The New Mainstream Podcast

Latino consumers continue to outpace the general market in technology use. This trend is driven primarily by the youth of this demographic. Nearly six in ten U.S. Hispanics are Millennials or younger, and Gen Z is the first majority-minority generation. These generations are digital natives and thrive on the mobile experience, which impacts how they interact with e-commerce, social media, and entertainment.

More specifically, Hispanics over-index on e-commerce, especially among Hispanic Millennials, many of whom are bilingual, living in multigenerational households. They act as “digital sherpas,” interpreting the purchase experience for Spanish-dominant loved ones. Almost 70% of Millennials purchase something on behalf of a family member, which speaks to their collectivist nature.

For Hispanics, culture is portable, either through technology or proximity, enabling them to stay connected to loved ones in their countries of origin. Technology also delivers insights that enable marketers to segment consumers more effectively and deliver messaging in-culture, which counters the Total Market approach.

This week, Roberto Orci, Executive Vice President of Strategic Growth at Captura Group, joins us on The New Mainstream podcast to discuss the shift to in-culture marketing and how technology and segmentation improve marketing performance.

While Latinos over-index on using certain technologies, such as smartphones and social media, broad adoption of video conferencing apps and other online platforms being used to accommodate the shift from in-person to online qualitative research is not as prevalent. Over the last few months, market researchers have been tasked with helping multicultural consumers understand these tools so they can share their thoughts and opinions in qualitative studies.

However, the technology being used to administer online qualitative research is often designed for the moderator’s comfort, not the respondents. For multicultural consumers, especially Hispanics who prefer face-to-face interactions, this presents a challenge. But the shift to online qualitative research, a trend that was accelerated not created by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, also offers opportunities to increase multicultural consumer participation in focus groups by removing barriers like travel time to focus group facilities, finding childcare, and planning around non-traditional work schedules. For moderators, shifting online means less travel time.

In many ways, the shift to virtual focus groups has made qualitative research more inclusive. But there are drawbacks. While respondents can participate in an online focus group from anywhere, they are also subject to more distractions, which could impact the thoughtfulness of their responses. Moderators lose the ability to pick up on subtle nuances that can only be gauged in person.

Whether or not online qualitative research is sustainable long-term is an ongoing debate, but one thing is certain – it has changed how researchers and respondents interact. Some best practices remain the same, such as selecting moderators that reflect the ethnicity of the participants, which facilitates information sharing and preserves the cultural integrity of the research.

This week, Natalia Infante Caylor, Ph.D., President and Founder of Infante Consulting and Research, joins us on The New Mainstream podcast to discuss how the shift to online qualitative research helps foster a more diverse and inclusive environment for multicultural consumers.

The pandemic has accelerated the shift to digital for many industries, including market research. More specifically, qualitative research. In-person focus groups and face-to-face in-depth interviews (IDIs) have been replaced by online research methodologies that enable consumers to share their thoughts and attitudes from the safety of their homes. Essential to the success of online qualitative research, however, is the respondent experience.

Selecting virtual platforms that are user-friendly yet effective reduces the friction that can result in respondent frustration and subsequent disengagement. The convenience of the virtual environment saves time and money and makes the research opportunity more accessible to respondents who may otherwise decline to participate. Yet, the shift to online qualitative research has its share of disadvantages. Historically, recruiting respondents for in-person focus groups has been difficult, especially among Hispanic and Black Americans. Those challenges carry over into the virtual space. Shifting online has improved accessibility, but unfamiliarity with the platforms and limited internet bandwidth connections are just two factors that researchers have to contend with.

The shift to online qualitative research may have been the industry’s pivot to stay viable, but clients requesting qual studies aren't in a rush to return to in-person, signaling a shift to mix models moving forward.

To share further insights into the industry’s pivot online, market research industry veteran Delphyne Lomax Taylor, Principal of V&L Research and Consulting, Inc., joins us on The New Mainstream podcast to discuss the pros and cons of online qualitative research and the importance of the respondent experience.

Linguistic anthropology dives into how people use language to create culture, enact different identities, tell stories, and create relationships. But language is continuously changing.

In the U.S., Hispanics are becoming more English dominant. Spanish speakers or descendants of Spanish speakers are encountering a different linguistic experience as language evolves to meet the needs of Hispanics in the present day. The Spanish language has been influenced by the American ethos resulting in a hybrid language, known as Spanglish, which sits at the intersection of language (Spanish and English) and culture. By allowing people to enact both sides of their identities as Spanish speakers and English speakers, you enable them to show up authentically.

However, moving beyond language to how people actually talk and see themselves is essential to creating resonant messaging. With Spanglish, for example, marketing materials that have as little as one Spanglish word see an uptick in overall receptiveness even among Hispanics who speak little to no Spanish. The use of the term Latinx, on the other hand, is only preferred by 2% of Hispanics, so its use in marketing is unrelatable to most of the population.

Language and how it’s interrupted has a tremendous impact on behavior. And for marketers, that’s where translation and transcreation work hand in hand. While translation renders an original text into a target language, transcreation works to make the concept of that copy real for the audience, evoking the same emotional response the original copy intended but in the targeted language. The challenge for marketers is understanding how to tie all these pieces together.

This week, linguistic anthropologist Jill Kushner Bishop, Ph.D., Founder & CEO of Multilingual Connections, is our guest on The New Mainstream podcast to discuss the intersection of language and culture and why marketers need to understand how translation and transcreation work together.

