5 Ways to Connect with the Hispanic and Latino Community Year-Round

As the largest eth­nic group in the Unit­ed States, His­pan­ics and Lati­nos con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the coun­try’s cul­ture, pol­i­tics, and econ­o­my. While this may not be news to some, brands still strug­gle find­ing ways to con­nect with our His­pan­ic and Lati­no com­mu­ni­ty. Our vibrant and diverse com­mu­ni­ty is a grow­ing con­sumer seg­ment with a pur­chas­ing pow­er of over $2.8 tril­lion and is dri­ving growth in many indus­tries, includ­ing enter­tain­ment, food and bev­er­age, and fashion.

While His­pan­ic Her­itage Month (Sep­tem­ber 15th to Octo­ber 15th) acknowl­edges the cul­ture, tra­di­tions, and con­tri­bu­tions of His­pan­ics and Lati­nos, engag­ing with our com­mu­ni­ty shouldn’t stop there.

So, how can your brand con­nect with the His­pan­ic and Lati­no com­mu­ni­ty beyond His­pan­ic Her­itage Month? We’ve got you covered!

5 Ways to Connect with the Hispanic and latino community year-round

Navigating the Diversity of our Hispanic and Latino Community

Remem­ber, His­pan­ic and Lati­no iden­ti­ties are com­plex and mul­ti­fac­eted. Peo­ple from our com­mu­ni­ty come from var­i­ous coun­tries, regions, and socio-eco­nom­ic back­grounds. They cel­e­brate dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions, reli­gions, and cul­tur­al prac­tices. Under­stand­ing this diver­si­ty will keep you from stereo­typ­ing or lump­ing the com­mu­ni­ty into a mono­lith­ic group. Con­duct research, engage with local com­mu­ni­ties, and hire diverse tal­ent to ensure your brand’s inclusive.

1. Understand Our Unique Language 

Span­ish is the sec­ond-most spo­ken lan­guage in the world and the most com­mon lan­guage spo­ken by His­pan­ics and Lati­nos in the Unit­ed States. Com­mu­ni­cat­ing in Span­ish can build trust, make your brand more acces­si­ble, and cre­ate emo­tion­al con­nec­tions. How­ev­er, not all Lati­nos and His­pan­ics speak Span­ish. Some speak very lit­tle, and oth­ers embrace Spang­lish. While lan­guage may be a part of some of our her­itage, it does­n’t make any­one more or less His­pan­ic or Lati­no if they speak the language.

Addi­tion­al­ly, you can’t rely on machine trans­la­tions to cre­ate con­tent in Span­ish. Our lan­guage is vast and diverse. Not every word will mean the same across our coun­tries. For exam­ple, we have at least 11 ways to say straw in Span­ish. If you would like to include Span­ish in your con­tent, we rec­om­mend hir­ing pro­fes­sion­al trans­la­tors. They can help you check for cul­tur­al nuances and use broad lan­guage to be inclu­sive to all of our com­mu­ni­ties. Above all, get to know your audi­ence and focus on cre­at­ing con­tent that res­onates with them. 

2. Avoid Using Cultural Celebrations to Represent our Entire Community 

His­pan­ics and Lati­nos cel­e­brate var­i­ous reli­gious and cul­tur­al hol­i­days and events year­ly. For exam­ple, Dia de Muer­tos is cel­e­brat­ed across the Amer­i­c­as, with its pri­ma­ry root com­ing from Mex­i­co. This Hol­i­day brings us intri­cate calav­eras dec­o­ra­tions (sug­ar skulls), cem­pa­suchil (Aztec marigold flow­ers) that are meant to guide the spir­its of our loved ones to the altars, papel pic­a­do (intri­cate cut paper) to dec­o­rate the streets and altars for the vis­it of our loved ones, can­dles to light the way, along with oth­er per­son­al items that con­nect to our what our loved ones cher­ished dur­ing life.

This sacred tra­di­tion is typ­i­cal­ly cel­e­brat­ed between Novem­ber 1 and 2, not all year. Cre­at­ing brand­ed con­tent or mar­ket­ing cam­paigns that are used year-round but pull visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tions from this hol­i­day will fall flat. Plus, it does­n’t include our diverse His­pan­ic or Lati­no population.

Instead, look at the flo­ra and fau­na from our coun­tries as inspi­ra­tion. Explore our inter­sec­tion of tex­tiles, shapes, and col­ors that can unite our com­mu­ni­ties with­out exclud­ing others. 

The brand­ing project we did for Offer­a­ki is a great exam­ple of this! Oker­a­ki is mobile cul­tur­al mer­ca­do ded­i­cat­ed to Lati­no and His­pan­ic users in the U.S. Our goal was to design a brand strat­e­gy that empha­sized our vibran­cy and cul­tur­al needs. Every ele­ment of the Offer­a­ki brand­ing is intentional—even the inter­ac­tion design among buyers/sellers with­in the app! 

3. Prioritize Diversity and Inclusion in Your Branding Efforts 

Diver­si­ty and inclu­sion have become a buzz­word for some, but it’s cru­cial to mak­ing our com­mu­ni­ty feel seen and rep­re­sent­ed. When con­sumers feel that they are well rep­re­sent­ed, their loy­al­ty to the brand increas­es, which nat­u­ral­ly will increase sales. His­pan­ics and Lati­nos con­tribute to $2.8 tril­lion in the GDP, if we were a stand-alone nation, we would be the 5th in the world.

