Juan Tornoe

"Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem

2010-01-26T01:11:11-06:00

A very cool Economy Lesson from EconStories

Filling Shopping Carts, and a Community Need

2010-01-15T10:24:57-06:00

“Markets like Mi Pueblo started by catering to an exclusive population,” said Juan Tornoe, of Hispanic Trending, a market research company based in Austin, Tex. “But now they have grown enough to compete with the big boys.”

Via The New York Times

It's an honor to have the opportunity to contribute with the New York Times again. Thanks a million to Sheila Himmel for reaching out!

Read the complete article here.

In This Decade, Every Room Is A Screening Room : NPR

2009-12-31T13:39:27-06:00

Consultant Juan Tornoe, who studies the Latino market in the U.S., doesn't see his phone as a screen, but as a "window to the world." He says cell phone usage is huge among Latinos — and their user habits are sophisticated.

"You're not only connected to friends and family, you get access to information," he says. "You get to send and receive e-mail. You get to participate in social media, listen to music, you name it."

Tornoe's window to the world is wide open, and that really appeals to Poniewozik. He says that 10 years ago, he'd write an article and have no idea what readers thought of it. No more.

via NPR's Morning Edition

Had the opportunity to chat with NPR's Elizabeth Blair a few days ago :-)

U.S. Population Projections

2009-12-17T16:35:56-06:00

Right out of the Census "oven" we've received an updated head count projection, which I summarize below (as it pertains to the Hispanic population's size). For more details, please visit the Census' website.

Hispanic Households and Consumer Durables 1998 - 2005

2009-11-19T12:50:13-06:00

Today I received a press release from the Census Bureau with the header, "Homes with Cell Phones Nearly Double in First Half of Decade." You can thank them for sending me down this rabbit trail... "Inquiring minds wanted to know" not only how HH cell phone ownership trended through time for Latinos, but hey, I could also find out how the % of ownership of other interesting (at least for me) consumer durables varied in recent times in Hispanic HHs, AND how they compared with the Jones' (non-Hispanic white HHs, that is). So after downloading a whole bunch of reports from the Census' site and playing around with the information for a while I came with some interesting graphs, which in the spirit of Thanksgiving (as in thanks for Juan's OCD), I want to share with you. You can download an excel file with all the raw data by clicking here. The numbers are quite revealing in regard to certain cultural nuances present within each of the groups, don't you think?

Engaging vs. Communicating with your Audience

2009-11-18T12:31:58-06:00

By Juan Tornoe

A few days ago I was approached by my good friends at [UNDISCLOSED NAME], an amazing Communications firm in Austin, TX who are looking for a “well seasoned, well rounded” Account Director and asked if I had any acquaintances who might fit the mold. Given my close relationship with their principal and the fact they gave me complete freedom on how to reach out to “my network” with an offer for the position they are trying to fill, I cranked up the following message based on their description of the person they are looking to hire, and sent it to facebook’s Hispanic Trending Group members:

Kick-ass Austin communications firm is looking for a super hero.
Are you:
•Vastly experienced in project management and have the scars to prove it?
•A great writer, as in reports, proposals, press releases, the works; we mean, can you do them in your sleep?
•Often accused of having OCD?
•Able to effectively switch from right brain to left brain and back again in the blink of an eye?
•A “veteran” of the PR, advertising, or marketing industries?
•A freakin’ awesome presenter?
•In your zone while babysitting (managing accounts, that is)?
•Enthused by generating results to your clients and believe you should get compensated for it?
•At least beyond, “Yo Quiero Taco Bell,” when it comes to speaking Spanish?
•Able to legally work in the U.S. (the lawyers made us ask this)?

If you have at least 7 years of working experienced and are ready for a wild ride, we mean a new challenge, shoot Juan your resume.

On top of the good response we’ve received as far as applicants goes, their feedback on the actual job description was quite telling to say the least.