Humans, in general, use metaphors to assign meaning to various aspects of our lives. By creating images in our minds, we make sense of the world around us and form associations that guide our behavior. Those associations can be aspirational, pushing us to pursue a certain status, or protective, warning us to steer clear of perceived danger. Understanding those associations is essential for marketers to activate consumer groups and deliver engaging content that meets them where they are.

To do this, marketers can look to metaphoric research to analyze deep metaphors shaping the human psyche. Often, consumers see an ad and articulate a feeling but take an opposite action due to cultural beliefs and identity, and external influences. Understanding these dynamics helps marketers close the “say and do” gap by providing insight into the images playing out in consumers’ minds as they engage with products and services in the marketplace.

This week, we welcome Hannibal Brooks, Senior Insight Associate at Olson Zaltman to The New Mainstream podcast to discuss how metaphoric research can be used to reveal deep metaphors driving culture and consumer behavior.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion took center stage in 2020, with many brands rushing to restructure internal teams and re-evaluate advertising campaigns in response to calls for social justice. There was a cultural shift among the general population. Multicultural consumers became the focal point, and forward-thinking brands responded by creating culturally relevant marketing that appealed to multicultural consumers.

But the relationship between the brand and the multicultural consumer extends beyond the register to those running the register. Multicultural employees wield tremendous influence over the brand experience. When these employees feel valued and heard, they often become brand ambassadors among shoppers and within their communities. As a result, they have the potential to influence purchase habits. To create more holistic experiences for diverse audiences, brands must go beyond traditional DEI initiatives and study the intersectionality of employees, customers, and their communities and how these dynamics affect brand affinity.

This week, Solomon Bennett, Director of Marketing Guest Insights at Target, is our guest on The New Mainstream podcast presented by ThinkNow to discuss the importance of multicultural employee perspectives to brand strategy and customer experience.

Latin American brands often feel overly confident in entering the U.S. market. Having experienced success in their home markets, they look to replicate that brand affinity north of the border, often using the same strategy that won at home. But, that affinity doesn’t always translate into a successful entry, especially when brands fail to realize and plan for the shift from a mostly homogeneous cultural group to a more diverse society composed of varied multicultural backgrounds, cultural influences, and behavioral drivers.

The tendency of LatAm brands to target their core Hispanic constituency can cause missed opportunities to reach broader markets. It’s imperative that brand marketers shift their mentality to include multicultural perspectives, adjust their strategies, and allow the multicultural segment's influence to take the brand mainstream. Essential to gaining those consumer insights is market research. By leaning into market research, Latin American brands can satisfy their core audiences' needs while exposing the brand to new segments of the population, thus building the brand domestically.

This week, Jackie Bird, Founder and President of Redbean Society, LLC, joins the ThinkNow New Mainstream podcast to discuss how Latin American brands can successfully use multicultural market research to scale in the U.S.

Across industries, the pandemic has radically altered the way we conduct business and communicate. Market research is no exception, with social distancing requirements prompting innovation in online survey instruments, panel selection, focus groups, and other data collection methods to mitigate the risk of coronavirus spread.

Despite this year’s challenges, 2020 has also presented new opportunities for market researchers to pivot and connect with one another, clients, and respondents in more authentic ways. Digital tools like webinars, online chats and surveys, and a resurgence of traditional practices like conference calling and phone intercepts facilitate new networking and collaboration prospects and provide greater access to panelists. These digital interactions have humanized communication when in-person experiences are canceled, but the need for human connection is not.

This week on The New Mainstream podcast, Shelley Forrester, Founder and CEO of Forrester Network, joins ThinkNow to discuss how market researchers can pivot their communications strategies during the pandemic to engage colleagues, clients, and consumers.

Bilingual and bicultural Latino Americans often serve as “digital sherpas,” or guides, for foreign-born family members who have yet to master the American ethos and language. Navigating the intersectionality of both U.S. and Latino value systems, these interpreters often inform brand and product purchases, search, and content consumption for friends and family members from an early age.

These “digital sherpas” wield their authority at many points in their lives by influencing purchase decisions and demystifying new technologies and services. This sphere of influence only continues to grow as they mature, making them critical players in the Hispanic buyers’ journey and an essential cohort for marketers who wish to connect with Hispanic buyers emotionally and build long-term brand advocates.

This week, Maria Twena, Global Head of Consumer X at 9th Wonder, returns to the ThinkNow New Mainstream podcast to discuss her new children’s book, School Crossing. The book is the first in the MariVi Master Navigator series andexplores the challenges faced by bilingual/bicultural children of immigrants and details how conflicting cultures create “culturally agnostic” or hybrid American and Latino experiences.

Market research has traditionally been more reactive, “reinventing the wheel” with each new client request, resulting in new trackers and survey instruments. Extracting accurate multicultural insights from these methodologies are difficult to obtain, as most surveys aren’t designed to attract or engage ethnic audiences.

Market researchers must include more multicultural developers in the research design and development process to solve this problem. Diversifying your team will help organically eliminate survey bias and add more culturally relevant perspectives to questionnaires and other data collection methods. Technology can also be used as a powerful tool to mine multicultural data and automate processes that create more consistent research workflows overtime.

This week on The New Mainstream podcast, Zontziry “Z” Johnson, VP of Customer Transformation at Zappi, discusses why automation is integral to developing market research consistency and the importance of including multicultural developers in market research design.