Health insurance

The U.S. Census Bureau reported last week that the percentage of people without health insurance climbed to 15.8 percent in 2006, up from 15.3 percent in 2005. The number of people without health insurance increased to 47 million, an increase of 2 million during the past year.

We are wondering whether the growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S. is having an effect. About 34 percent of Hispanics do without health insurance, the highest of any ethnic group.

As our books, The Whole Enchilada and Marketing to American Latinos: A Guide to the In-Culture Approach, Part II explain, many Hispanics are used to self-medicating or having their moms give them over-the-counter drugs. Many drugs that are available only by prescription in the U.S. are available in Mexico without a doctor's order. In addition, a large proportion of the Mexican population lives close enough to the border that they can seek medical and dental care in Mexico. Since few U.S. health insurers will cover health care in Mexico, these residents may feel that health insurance is not useful.

A Los Angeles employer of several Hispanics tells us that given a choice between more wages and health insurance, her employees always prefer a wage hike. These are all people who are legally working in the U.S., but they prefer to go to Mexico for their health care.

It is possible we are in a period of transition where U.S. Hispanics need to learn to trust the U.S. health care system and U.S. healthcare providers need to employ more Spanish speakers in order to give Hispanics the level of comfort they need to use our system. It is also possible that U.S. health insurance companies need to make more of an effort to fashion policies that will meet the needs of Hispanics and then to market those policies more effectively.

Nielsen to Generate National Ratings for Both English -and Spanish Language Television from the Same Panel

A significant example of the corporate acceptance of the Latin influence on American culture is Nielsen Media Research's decision to combine its English and Spanish language television viewing panels. You can find the whole press release at the Nielsen Media Research Web site, but here are some excerpts.

New York, NY, August 27, 2007 – The Nielsen Company announced that beginning today it will produce all national Hispanic ratings through its National People Meter (NPM) panel, the same sample that is used to produce ratings for non-Hispanic networks. This will put national Spanish-language television on a level playing field with English-language television, providing a common ratings number for all national networks.

As a consequence of providing ratings from a single national sample for all television networks regardless of language, Nielsen will retire its separate National Hispanic People Meter (NHPM) panel, which has measured Hispanic households since 1992. This completes a transition that started in late 2005, when a number of Spanish language networks began to use ratings data from the NPM sample.

The growth of Hispanic television in recent years has resulted from the growing market power of the Hispanic population as a whole:

• The number of Hispanic viewers in the U.S. has risen from 22.2 million, or 9% of the total U.S. population, in 1992-93 to 38.9 million, or 14% of the total population in 2005-06.

• Ad spending on Spanish-language network and cable television has grown from approximately $1.8 billion in 2001 to more than $3.05 billion in 2006, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

• In the 1992-1993 television season, there were two national Spanish-language broadcast networks, attracting a combined average primetime audience of 2.4 million Hispanic viewers. In the 2006-2007 television season, there were four national Spanish-language broadcast networks with a combined average primetime audience of 4.1 million Hispanic viewers.

“By providing the marketplace with a single source of television ratings regardless of language, Nielsen will allow the television industry to evaluate both English and Spanish language television and audiences side-by-side,” said Sara Erichson, Executive Vice President, Nielsen Media Research North America. “This step is part of Nielsen’s commitment to continuously improve the quality and accuracy of its measurement and to ensure that our measurements reflect the growing diversity of the entire U.S. population.”

If you are interested in listening to some discussion on this topic, there was a report on NPR - Morning Edition

Media researcher Brad Adgate discusses the change and the growth of the Hispanic television market with Renee Montagne.

Source : NPR - Morning Edition

The Latinization of American food and lifestyle.

American culture has been through many transitions. Most Americans take pride in the fact that the United States is a "melting pot" that has adopted the influences of many different ethnic more 200-year history. We may say we are going to an Italian restaurant, but we certainly think of pizza and pasta as a stable of American cuisine.

Latinization is a buzz word right now, but as Cristina Benitez' book, Latinization, points out, Latino influences are being adopted so quickly in the U.S. that they will soon be mainstream culture. Latinization is simply the most recent transition of American culture.