Here are just a few quotes from the replies:

“You make me want to apply!”
“Me encanto la manera en que presentaron los requerimientos de la posición. Definitivamente se siente la energía de una excelente casa creativa!”
“The job you posted sounds very interesting…”
“I am interested in submitting my name to work for the communications firm who is looking for a ‘super hero’.”
“I believe I’ve sent you my CV before but was intrigued my your posting.”
“I am all these and so much more…”
“Yes - to all of that.”
“ La verdad me reí mucho con tu anuncio -- porque me identifiqué a mil..!”
“Interesting and amusing specifications!”

These people are looking for a job – or open to the possibility of a new one – and have read dozens, if not hundreds, of job descriptions that for the most part sound monotonously similar. Why don’t crash the status-quo and talk to them in a more colloquial, down to earth, real and to a certain extent, somewhat absurd manner? It might not apply for all situations, but it certainly resonated with the target audience – and we have the resumes to prove it! I mean, how many cover letters out there declare, and I paraphrase, “I’m interested in the super hero job.”

I knew exactly who I was looking for and I knew were I’d find him/her. That was the easy part; now I needed to capture their attention in the over communicated world we live in and have them conscientiously choose to open & read my message. That’s where the power of word comes into play… Yes, I am biased about it, but I believe I would be more willing to apply to the job described above than to the following cookie-cutter job description:

[Big Wig Agency] is looking for an Account Director to join our New York office. If you have the skills to make a significant contribution to our integrated direct marketing success, we'd like to hear from you!

Responsibilities:
The candidate will be responsible for account development, managing profitability, and providing clients with the most up-to-date direct solutions. The ideal candidate will be able to lead integrated marketing teams to accomplish set goals, as well as guide clients' direct response campaigns and marketing businesses. So on and so forth, yada yada yada…

Which was more engaging for you?

When Bad Translations Happen to Good People

2009-11-05T13:21:37-06:00

I was thrilled to learn earlier today that the Internet Innovation Alliance was launching an effort to reach out to Spanish speakers in the U.S. informing them about their efforts to achieve universal broadband availability and adoption, "Because every American should have access to broadband Internet".

Unfortunately, when I eagerly visited the site, I stumbled into a welcome message, in big bold letters which greets visitors to the Spaniard (as in from Spain) section of their site, rather than the Spanish Language one (as in "En Español"): Bienvenido a IIA Española.

There are other translation mistakes on this page snapshot, but the one mentioned above stands out because of how prominent it is, not to mention that it appears twice.

That's why I always say that a good translation is worth MY weight in gold!

Rising NFL viewership signals cultural shift for Hispanics - St. Petersburg Times

2009-10-31T22:48:09-05:00

Here's Juan Tornoe, an expert in marketing to Hispanics, on the phone from Austin, Texas: "This is the future. These kids are growing up in the U.S., following American traditions, and one of them is the NFL."

via www.tampabay.com

‘Hispanically’ speaking: translation and persuasion for Spanish-speaking America

2009-09-02T00:40:53-05:00

August 14, 2009

By Juan Tornoe

When marketing to a culturally & ethnically diverse audience in the United States, you really need to put your money where your mouth is if you want to secure a specific segment of the community as loyal, long-term customers...

Please visit Lingo24's International Marketing Blog to continue reading this post, which was my first contribution to their blog.

What Race Are Hispanics?

2009-08-07T00:38:38-05:00

August 6, 2009
By Juan Tornoe

"What race are Hispanics?" This, along with "Mexican stereotypes" is one of the phrases that generate a more-than-decent amount of traffic to my blog. Looking at it from the inside out, it is a somewhat nonsensical question, but if I put myself in the shoes of the average non-Hispanic American, I can somewhat understand where they are coming from. It is a somewhat intricate, not a black or white (pun intended) matter.

So what race are Hispanics? They can be Asian, Black, Pacific Islander, White, Native American, or any combination of two or more of these. The Latino community is nothing short of a genetic kaleidoscope. The answer to the question is, "Any of the above." Even the Census Bureau has stated that "Hispanics can be of any race, any ancestry, any country of origin."

