New Study Shows Lots of Potential Growth for Online Hispanic Audiences

Implications: A study by Senovate examines ethnic and gender differences regarding social networks, online banking, and visiting YouTube with some interesting findings.

Analysis: This is an interesting study reported in Radio Ink that examines Hispanic and African American consumers (as well as general market or Anglos) in regards to online activity and behaviors.  There has not been much data available on this topic, so this study should be of interest especially to advertisers and people in the banking industry.

The key findings as I interpret them are the tremendous upside of the Hispanic audience.  We know this is the fastest growing ethnic segment in the US population, and this study shows the market has a lot of room for growth.

Key points:

There are a lot of gender differences among Hispanics in all areas of the study.  Males are more likely to engage in online activity than females such as visiting a social networking site or visiting YouTube.  These gender differences were not found with African Americans or the General Market.  With Hispanic women critical in making household purchases, this information should help advertisers in targeting this group.  Traditional media may be more helpful in targeting Hispanic women than digital/online media.

In terms of online banking, only 24% reported paying bills online, far below the other groups.  Regarding Internet access at home, which is key to all of this data, 55% of the Hispanics had access at home, much lower than both General market and African Americans estimated at 80%.  Obvioulsy there is a lot of upside potential for Hispanics to add PCs to their homes, along with Internet access.  This is happening, and this segment will continue to grown, but clearly there is a lot of upside potential here.

This is very interesting research and we need more studies like this to help understand the rapidly growing Hispanic market.