Marketing Snacks to Hispanic Consumers? Think Again

6/10/07- Marketing snacks to Hispanic immigrant consumers?  Think twice, and think through this process carefully. Why?  

Hispanic immigrants are not born snackers.

Well snacks are a relatively new phenomenon for those Hispanic immigrants new to the US.  So marketing the glories of a bag of chips & Coke as a snack or some new, fun chewy candy snack isn’t necessarily going to work, or be the most successful of campaigns.

We live in the most sophisticated snack society in the globe, but we’ve been trained by General Mills, Frito-Lay, Pepsi, Hershey’s…- remember: immigrant Hispanics haven’t.

Snacking & Hispanic Immigrants in US

Hispanic immigrants are not born snackers. 

The snack food market is just not that developed where they are from, especially in Central America & Mexico.  My mom is from Central America, nobody snacks like I’d say we do here.  They’re much more likely to sit down for formal meals: a hearty breakfast, lunch, & dinner.

Check out the below numbers.

American Snacking

Americans and US born Hispanics (relative to Immigrants) are trained in the art of snacking from childhood.  Cocoa Pebbles, Slurpies, McDonalds drive-thru’s etc. these are all part of growing up

This is from my personal observations of Americans & Hispanic Immigrants’ snacking habits:

Hispanic immigrants are not born snackers. 

So How to Succeed in Marketing Snacks to Immigrant Hispanics?

Slow & steady- It will take time…but like most Americans, immigrant Latinos transition to a life on the run- and will start heading  towards convenience snacks. 

Know your customer – Go hang out in some Latino grocery stores.  Watch what consumers buy.  Figure out what makes these items appealing, and how your brands can fit into that consumers’ cart.

Remember Red Bull- Red Bull won the Hispanic immigrant category, by getting in Hispanic immigrants’ faces – literally!  A great method they developed was going out to construction sites, and passing out free Red Bull to construction workers (majority of which are Hispanic).

A good product, and word of mouth advertising, and a few years later, loyal, loyal customers.  if you can win a Hispanic immigrant consumer to your product, you are almost guaranteed to have a customer for life, they are very loyal consumers.