MRI Consumer Survey Goes Hispanic

In yet another show of the increasing importance of the Hispanic consumer in the US, Mediamark Research Inc. is building several new Hispanic elements into its Survey of the American Consumer, including the use of Spanish-speaking interviewers and materials and additional questions on language capability and country of origin.

Until now, the majority of interviews with Hispanic/Latino Americans were conducted in English, along with the rest of the 26,000 annual sample of in-home interviews. Spanish-language interviews were conducted in an ad-hoc manner-if, for example, a relative or neighbour was available to translate. MRI is now systematically interviewing the full spectrum of Hispanic/Latino Americans.

Where Hispanic consumers do not speak English, a bi-lingual interviewer will now be dispatched in most cases to conduct interviews in Spanish. Spanish materials include the letter of introduction, personal interview guide and self-administered questionnaire.

Further to this, MRI's self-administered, in-home questionnaire has additional questions which measure viewing of more than 135 Spanish-language television programs-including novelas, specials and sport programs. This will allow for a seamless comparison of Hispanic and general market consumers' magazine, TV, radio and Internet usage, product usage for 6,000 product and service brands across 550 categories, demographics and attitudes. The data will be representative of the entire U.S. Hispanic population. Language capability can be split three ways: Spanish Preferred/Dominant, English Preferred/Dominant and bi-lingual.

'Most marketers are aware that Hispanics are a fast-growing segment of the U.S. population. But a one-size-fits-all approach to communicating with these consumers just doesn't work', says Julian Baim, Chief Research Officer at MRI. 'There are various levels of acculturation and differing brand/media preferences among the many segments of the Latino market'.

Data from The Survey of the American Consumer (adults 18+) is released twice yearly, in the spring and fall and is used as the basic media-planning tool for the majority of the media plans that are created each year by US national advertisers and their agencies. MRI is part of NOP World.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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