These sta­tis­tics mean that incor­po­rat­ing His­pan­ic and Lati­no rep­re­sen­ta­tion in your mar­ket­ing cam­paigns, hir­ing prac­tices, and cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty ini­tia­tives is more impor­tant than ever. 

Our com­mu­ni­ty is a mix of Afro-Lati­nos, Indige­nous, Asian-Lati­nos, Caribeans, and Eur­poeans. We nev­er look the same because we are so diverse, and we high­ly rec­om­mend remov­ing “you don’t look His­pan­ic or Lati­no from your lan­guage.” Mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion not only fuels bias across cul­tures, it cre­ates divi­sion with­in our com­mu­ni­ties that all have beau­ti­ful tra­di­tions and her­itage to share.

4. Provide Relevant Products and Services 

Under­stand­ing the needs and pref­er­ences of our His­pan­ic and Lati­no com­mu­ni­ties is essen­tial in pro­vid­ing rel­e­vant prod­ucts and ser­vices. Cur­rent­ly, Gen Z’s largest demo­graph­ic is His­pan­ic and Lati­no. Invest­ing in our com­mu­ni­ty should start now because we will con­tin­ue to grow. 

With this in mind, brands need to be more inten­tion­al about how they are reach­ing this mar­ket. Forc­ing a con­nec­tion can cre­ate a back­lash. For exam­ple, the NFL launched a cam­paign to con­nect to the His­pan­ic and Lati­no influ­ence. In their cam­paign, they added the ~ sym­bol over the N to make the ñfl.  They mis­tak­en­ly called this sym­bol a tilde instead of call­ing it vir­gulil­la. And whats even worse, tried to use it in a way that does­n’t make sense in our lan­guage. It may have seemed like a clever mar­ket­ing approach, but the mean­ing did­n’t res­onate with our com­mu­ni­ty. This is why look­ing at every ele­ment of your brand com­mu­ni­ca­tion is cru­cial when try­ing to reach the Lati­no and His­pan­ic market.

Appro­pri­a­tion is anoth­er issue to be aware of when mar­ket­ing to our com­mu­ni­ty. Brands like Taco Bell (con­sid­ered Tex-Mex) dis­man­tle tra­di­tion­al Mex­i­can food and attempt to re-name them some­thing more appeal­ing to non-His­pan­ics or Lati­nos. For instance, the term “Mex­i­can Piz­za” is not a type of food in Mex­i­can cui­sine. And a “Mex­i­can Rolled Chick­en Tacos” is actu­al­ly called Flau­tas. This approach caus­es divi­sion with­in our com­mu­ni­ties and tells con­sumers that the cul­ture and tra­di­tions of oth­er com­mu­ni­ties are less appealing. 

Imagine if these brands had taken a different approach. 

What if the NFL had con­nect­ed with some of their Lati­no and His­pan­ic play­ers and used it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to share about their back­grounds? And while the own­er of Taco Bell isn’t His­pan­ic or Lati­no, they could high­light how Mex­i­can cui­sine inspired the root of their prod­ucts. Or they could speak about how they want­ed to cre­ate a fusion or non-tra­di­tion­al approach while still hon­or­ing the tra­di­tion­al foods that inspired their products. 

5. Partner with Experts and Community Leaders 

Experts, cul­tur­al orga­ni­za­tions, and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers are crit­i­cal voic­es in the His­pan­ic and Lati­no com­mu­ni­ties and are incred­i­bly valu­able resources for your brand. These lead­ers and orga­ni­za­tions have a strong pres­ence on social media and at local events and show a pos­i­tive approach to tack­ling some of our strug­gles as a com­mu­ni­ty. They serve as a voice of empow­er­ment that high­lights our contributions. 

When seek­ing a part­ner, it’s cru­cial to con­nect with those who don’t cre­ate divides. Look at what lan­guage they use for inclu­sion. As a mul­ti­cul­tur­al com­pa­ny, this is a fun­da­men­tal approach for us! Inclu­sion with­in our com­mu­ni­ty should­n’t mean exclu­sion of oth­ers. For exam­ple, part­ner­ing with some­one who’s say­ing “We’re not Mex­i­cans, stop con­fus­ing us with Mex­i­cans.” could cre­ate poten­tial pit­falls and sep­a­ra­tion in our com­mu­ni­ty. If we want to cre­ate inclu­sive envi­ron­ments, a bet­ter approach might be, “We all come from dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al back­grounds and coun­tries with rich tra­di­tions, but gen­er­al­iz­ing who we are los­es out on the rich and beau­ti­ful diver­si­ty we offer.”

If your brand wants to expand into our mar­ket, col­lab­o­rat­ing with experts, cul­tur­al orga­ni­za­tions, and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, can ampli­fy your brand’s mes­sage, reach new audi­ences, and build trust. How­ev­er, it’s impor­tant to do ample research, find some­one who can align with your brand’s val­ues, and cre­ate a nat­ur­al con­nec­tion to our com­mu­ni­ty. Oth­er­wise, it will come off feel­ing disingenuous. 

As you can see, con­nect­ing with the His­pan­ic and Lati­no com­mu­ni­ty beyond His­pan­ic Her­itage Month requires under­stand­ing, respect, and authen­tic­i­ty. When you invest the time and ener­gy, your brand can build rela­tion­ships and trust with this sig­nif­i­cant and grow­ing con­sumer seg­ment. In today’s busi­ness land­scape, brands that invest in diver­si­ty and inclu­sion will thrive, and the His­pan­ic and Lati­no com­mu­ni­ty is an excel­lent place to start.