El Partido Republicano y Los internets
The Republican Party has just unveiled a Spanish language new website on GOP.com.
It's vital for both parties to reach out into the Latino voting block, and to approach the Latino vote as a market that has very specific segments.
It is probably obvious by now that the Latino vote isn't a single like-minded, earth-toned group. It is, instead divided up by ethnic identity, and the socio-economic background of the Latino voter.
So within these buckets of ethincity: Cuban, Mexican, Colombian, Salvadorian, you have smaller clusterings that make targeting the Latino vote highly complex.
The Republican Party seemed to understand the nuances in the Latino population so they messaged Bush by using simple themes in their Spanish volleys of radio and TV buys during the 2004 Presidential Election. There was also something I read on Poll Track stating that the Democrats only ran positive ads in Spanishs where the GOP took the gloves off and gave it to that Francophile clown by running a number of Spanish language attack ads against against Jean-Francois Kerry (Mexicans, comprising the largest percentage of the Latino population, have many good reasons to hate the French, but probably no more than any other sensible ethnic group on the planet) and as result were able to push up the Bush vote.
In 2006, in order to mantain control of both houses of Congress, the GOP is looking like its going to modify and tweak this strategy and expand it by going beyond radio and television, and gop.com/espanol is the first shot at bring in Latinos into the party on los internets.
President Bush did well among Hispanic voters in the 2004 Presidential Election, bringing in somewhere around 40% to 44% of the Latino vote - much better than Zogby International predicted. Zogby interviewed 16% of Latino voters in Spanish, which resulted in predicting that 60% of Latino voters would vote for Kerry.
There was some debate in the Washington Post shortly after the election on what the proper percentage of Spanish interviews should have been conducted into to be able to accurately predict the election. Sergio Bendixen, a Florida-based pollster whose firm Bendixen and Associates conducts polls in several languages (and works exclusively, it seems for the New Democrat Network) claims that the proper mix of Spanish language polling should be nothing less than 40% of your sample. Bendixen also states in the above linked The Hill article that 50% of Hispanic voters speak Spanish as their primary language - so why not, if conducting a poll targeting Hispanic set a soft quota of 50% of Spanish interviews.
Why this interesting number, the 40% ratio.
Could it be because Republican strategists have determined that in order to achieve Permanent Majority Party status every state of the union will have to have a "reliable" 40% of Latinos voting for the Grand Old Party. Imagine how lethal it would be to the poor Dems, if the GOP cuts into a Democratic artery it will inflict a wound that if it isn't fatal, will seriously weaken what the Democrats once perceived to be their "base".
But polling 40% of Latinos in Spanish? I can't figure out how Bendixen came up with that ratio. It feels like the ratio should be around there, but like that Radiohead song, just cos you feel it doesn't mean it's there.
Marketing firm Hispanic USA's Jose Cancela advises clients to follow 50-25-25 rule when targeting the U.S. Hispanic general market.
According to this rule (which I take with a grain of sal because I can't find a website for Hispanic USA Inc, which begs the question: so how great of a marketing professional can he be if he doesn't even have a least placemat of a website?) 50% of Latinos are and will continue to be Spanish dominant, 25% of Latinos are bilingual (hola, how are you) and 25% are fully acculturated (vendidos!). But the article linked to above points out that this 50-25-25 rule doesn't account for the USA Hispanic preference or intention on responding to Spanish marketing communications.
So while 50-25-25 rule makes for an interesting but flimsy reasoning behind conducting no less than 40% of Latino focused polling in Spanish in order to make the numbers projectable. Why not just say do it 50% of interviews in Spanish among registered Latinos.
More to come on this topic...
It's vital for both parties to reach out into the Latino voting block, and to approach the Latino vote as a market that has very specific segments.
It is probably obvious by now that the Latino vote isn't a single like-minded, earth-toned group. It is, instead divided up by ethnic identity, and the socio-economic background of the Latino voter.
So within these buckets of ethincity: Cuban, Mexican, Colombian, Salvadorian, you have smaller clusterings that make targeting the Latino vote highly complex.
The Republican Party seemed to understand the nuances in the Latino population so they messaged Bush by using simple themes in their Spanish volleys of radio and TV buys during the 2004 Presidential Election. There was also something I read on Poll Track stating that the Democrats only ran positive ads in Spanishs where the GOP took the gloves off and gave it to that Francophile clown by running a number of Spanish language attack ads against against Jean-Francois Kerry (Mexicans, comprising the largest percentage of the Latino population, have many good reasons to hate the French, but probably no more than any other sensible ethnic group on the planet) and as result were able to push up the Bush vote.
In 2006, in order to mantain control of both houses of Congress, the GOP is looking like its going to modify and tweak this strategy and expand it by going beyond radio and television, and gop.com/espanol is the first shot at bring in Latinos into the party on los internets.
President Bush did well among Hispanic voters in the 2004 Presidential Election, bringing in somewhere around 40% to 44% of the Latino vote - much better than Zogby International predicted. Zogby interviewed 16% of Latino voters in Spanish, which resulted in predicting that 60% of Latino voters would vote for Kerry.
There was some debate in the Washington Post shortly after the election on what the proper percentage of Spanish interviews should have been conducted into to be able to accurately predict the election. Sergio Bendixen, a Florida-based pollster whose firm Bendixen and Associates conducts polls in several languages (and works exclusively, it seems for the New Democrat Network) claims that the proper mix of Spanish language polling should be nothing less than 40% of your sample. Bendixen also states in the above linked The Hill article that 50% of Hispanic voters speak Spanish as their primary language - so why not, if conducting a poll targeting Hispanic set a soft quota of 50% of Spanish interviews.
Why this interesting number, the 40% ratio.
Could it be because Republican strategists have determined that in order to achieve Permanent Majority Party status every state of the union will have to have a "reliable" 40% of Latinos voting for the Grand Old Party. Imagine how lethal it would be to the poor Dems, if the GOP cuts into a Democratic artery it will inflict a wound that if it isn't fatal, will seriously weaken what the Democrats once perceived to be their "base".
But polling 40% of Latinos in Spanish? I can't figure out how Bendixen came up with that ratio. It feels like the ratio should be around there, but like that Radiohead song, just cos you feel it doesn't mean it's there.
Marketing firm Hispanic USA's Jose Cancela advises clients to follow 50-25-25 rule when targeting the U.S. Hispanic general market.
According to this rule (which I take with a grain of sal because I can't find a website for Hispanic USA Inc, which begs the question: so how great of a marketing professional can he be if he doesn't even have a least placemat of a website?) 50% of Latinos are and will continue to be Spanish dominant, 25% of Latinos are bilingual (hola, how are you) and 25% are fully acculturated (vendidos!). But the article linked to above points out that this 50-25-25 rule doesn't account for the USA Hispanic preference or intention on responding to Spanish marketing communications.
So while 50-25-25 rule makes for an interesting but flimsy reasoning behind conducting no less than 40% of Latino focused polling in Spanish in order to make the numbers projectable. Why not just say do it 50% of interviews in Spanish among registered Latinos.
More to come on this topic...
posted by * at 9:18 PM
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
A Wish for Kings
The Spanish Royal family epitomizes the Latino long name chains that I, Pablo Sergio Serrato, envy.
King Juan Carlos I's full name is Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias, his sister is María del Pilar Alfonsa Juana Victoria Luisa Ignacia de Todos los Santos de Borbón de Gomez-Acebo.
P. Sergio Serrato vs. Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias.
At least all my names end in vowels.
That is all I got going for me. Vowels.
posted by * at 6:56 AM