July 14, 2004
This Year's Latin Grammys, Spanglish, Etc.
My friend Manny Gonzalez -- a senior brand manager at Schieffelin & Somerset -- is dropping science. Yesterday, he sent a snarky, incisive email tirade about the upcoming Latin Grammy awards, the role of Spanglish, and Nielsen's People Meters that also scores some key points about Hispanic marketing in the process. So, I got his permission to reprint it here -- peep:
- Spanglish shines at CBS and the Latin Grammys.
Check out this headline from a full-page ad in the current issue of Ocean Drive en Español (my bold) magazine.
"Finally un programa en tu idioma: spanglish."
Much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of the Spanish purists, this year's Latin Grammys and CBS are promoting the Sep 1 broadcast of the awards show on CBS for what it is: a celebration of Latino culture the U.S. Hispanic way.
Which renders a lot of the hullabaloo about Nielsen and their pinchi people meters all but meaningless. At the end of the day, a brand's success does NOT depend as much on its media choices, as it does on its core brand strategy. Sure, P&G spends a ton of money on English and Spanish-language media, but its brand management teams have never relinquished their responsibilities as chief stewards of their brands, to a bunch of young, media punks....any fool can number-crunch but it takes critical thinking to turn those numbers into a bigger market share for your brand . Like a lot of successful marketers, P&G spends a fortune on proprietary qualititative and quantitative research to help it properly position its brands in the marketplace. They certainly want Nielsen numbers to be reliable, but in the end, THEY do their OWN homework.
There is nothing more satisfying to a brand manager than to know exactly who his/her consumer is. Nielsen may be of some help, but it is hardly the starting point to getting to know your consumer. Some of the best brand strategizing and positioning stems from good ol' proprietary research.
The ongoing Nielsen debate now has developed into a spat between the Tomás Rivera Institute and Rincon Associates....puh-leeze! Yes, as we all know, it's essentially a fight over ad dollars but it's rapidly moving away from the more important debate of how to best market your brands to the ethnic consumer segments.
Remember that tools like Nielsen, Arbitron, and ABC are just that: tools....and tools that look at the PAST. The leading marketers combine these tools with their own proprietary research, insights and know-how, and yes, something called VISION....and they develop winning strategies. Successful brands have always been ahead of the curve--ahead of the competition. They don't wonder about trends as much as they set them....and when they do look at trends, they don't fall into analysis paralysis....they take a stand.
....so a Spanglish ad from CBS makes all the more sense. I guess it's not surprising for a company that has such a pioneering sister company called MTV. Go Sumner!