Hispanic Ad Industry Voice Calls For ‘Recalibration’

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Hispanic marketing and advertising agency association AHAA: The Voice of Hispanic Marketing has taken the lead on an industry-wide initiative to “assess and recalibrate” the Hispanic sampling representation and measurement methodologies of such measurement data providers as Nielsen, IRI, and Comscore.


“By improving these key metrics, marketers will be able to more accurately measure Hispanic audiences across screens, estimate their purchases, and evaluate Hispanic ROI regardless of language or media,” AHAA said in a statement released Thursday (Oct. 13).

A “Measurements Task Force” has been created by AHAA to tackle the issue, and address what it perceives are “rapid shifts in the Hispanic market and changes in sampling, data collection and estimation approaches for all consumer segments.”

In advocating for the Task Force, AHAA stressed that its prior studies “have shown that inaccurate measures have diluted Hispanic ROI, resulting in vast underinvestment in the booming Hispanic market — causing missed opportunities in the billions for marketers.”

The AHAA Task Force seeks to address core issues, including television measurement, digital measurement models and precision of Hispanic data.

“There are new ways to measure television viewing with big data and modeling increasingly being used as measurement tools in addition to traditional panels,” AHAA says, noting that its Task Force is evaluating methods to ensure that they reflect demographic realities of Hispanic households including migration, language preferences and actual viewing data. “Marketers depend on this television measurement data to direct national, local markets and shopper marketing efforts.”

Meanwhile, in measuring digital audiences and spending, there is a need for increased representation of Hispanics — in particular Spanish-dominant and bilingual Hispanics, AHAA reasons.

Furthermore, while improvements have been made to the methods used to estimate baseline purchases made by Hispanic consumers, concerns remain in measuring sales — especially sales increases generated by Spanish-language media among Spanish-dominant and Bi-cultural Hispanics, AHAA notes.

AHAA says its Task Force is working to improve sales estimates based on actual customer level data and to have broader sampling of independent chains and bodegas. The group also recommends expanding the scope for the Single Source Panel and will work with Nielsen, IRI and the Council of Research Excellence in these efforts.

AHAA’s leadership on these issues began in 2014 with a study of measurement inputs for Marketing Mix ROI Analysis that identified audience and sales data areas of improvement for Nielsen and IRI. The 2014 study assessed and recommended best practices that would improve marketing mix models’ ability to accurately evaluate the ROI of Hispanic efforts in any language or type of “Total Market” approach.

“Media consumption alternatives have exploded at the same time that the Hispanic segment has become the largest source of growth for brands in the U.S. For years, only best-in-class companies with advanced knowledge had the capabilities to adjust TV/digital ratings & sales data currencies,” said Santiago Solutions Group President and Chief Strategist Carlos Santiago, AHAA’s research chair who is spearheading the Task Force. “AHAA has sought to update and normalize the availability and use of precise data so all marketers can design as effective efforts as possible. We believe that by evolving data collection sampling and models we will have a huge impact for everyone racing to deliver effective growth.”

RBR + TVBR