Hispanic market booming

The bull's-eye keeps getting bigger and bigger, but many shooters still have the safety on.

Businesses that don't know how to target the Hispanic market are "missing the boat" on more than $5 billion in spending power in Utah alone and a community that is growing faster than the overall population, according to Gladys Gonzalez, president of Hispanic Marketing and Consulting — La Agency.

HMC was one of the presenters, along with its sister company Love Communications, at the second annual Hispanic/Latino Marketing Conference Thursday at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center. Presenters included representatives from local and national businesses, spanning the spectrum from banking to consulting to creative teams and advertising specialists.

"The awareness has grown," Gonzalez said. "There are more companies that are interested in targeting the Hispanic market. We can see it through our company."

And through the conference itself. While last year's event focused largely on local data, with local presenters, this year's event was broader in scope, attracting business leaders from around the country.

"One reason we're all here is because we want business growth," said Cesar Melgoza, president and chief executive officer of Geoscape International Inc., a Florida-based data and consulting firm. "We're not here, necessarily, on a social agenda. We're here on a business agenda. And the business agenda is: I'd like to help my company grow, and I understand that Hispanics are growing very rapidly. I'd like to be able to communicate with them clearly so I can bring them into my business, serve them and grow with them and perhaps capture more than my fair share of the market."

According to Geoscape, Hispanics made up 8.8 percent of the nation's population in 1990. This year, that number will reach 15 percent. At the same time, the white population has shrunk, and other minority groups like African-Americans and Asians had started to level off slightly in growth.

Geoscape used U.S. Labor Department, census, housing and other public data, along with various private surveys, to come up with its findings.

The growth of the Hispanic population is a function of both culture and politics/economics, Melgoza said. Traditionally, Hispanics have larger families, even in America. And with political and economic unrest in many Central and South American countries (not to mention Mexico), there is motivation to come to the United States in search of a better life, he said.

In Utah, Hispanics will make up about 12 percent of the population in 2012, more than doubling their population in 1990, Melgoza said.