Each one of the racial categories mentioned above "shares certain distinctive physical traits." When you begin to look closely at the Latino community as a whole, you begin to notice that you simply can't organize it by race; there's just too many of us who don't fit the finite number of races. Most of us fit in the last category, "a combination of two or more races." Yes, many of us are "mestizos" or of mixed racial ancestry. Still, there are some pure bred White, Black or Asian individuals who identify themselves as Latinos.

So the question now is, what are Hispanics? The best way to categorize them is as an ethnic group. An ethnic group is defined as "a group of those who hold in common a set of traditions that distinguish them from others ... such as a sense of historical continuity, a common ancestry, place of origin, religious beliefs and practices, and language." Please note that when defining an ethnic group, it is done not by a rigidly defined set of characteristics that you can't move away from, but as a combination of several traditions, which at the end of the day define a particular outlook in life, a state of mind, a way to interpret and respond to outside situations and stimuli.

Let's see how some of the characteristics of the Latino ethnicity intertwine.

    * Most Latinos can trace back in time an ancestor who came from México, Central or South America (I always include Brazil here), or the Spanish-speaking Caribbean; in many cases they came from there themselves.

    * Some who perfectly fit within the "Hispanic ethnicity," genealogically descend from Spain or Portugal as well. It all goes back to the conquering and colonization of the New World by the Spanish and Portuguese empires. They settled in America (yes, North America as well), bringing their culture, customs, religion, language, etc., and through cultural and racial cross-pollinating, started a brand new ethnicity and a distinct culture.

    * People from elsewhere migrated -- by free will or not -- to Latin America from all corners of the world as well; we can clearly identify people with Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and German heritage, as well as those from different parts of Africa, just to name a few. Through time, all the latter, although some still maintain most of their genealogical traits, have assimilated/acculturated into their host nations.

    * Individuals from Latin America who migrate to the United States have a shared connection to the history of their country of heritage, which in turn has many similarities with the history of the other Latin American countries. Then they share all these with their American-born offspring.

    * Without going into a religious debate, and looking only at the customs as well as the interpretation of outside stimuli, we can observe that Latin Americans through centuries of Spaniard/Portuguese colonization have a well-ingrained Catholic outlook, independently of the faith they profess.

With all this in mind, I'm sure you are now asking, "Who is Hispanic?" A recent Pew Hispanic Center report that emerged around the commotion about whether or not Sonia Sotomayor was the nation's first Hispanic nominated to the Supreme Court put it quite clearly: "You are if you say so."

Through my years living in the U.S. I've met and befriended many persons who neither physically or through heritage fit the "Latino stereotype," yet their state of mind, their outlook in life is much more Hispanic than that others I've met who "genetically" look Latino. The former, to me, are Hispanics.

Originally Published on MediaPost's Engage:Hispanics

Talking about "Hispanic" vs. "Latino" @ WNYC-FM

2009-07-28T12:08:12-05:00

A few days ago I had the opportunity to chat a bit about the Hispanic vs. Latino debate on New York's Public Radio, WNYC-FM.

Click here to listed to the audio clip.

So, what do you think?

Last Week for LIVESTRONG's Spanish Language Multimedia Campaign

2009-07-14T13:18:25-05:00

Dear friends,

Just one week is left of the campaign from the Lance Armstrong Foundation to make the Spanish speakers nationwide aware of the different resources available for them in regards to cancer, surviving it, and helping family members and care-givers of those who suffer it.

Please invest a moment of your time in sharing this information with all those in your life who might benefit from it.

Here are some of the many resources available:

Online Videos

Online Audio

Other Resources

Click here to visit their press release (in Spanish) with more detailed info about the campaign.

Thank you for our help.

Saludos,

Juan

Juan's Talking Latino Marketing on NPR

2009-05-28T17:24:14-05:00

I had the honor to share my thoughts on Hispanic Marketing on NPR's Tell Me More, with Jennifer Ludden. You can listen to it on NPR's site.

