Hispanics called an untapped market

It isn't enough to have a glossy marketing plan or even a hot new product. To capture the rapidly growing Hispanic/Latino market, Utah businesses will have to do more, understand more and be more involved.

"Utah is witnessing a change," Luz Robles, director of the Utah Division of Ethnic Affairs, said at the "Embracing the Exploding Hispanic/Latino Market" conference Thursday at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center. "A change in population, a change in the way we do business, a change just in the last 10 years."

Hispanics make up 14 percent of the nation's population, making them the largest ethnic minority group in America and — at $700 billion in purchasing power — one of the economy's primary players, said Lupita Colmenero, president of the National Association of Hispanic Publications and owner of The Hispanic News, a Texas-based newspaper.

"We are the most enterprising of all Americans," Colmenero said. "It is impossible to imagine an America without the Hispanic component. Our contributions have begun defining America."

In Utah, Hispanics make up 10.6 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2004 American Community Survey. From 1990 to 2004, the state's Hispanic population saw a growth rate of 194 percent, Robles said. At this rate, she said, Utah's Hispanic population will be 20 percent of the total by 2030. At last count, the group's purchasing power topped $4.2 billion.

Still, what marked the discussion Thursday was less the present than the future.

About one-third (33.6 percent) of Hispanics in Utah are under the age of 14, Robles said. The population is young, its families are large and its purchasing power is projected, in 2006, to reach $5.2 billion.

Smart businesses will pay attention and will do what it takes to capture the largely untapped market. But smart businesses know that it will take more than a Spanish-language translation of its marketing plan, said Gladys Gonzalez, president of Hispanic Marketing & Consulting and publisher of the Mundo Hispano newspaper.

"It is not enough to have an excellent advertising campaign," Gonzalez said. "Businesses need to penetrate the fiber of the community. They need to breathe the air Hispanics are breathing. They need to go to their soccer fields and be where they live."

This requires the commitment — from the executive level on down — of the entire staff, Gonzalez said. And staff diversity is a vital component.

Colmenero agreed. "Every time I see an advertising campaign that really touches my heart, that really touches who I am, I know that there was a Hispanic behind the scenes," she said.