Recently I was having a conversation with a Hispanic friend who informed me that other than at work, he hardly ever uses a laptop and doesn’t even own one for personal use. 10 years ago this would have been out of the norm; however with smartphones becoming relatively inexpensive compared to laptops, rates of Internet usage and smartphone ownership have skyrocketed among minority groups.
While he may not know it, my friend is a part of the 18% of Hispanics that do not own a desktop or laptop computer and strictly rely on their smartphone to access the Internet. To marketers, this represents a seismic shift in how to effectively target minority groups online.
African-Americans and Hispanics are also much more likely to make mobile purchases than their white counterparts, which puts even more pressure on marketers to ensure that their e-commerce sites are mobile-friendly and easily accessible to a variety of cultures. That may mean making sure your messaging is available in multiple languages or ensuring that the creative used in your campaign is sensitive to other cultures.
Pepsi learned this lesson the hard way when they realized that their new slogan, “Come Alive With Pepsi” translated to “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave” in Chinese.
As the popularity of mobile marketing increases, professionals should know that they are speaking to an increasingly diverse audience and that the same messaging that was effective before, may not play out as well a few years down the line.
The Emerging Marketer 