A Niche to be Filled

It should be fairly evident by now that HispanicLatino population growth can create new markets for smart business owners who are on top of and can interpret demographic change.   HispanicLatino population growth also creates new ways for corporations and businesses – HispanicLatino and non-HispanicLatino alike – to reach those new markets.

I often wonder why companies – even those on a regional scale – do not do more with their English-language mainstream advertising campaigns by harnessing the audiences who follow the sometimes over-the-top telenovelas.  The actors of the telenovelas spend as much as 40 weeks in the daily lives of their viewers.  Companies might be missing out on an additional way to cover all of the HispanicLatino community by not using the images of the stars of the telenovelas and their star power in English-language ads.

No doubt a number of reasons preclude why these highly-recognized actors are not used in major advertising campaigns.  Perhaps union rules and standard industry practices.  Perhaps outdated thinking on the part of parties trying to protect their interests.  Perhaps a fair number of the actors speak with accents that would distract mainstream viewers.  But for whatever reasons, the value of these actors is hardly diminished.  They do not necessarily need speaking parts to instill real value in a commercial message.  Their visibility can give currency to a commercial – long after a telenovela series ends on Telemundo or Univision.

Some of these actors might feel that kind of work, especially in non-speaking roles, is beneath them.  But the lesser stars without the status of other actors and who need the money but are as recognizable?

Old thinking might be holding back the thinking of important decision-makers who might be denying advertisers a way to amplify their presence in growing markets.  Companies today in a world of thousands of market niches made possible by the presence of massive media should not discount any advantage.

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