Marketers and publishers alike are aligned on one common theme, the issue of accurate representation of the Hispanic online audience. Marketers need to know this critical demographic in its entirety to best target and align their campaign and digital publishers need to further understand their visitors via an all encompassing methodology.

Accurate representation of the Hispanic audience overall, and the Hispanic Internet audience in particular, has faced a plethora of challenges. Many past studies administer their survey over land line telephone. The use of land line recruitment is legal since research companies are exempt from the National Do Not Call Registry (https://www.donotcall.gov/). Yet many people own a cell phone, and use it as their primary phone versus land line, making them virtually invisible to methodology limited to land lines. Also, ideally, the survey should be available in both Spanish and English, and include the under 18 years old crowd.

It is not necessary to work at a top Hispanic portal, nor live in a major urban area, to realize that many people are just a hands reach away from their cell phone or PDA yet very far away from their land line if they even have one. Actually, it is this wireless generation, possibly entirely wireless for both cell phone and Internet access, which should be included in any syndicated study for any population, both in its entirety and its online audience (unless the goal is to intentionally limit representation to land line respondents).

With the issue of representation in mind, Terra commissioned comScore to conduct both quantitative and qualitative research, both direct response from online surveys and passive data mining of their behavioral panel – no survey required, fielded on comScore’s panels for the syndicated portion to release the industry’s first ever Terra.com Hispanic Syndicated Survey by comScore for Terra Networks USA!

Our syndicated survey is a Research First for several reasons:

* As a huge relief, the cell-phone primary/only crowd is finally no longer ignored, as they are adequately reached with live web intercept anonymous online surveys! The inclusion of this wired audience has yielded results which contradict previous findings, such as media usage.

* A massive 3,513 completed surveys across the one month time frame of Jan 31, 2008 – Feb 28, 2008 ensures a minimal +/- 1.65% margin of error and 95% confidence interval.

*Also due to the large number of completes, the findings can be crossed by age, gender, country of origin, DMA, household size, degree of ethnic pride, domestic versus foreign born, online engagement, and more to expose results never before available.

* The study focuses on segmenting behavior by online engagement, as well as profiles that emerged from responses to our Latino Identity questions. Behavior and responses first, and their demographic profile is secondary. Here, their demographics are derived from behavior and survey responses instead of staring and in many cases ending only with demographics.

* New Profiles: 1) Top 5 Hispanic DMA’s ( Los Angeles, Miami, NYC, Chicago, Houston), 2) Heavy/Medium/Light Online Engagement Segments 3) Country of Origin ( USA, Mexico, Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico), 3) Strong/Weak Latino Heritage.

* Empirically recorded time spent category interaction by Heavy/Medium/Light Hispanic users (no survey required!)

* The true demographic profile of the Hispanic online (demos, domestic/foreign born, DMA, HH size, education, income and more) resulting from over one week of exclusive work on weighting variables!

* Language usage and preference across 15 different situations, plus relationships of high correlation.

* Family trees: Hispanics by country of origin – a) where they were born, b) where their children were born, c) where their parents where born, d) where their grandparents were born, e) and language(s) spoken throughout.

* Latino Identity: Reaction (agree/disagree) to 22 ‘Latino value statements’ ranging from personal, professional, and family areas, including stereotypes plus ethnic identity.

Each of these points will be analyzed in detail in subsequent issues of Terra Smart Marketer and compared to the Hispanic population overall sourcing Synovate’s US Diversity Markets Report 2008 where applicable.

For now, Terra is delighted to share the following highlights of top level findings:

• 30% of Hispanics online surf the Internet 13+ hours per week, ahead of TV, radio, magazine and newspapers.
• The Internet ranks ahead of television for youth, while age 35+ is reversed.
• 48% of Hispanics online use some combination of DVR/VOD, making a TV only campaign buy questionable as TV ads may not be viewed at all (base: those who watch TV).
• Most Hispanics are to varying degrees bilingual. English is skewed for business and online activities, while Spanish is skewed for family and as a first language.
• The Strong Latino Heritage segment, which tends to be female and Spanish language skewed, has emerged as an important niche target within our Hispanic online niche audience for participating in more leisure and online activities, as well as owning more electronic devices.
• Soccer ranks 10 th, not first, as a top recreational sport.
• The under 25 years old are represented – we are not limited to adults age 18+.
• 94% of Hispanics online own a mobile phone, and 22% own a PDA. Of those that own a cell phone or PDA, 76% use their cell as a primary phone instead of land line. This critical audience is virtually invisible to more traditional methodologies that depend on land line recruitment or analysis.
• 31% of Hispanics online have been in the US for less than 10 years, making them ideal for a branding campaign, as well as direct response since they need to buy new products as new arrivals.
• 26% of Hispanics online are foreign born.
• The Spanish language skewed as well as foreign born have scored significantly higher in interaction to digital mediums overall than their English language skewed brethren.
• The Heavy Hispanic User by to 20% time spent duration uses the Internet 2.5x more than General Market. Findings exist for 100+ categories.

Finally, regarding the last highlight item, Terra.com is proud to announce that it is possible to target our audience by Heavy/Medium/Light online engagement segments via Revenue Science behavioral targeting, and is the first publisher to offer this in either the Hispanic on General Market arena. Align your campaign to our visitors who use the Internet 253% more than General Market!

Over 3,500 respondents have taken an average of 30 minutes each to complete our Terra.com Hispanic Syndicated Survey by comScore for Terra Networks USA during the month of Jan 31, 2008 – Feb 28, 2008. Please join us on our journey as we continue to explore our research findings, as well as new segments and profiles from this unprecedented, groundbreaking study in future editions of Terra Smart Marketer.

Terra Networks USA would like to thank comScore’s Research Department for enabling us to expose the Hispanic Internet audience accordingly, as well as the thousands of respondents to our study for their participation.

Published by Natasha Funk. May 13, 2008.