This month shows many examples of this main stream adoption of the Latin influence.

1. The upscale epicurean magazine Gourmet devotes the September special issue to the exploration, taste, and celebration of Latino culture.
   
   The magazine showcases the voices and food-loving adventures of Latino writers Junot Diaz, who takes readers inside his Dominican New York, and Ana Menedez, who offers a tour of the Cuban culinary scene in Miami.
   
   
2. In the September issue of the magazine Every Day With Rachael Ray, the energetic talk show host introduces two new contributors, chef and author Daisy Martinez and interior designer and home improvement maven Evette Ríos, both of whom are Puerto Rican.
   
   
3. Cable's Food Network has ordered an additional 13 episodes of its daytime entertaining and food program Simply Delicioso, hosted by Colombia-born lifestyle aficionada Ingrid Hoffman. The show airs Saturdays on the cable food channel at 11:30 a.m. ET. She also serves as host of the Spanish-language show Delicioso on Galavisión/Univision and is considered to be the first TV host to have two Latino lifestyle programs in two languages airing on two cable networks. Hoffman's cookbook, Simply Deliciosio: A Collection of Everyday Recipes With a Latin Twist, is being published by Clarkson Potter/Random House and is scheduled for release in February 2008.

Celebrity: Who Needs It?

A recent Pew Research Survey found that 87 percent of the public says celebrity scandals receive too much news coverage. Moreover, they blame the news media, with 54 percent saying the news organizations give too much coverage to celebrities.

How did we get into this mess where the scandals associated with celebrity get so much attention and the good deeds that people do go uncovered? The public seems to blame cable and network news for most of the coverage, with internet news sites not too far behind.

We realized that much of this trend toward celebrity coverage started with the death of Princess Diana. The public couldn't get enough coverage, it seemed. But this was a young mother who was part of the British Royal Family and who, in her own right, had earned the respect of many people for the charities she supported. The news media apparently misinterpreted this interest to mean that every slut who was famous for being famous deserved such detailed coverage. Now, we can't get away from it.

Obviously, advertisers are supporting this coverage in the belief that they will earn eyeballs, but we think the tide is turning. Advertisers and their agencies need to think about whether they want to be associated with something that the public is learning to detest. If people associate your product with such demeaning news, does that make the product more attractive? Are there better ways to spend those advertising dollars that will elevate your product in the eyes of consumers?

It would be quite easy for a public that is getting sick to death of "the famous" and their infamous and silly scandals to turn off this coverage, simply by finding out which advertisers support it and sending them a message. No more!!

If the Pew study is representative (and we think it is), it's time for advertisers to link back to the thinking public and let the news and cable channels talk to themselves.

Where do new products come from?

We're working on a new book by Robert Berkman that discusses "social listening." It will help companies tap into conversations on the Internet to learn more about their customers, their industries, how their companies are perceived, and possibly find clues to new products.

Sometimes it seems like there can be no new products because everything has already been invented. But then you see an innovative product and realize that someone has been listening to customers and thinking about their needs. For example, we just ran across "Days Ago," a product that attaches to leftovers or other items so you know how long they have been sitting around and whether they are safe to consume.

It's a product that taps into consumer concerns about food safety. It's reuseable and reasonably priced.

Berkman's book, which will be available in a couple of months, will help new product developers, public relations firms, marketers and others to tap into the kinds of informal conversations, videos, and blogs on the Internet that give depth to understanding customers. It's chock full of information that will help you sort through the various tools available to find conversations and content appropriate for your research needs and and set up feeds to your computer so you are always in the loop. If you'd like to know when this book is available and receive special pricing, subscribe to the "What's New in Marketing" emails.

Another book that will help you think about the development of new products for kids is Marketing to the New SuperConsumer Mom+Kid. Seasoned new product developers, Dave Siegel, Greg Livingston, and Tim Coffey have included lots of tips for new product development as well as useful market research in this book. LaunchForce is a spin-off of their company, WonderGroup, and is a company you may want to talk with if you are working on developing products that appeal to kids and their moms.