Jose Luis Valderrama of Hispanic Group: American agencies stand to lose a lot of ground

During the AHAA event held jointly with FIAP and Circulo Creative, PRODU met with Jose Luis Valderrama, president of Hispanic Group, who shared his view about the best way to understand today’s Hispanic market.”The industry is currently asking when we’re going to integrate the Hispanic market into the general market, which is a query that basically springs from another old question – do we speak Spanish or speak English?” Valderrama said.For a start, the executive noted that seven out of every 10 Hispanics are born in the U.S.A., so today’s Hispanics speak more English. But, he said, “it’s not certain we have to speak to the Hispanic market more in English, because 80 percent of Hispanics basically live in 10 to 15 cities, which means that those places are more Hispanic even when they speak English”. “More important than asking ourselves which language to speak to Hispanics is realizing that being a Hispanic agency we have a better focus when speaking to a Hispanic target and can be more efficient in places dominated by Hispanic culture. We can be much more efficient than general market agencies because domination of the Hispanic market is a cultural domination more than one of language”.“I believe that American general market agencies stand to lose a lot of ground – so now they are learning not only to speak Spanish but to understand the culture” he said.