Moore's Law and Hispanic Marketing

Jose Villa
April 19, 2010 | COMMENTS

Moore 's Law is a commonly referenced maxim in the technology industry. It states that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.

While this may sound like a lot of engineering or futuristic jargon, the law has become closely linked to the capabilities of many digital electronic devices—commonly expressed in terms of processing speed, memory capacity, or resolution quality. A simple, yet effective, application of Moore 's Law means that every two years MP3 players, like the iPod, will have double the memory capacity, laptops will have twice the processing speed, and mobile phones will offer two times better viewing resolution at the same or lower cost.

You may be wondering what Moore 's Law has to do with Hispanic marketing. Simply put, Moore's Law means digital media devices are getting faster, more robust, easier to use, and cheaper, speeding their adoption by U.S. Hispanics of all ages, income and acculturation levels.

Think about how much iPhones cost when they first came out in June 2007—around $600 for the 8GB device. Today they sell for $99 with a two-year plan at $70 per month. A device that was previously price-prohibitive to a large swath of the U.S. Hispanic population is now within reach of most of them. Today, smartphones like the iPhone, Android devices and BlackBerry are basically mobile broadband computers, allowing users to surf the mobile Web, use thousands of apps and take advantage of a plethora of communications and GPS-enabled tools well beyond simple voice calls.

Moore 's Law means that the pace of Hispanic digital technology adoption will increase from one year to the next. The lag between general market adoption (even looking at early adopters) and most U.S. Hispanics will decrease in time. That's why today more than half of U.S. Hispanics are using mobile broadband. How long before most Hispanics begin using location-based services or downloading mobile apps?

What does this mean for Hispanic marketing in general? Let's start with the bad news. Historically, Hispanic marketers have benefited from the relatively large lag of three to five years behind general market adoption of new digital media technology—whether Internet access, broadband Internet access or use of social media.

That lag gives marketers time to see how the technology, most of which is disruptive in nature (think about iPods and radio listenership), will unfold and how general market consumers' behavior changes. They can then make carefully thought-out, data-driven decisions about how, if at all, they will change their Hispanic marketing programs to adjust to the new technology.

Looking ahead, that lag will start to shrink to one to two years and eventually disappear. For instance, with 4G mobile devices beginning to hit the market this summer, how long before Hispanic consumers also buy them in large numbers? Probably early to mid-2011. Not a lot of time for marketers to adapt to potentially significant changes in Hispanic consumer behavior.

The good news with this rapid rate of technological change and adoption by U.S. Hispanic consumers is that it will level the playing field for organizations looking to reach and engage this population. Having tens of millions of dollars of Hispanic broadcast media budgets will increasingly become less and less of a barrier to entry to the U.S. Hispanic market. Instead, innovation will rule the day and companies that are willing to take risks and leverage new technology will reap the benefits of the fastest-growing consumer segment in the U.S.

Jose Villa is the founder of Sensis, a full-service interactive agency that manages digital marketing initiatives. Reprinted with permission from mediapost.com.