Advertising and Cultural Subgroups

Under the general rubric of advertising in the United States there is an increasing concern about marketing toward certain cultural and attitudinal subgroups. One of the most visible and growing groups that advertisers have become aware of has been the Mexican-American, or Hispanic, market.

This research will consist of a review of the literature on the subject of the Hispanic market. It will be comprised of a five-part study that will identify the Hispanic market through demographic analysis, review the manner in which advertisers have portrayed Hispanics, and look into the tactics that advertisers use in order to market to that intrinsic market.

The purpose of the paper itself is to show that contemporary American corporations have become increasingly cognizant of the fact that the Hispanic market is growing and changing, and provides a vital and necessary marketplace for a wide variety of products. The Hispanic market has significant buying power, and the intent of change in attitudes, cultural modifiers, beliefs and behaviors has a substantial impact on the way advertisers have changed their strategies in order to more effectively harness the wide range of possibilities in a unique and strong market.

One of the most evident characteristics of the Hispanic market is its rapid growth. Although there are large clusters of Hispanics in most major urban areas, the Southwest and Western part of the United States holds the largest concentration of Hispan

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ts It was not until the past few decades that American businesses began actively taking the lead in insuring that Hispanics, Blacks, and other minorities were portrayed positively within advertising and other forms of the media. Historically, Hispanics had the same type of problem with advertising as they tended to have with motion picture images. For example, in the 1920s and 1930s, Hispanics were often portrayed as both vicious and funny banditos but were gradually replaced by more complex characterizations such as the role of Katy Jurado in High Noon and Maria in West Side Story (Moore, 1985, p. 10; Bean, 1987; Weyr, 1988). Likewise, from the earliest days, Hispanics have suffered in the news media. One study, on the coverage of Mexican-American affairs by The New York Times, showed that Hispanics were virtually neglected from 1951 to 1958, and from 1958 to 1964 focused on Hispanic poverty. After 1964, however, the newspaper began to see Mexican organizations as active agents striving for broader, more increased, social change (Olson, 1975. pp. 91-102). This change, indicative of the way most media tend to view Hispanics, has certainly come a long way in the past few decades. Although stereotypes are not as rampant as

Category: Business - A