Home Depot’s Spanish Outreach: in Their Own Words

2009-05-21T15:05:04-05:00

By Juan Tornoe

Curiosity did not kill this gato (although it almost drove him crazy!). I’m alive and kicking, thank you very much (and borderline sane). Honestly, I was going berserk because I did not have access to the whole scoop regarding the sudden closure of Home Depot’s Spanish website. Yes, I did read what was said in the news; cathartically posted my own POV on the subject, and interviewed another big box retailer who’s maintained a Spanish online presence for quite some time… Through it all I did gather some insights, but there is nothing like hearing the story first hand from those directly involved in making these complex decisions.

So I reached out to Home Depot’s Corporate Communications, who promptly replied and in no time set up an appointment with Leonard Wortzel, their Multicultural Manager, who stepped into this role just 7 weeks ago. Leonard has been with The Home Depot for 4 ½ years, working in various advertising and marketing roles. Prior to that, he spent several years working mostly creative side advertising, with a small agency in Dallas, as well as with the BBDO and Grey affiliates in Costa Rica.

Following, please find the interview/conversation I had with Mr. Wortzel…

Juan Tornoe: What was your U.S. Spanish online presence prior to the launch of the now closed site?

Leonard Wortzel: We had some minimal how-to content on a secondary website.

JT: Why the closure of your Spanish Site only 4 months after turning it on?

LW: When we launched the site, our research told us that this was the right thing to do. The reality was, it wasn’t; not in this current environment. It just simply did not perform the way we thought it would. Because of the very robust solution that we adopted, maintaining the site would require a good amount of manpower behind it. It would have not been simple to just maintain a piece or portion of it, technically it just didn’t work that way.

JT: Why not leave up general company info, store locator info, How-To guides, etc… and lead people into buying in English OR visiting their nearest location for some “Skin time” with a bilingual associate?

LW: The landing page that is there takes you to the store, takes you to our online site, or it takes you to apply for a job. There are a couple of resources that we still have out there: You can shop our online circulars in Spanish and a bilingual employment site. What we’ve heard and learned from our customers is that we need to engage them in the stores, person to person. So right now that is where every ounce of every type of effort is being placed; serving this customer where they told us they want to be served the best, right there in our isles.

JT: It was cited on the Wall Street Journal that one of the reasons the site was closed was that half the visitors came from other countries… Only 33% of Univision.com’s traffic comes from the U.S. Although we’re talking about completely different business models don’t you believe there could’ve been a way to keep at least a part of the site up and running – referring specifically to the How-To guides?

LW: Again, it wasn’t a simple transfer of data. The amount of resources and effort that would have been required at this particular point in time to keep that part of the site live led us to making a decision on where do we want to put our efforts right now; is it going to be in the digital space or are we best served serving our customer in the place they want and need our help the most, which is in the isles every day?

JT: Was a good chunk of the international traffic coming from México?

LW: Without getting into specific numbers that is pretty safe to say.

JT: Couldn’t you have redirected that traffic to your Mexican website and/or stores?

LW: Although Mexico has a pretty robust site, it isn’t an ecommerce site.

JT: Could you comment on your Spanish site’s conversion rates and customer satisfaction?

LW: Again, without getting into any specifics, we made the decision to shut it down because it wasn’t performing anywhere near where it needed to be.

JT: Is there a future for Home Depot en Español online? If so, what is it?

LW: Without talking about specific plans, we are always looking for the best way to serve our customers and we are always researching and developing new ways to fulfill our Hispanic customers’ needs. To say that Home Depot is done with the digital space for the Hispanic customer, or that we dipped our toe in the water and said, “No, we are done with this”, is absolutely untrue.

JT: Excellent! That is really comforting to learn. One final question… By the way that your current Spanish landing page addresses the Latino community, it seems that The Home Depot is assuming that all Hispanic clients are Spanish-speaking clients. What about Bilingual and English-dominant Latinos? Don’t you believe that specifically addressing Spanish-dominant Hispanics on that one landing page would be more appropriate?

LW: I think that is a valid point; I am going to get back with Vidal [The Home Depot’s Hispanic Agency of Record] and have them take a fresh look at that. One last thing, I enjoyed discovering your blog, I think you’ve got a lot of good content on it.

