the country by race or ethnicity? Are those real indicators of how people think and behave?
It’s becoming apparent that trying to predict future trends in the same terms as we have understood the past is as futile of an exercise as comparing apples to carrots.
Another great piece of evidence showing a dramatic shift in how people view themselves is a 2011 quantitative research project conducted by my team at LatinWorks. We asked 1,200 people to answer a series of self-identification questions that went beyond the traditional questions of origin and language, in order to get a deeper understanding of how people are relating to culture. The experiment had a startling outcome and helped debunk the acculturation model. First of all, we discovered that growth and diversity has already created sub-segments within each one of the three typical acculturation buckets (unacculturated/bicultural/acculturated). Second, asking new questions helped us realize that sometimes there are greater similarities across acculturation levels than within one particular bucket. In other words, acculturation does not necessarily determine attitudinal or behavioral patterns. Consequently, we should question whether it’s still an effective segmentation tool.
Below is a sample question that we used in the study (What team would you root for if your country of origin played the US during an important sporting event?) and the impact it had throughout the spectrum of respondents (based on levels of acculturation). The shades of grey indicate similarities and differences in comparison to the levels of acculturation, demonstrating that people within a particular acculturation bucket (e.g. bicultural) don’t think all the same way.
The message that consumers are sending us is clear. As much as we love putting people in boxes to make our lives easier as marketers, the reality is that people are a lot more multi-dimensional and fluid today, their vision of the world being a lot broader. They’d rather not be labeled.
We need to move away from self-limiting tools and obsolete definitions. We must be creative in order to understand and connect with the human truth, graciously allowing standard methods to fade while adopting/inventing new ones.
Is this a simple task? Certainly not. But even if it may feel as though someone is pulling the rug from underneath our feet, we will most likely be better off in the long run.
I remember sitting in a focus group last year and hearing a 17 year old Latino named Marco react to the “bicultural” label: I don’t think of myself in those terms, I just am.
Let’s embrace the ambiguity of today’s evolving cultural marketplace, along with the richness that it brings. Let’s listen to Marco.
Hi Christian, thank you for your post. I’m interested in learning more about your study and its methodology. I believe many Hispanic marketers, perhaps even experts that you refer to, assume that acculturation “definitions” — most don’t merit the term “models” since they are not very rigorously scientific — drive behavior and/or decision making. That is a mis-understanding. Acculturation is normally a Descriptor and might sometimes be a predictor of behavior. it doesn’t necessarily drive behavior, but it is often correlated with certain behaviors and attitudes. Additionally, acculturation itself is (if applied properly) is multi-dimensional (or at least multi-variate)…it’s not just about language use or place of birth or age or geography of residence, etc. It includes those elements plus others. I am both intrigued and amused that you and others in the Hispanic space are eager to dispose of this framework as if it were the only lens from which to view the market. Of course human beings are complex and multi-dimensional and should be viewed and understood in appropriate context. Trashing acculturation, however, doesn’t necessarily mean taking any kind of high-road of thinking or getting beyond something obsolete. Your agency and others (and certainly my firm) must approach marketing to Latinos and other consumer segments with rigor and clarity as well as fresh facts and techniques that could yield powerful insights. I have a hunch that the vested interests in media and marketing try to reduce the complexity of Latinos by emphasizing the Spanish language too heavily — most of us are bilingual to a degree — and it’s the context and relevance that matters most in the end. Rather than go on and on (of course I could) I would suggest you give me a call to discuss; I reached out to you after our Summit but didn’t hear back from you, appreciate your attending the event and welcome further discussion.
…additionally, “other race” usually means people don’t identify with a standard definition and census doesn’t even include mestizo or mulatto — and ironically most Latinos fall into one of those mixed categories. There are other ambiguous questions in the census forms in addition that need clarification. We hope to clarify some of these points directly to the US Census Bureau…more for when we talk.
For as long as I’ve been in this activity I’ve thought the acculturation model is BS and its death is long overdue. I don’t understand why there is such little flexibility in accepting that this “model” that’s been around for as long as I can remember is useless, regardless developing sub-segments of acculturation. It doesn’t play out in the real world of people, emotions and values, it is pure marketing speak and unfortunately many Hispanic marketers hide their lack of expertise by parroting all the acculturation dogmas out there which no one questions. Just like the infamous ad “Vuele en cuero” and the Chevy “Nova” which experts still quote as marketing mistakes.
From time to time I fall back into explaining the Hispanic consumer market using acculturation theory but then I catch myself and realize that while race, where you were born, and what language you naturally speak can provide valuable insights to understand Latino experience and mind-set these descriptions are not sufficient.
I have learned that shared life stage plays a much more significant role in defining the Hispanic audience and helps me to understand Hispanic consumption habits.