Mediapsssst at MediaPost spotlighted a new campaign from the Hispanic Marketing Council that cautions Chief Marketing Officers on adverse career consequences associated with creating inauthentic Latino marketing via insufficient funding.
In short, engaging in ‘Latino Coating’ for crumbs could lead to being bounced from C-Suite to CUL8R.
Unfortunately, HMC can offer no data to support the position. Indeed, the typical CMO has thrived by allocating underwhelming interest, intelligence, and investment toward Latino marketing—or any other non-White marketing. You can’t beat the systemic racism, amigos.
So, the HMC campaign presents empty threats—unless they can rouse the public to threaten boycotts or threaten legal action.
¡Ay crumba!
HMC To CMOs: Continue ‘Latino Coating’ At Your Own (Career) Risk
By Richard Whitman, Columnist
The Hispanic Marketing Council today unveiled a new campaign calling on marketers to stop the practice of “Latino Coating.” Which is kind of like greenwashing but instead of pretending to care about the environment, it’s about brands that pretend to care about properly marketing to Hispanic communities.
Or as the Council put it in a statement, “Latino Coating is defined as a superficial marketing approach coating products, campaigns, media or entertainment with Latino elements for the appearance of diversity without genuine understanding or respecting Latino culture. This behavior involves surface-level attempts at inclusion, such as incorporating stereotypical imagery, language, or cultural elements into marketing campaigns, without a deeper connection or meaningful representation.”
The Council cites research that the Hispanic market constitutes 20% of the U.S. population and represents $3.2 trillion in GDP, “essentially making it the fifth largest economy in the world.” By contrast, brands spend less than 4% of their advertising budgets on Hispanic-targeted efforts.
The creative development for campaign, #StopLatinoCoating, was led by Luis Miguel Messianu, Founder, President and Chief Creative Officer of MEL (Messianu Edelman Lerma). Creyentes and Casanova//McCann also contributed, with input from the Council’s board.
“To us, Latino Coating is a form of cultural appropriation that seeks to capitalize on Latino identity for marketing purposes without genuinely valuing or respecting the culture,” explained Messianu. “It’s akin to whitewashing, greenwashing, or rainbow washing, but it preys on Latino identity—offering a mere illusion of inclusivity by adding Latino elements on the surface. It’s activating during Hispanic Heritage Month and patting yourself on the back.”
The Council also points to McKinsey research asserting that more than a third of Latinos are dissatisfied with current products or value propositions being offered.
“CMOs who do the bare minimum, check boxes and engage in Latino Coating are not only doing their organizations a disservice but they are also risking their careers,” the Council warns.
The HMC offers the following advice:
• Increase Hispanic marketing spend levels commensurate with the Latino $3.2 trillion buying power. The general market is dead, and marketers must be savvier to capture the hearts and minds of today’s multicultural consumer.
• Delve deeper into understanding Latino culture, respecting its complexity, and acknowledging diverse perspectives and experiences to ensure their products and services stay relevant and valuable to Latinos.
• Ensure there’s meaningful representation. Authenticity comes from genuinely representing Latino communities, not just by being visible but by understanding and respecting their values and experiences. Latinos don’t want to be targeted; they want to be seen and valued.
• Seek and pay for the right help. Work with partners who truly understand the Latino cultural context so brands can forge real connections with the U.S. Hispanic market.
More from the campaign can be found here. It was introduced at the HMC’s annual summit in New York.
1 comment:
This is a last-minute desperation move. They launched this initiative because the Hispanic ad agencies are almost dead. They've been dying because two things happened simultaneously:
Interest in diversity post-George Floyd has fallen off a cliff, which means brands do not care at all about allocating any effort (and much less, money) to companies owned by minorities, and:
Holding companies did not like that those agencies were able to get a teeny bit of so-called "General Market" work during the last couple of years, because it put their own agencies' accounts at risk, and doubled down harder than ever to bring ALL multicultural work in-house.
The General Market agencies took and continue to take the laziest approach possible to Hispanic advertising, which was using offshore copywriters and translators or one single person in-house to translate existing work to Spanish and calling it a day. On occasion they'll hire a single Latino creative and juice them for their cultural insight, and then go out an execute the ad with a credit list of white people longer than a CVS receipt.
If you look at a current "Hispanic ad" featuring (take your pick) reggaeton/ lowriders / salsa dancers / Hispanic families / LGBTQ Latinxs / kindly old Latina grandmothers and grandchildren, etc., the credits for a Hispanic ad agency and everyone who worked on it are stacked with Latino names. But if it was made by a white ad agency, you'll find one or two Hispanic names max, and everyone else is white, white, white.
This Hail Mary website from the Hispanic agencies can't change that, it's too late.
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