So, there you have it. Don’t know about y’all but I am quite satisfied with Home Depot’s answers. They do clarify many of the questions I had written on my initial post on the subject. Hey, I even got a chance to do a bit of free consulting for Vidal… You are very welcome guys! I’ll make sure to add it to my CV. :-)

Christine Webster Moore on BestBuy.com en Español

2009-05-07T01:14:10-05:00

May 7, 2009
By Juan Tornoe

Two days ago I had the opportunity to have an interesting conversation with Christine Webster Moore, VP of Business Initiatives at Best Buy. Christine is part of BestBuy.com and works with the Latino initiatives team, helping support their Latino customers across all their channels: Online, in their stores, in their call centers, as well as being responsible for BestBuy.com en Español. I believe that given the recent shutdown of another major U.S. Retailer’s Spanish language website, it is important for you to get inside the head of one of the decision-makers at Best Buy, a big box retailer which actually is putting all its chips on the growing Hispanic market.

Juan Tornoe: When and why did Best Buy launched their Spanish Website?
Christine Webster Moore: We soft-launched in September of 2007 and the intent was and is part of a holistic strategy to better serve our Latino customers, and especially those Latino customers who were interested in engaging with us in Spanish. We felt that it was important to be able to have an in-language experience for these customers whether they were walking in our stores, whether they were going online, or whether they were calling our call center. We believe that an in-language approach is of particular importance when people are dealing with products and services that are more complicated; they need to be able to understand what they are, how they work, and if they meet their needs.

JT: What has been your experience with the Spanish site?
CWM: We have learned a lot! We measure the success of the Spanish site in three ways. One, it is important that the kind of relationship we have with our customers, from an overall standpoint, is one in which we are able to say that we reach out to them in-language across our channels; this is something we believe our customers recognize positively. The second way are the transactions done on the site; we are continuing to see progress in this particular area and will continue to improve our efforts in growing the business specifically for the channel. The third area is what we see in terms of the online space and specifically the Spanish site as an initial step to going in the store. We know that our Spanish speaking customers are going online, and doing research, looking at products, looking at our store locator, comparing different products, and then going into the store to actually make a purchase or to have more a conversation with one of our sales associates in the store. We feel that all three of those together are huge benefits to the dotcom business and to the whole company.

It is hard to track exactly what percentage of business online drives into the store. Still, we hear employees telling us more and more that people are coming in with printouts from the Spanish web page and/or employees are using the kiosk inside the store as a way to access the Spanish site and get more information or deepen the conversation with a customer.

JT: What feedback have you received from visitors to the Spanish Site?
CWM: On a monthly basis we track customer satisfaction and we find that the feedback continues to be overwhelmingly positive and is higher actually than what we see on our English site. We think we are getting a little lift because there are not many retailers out there with a fully translated site. We hear that customers like the translation; they are able to find what they are looking for, and that they have a really positive experience on the Spanish site.

JT: Conversion...That's the name of the game. How do the Spanish and English site's conversion rates compare?
CWM: The Spanish site has lower conversions and some of that is due to the fact that a good chunk of our traffic is from outside of the U.S. and we are currently not able to fulfill outside of the U.S. So, obviously the conversion will be lower. But what we are doing, even though we cannot ship outside the U.S. we are trying some different things that would allow customers who are shopping from outside of the U.S. to make easy payments using international credit cards and/or shop from outside the U.S. and then pick up in the U.S. if they are planning a trip; which would be essentially in-store pickup that originated internationally.

JT: Do you have information on what percentage of the visitors to your Spanish site come from outside the US?
CWM: Without sharing any specifics, we can say that a good chunk comes internationally. We are seeing a lot of traffic coming from Mexico, Venezuela, Spain and Brazil; these would be the principal sources of traffic outside the U.S.

JT: So, what's the future of Best Buy.com en Español?
CWM: We will continue with our commitment to the Spanish site as part of our holistic strategy to better serve this customer. We will continue to build awareness around the site and the capability that it offers customers. I think that’s the focus right now. We think we have a great capability that when customers find it, are really happy with it. So we are staying the course!

Well folks, don’t know about you, but I am a happy camper after learning Best Buy’s commitment to serving Spanish dominant Latinos.