Chamber helps local businesses connect with Hispanic community

By Lindsay Danzell
Contributing Writer

With the increasing Hispanic population in the Lowcountry, the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce hosted a seminar in November to help businesses adapt and advertise to this growing market sector.

The buying power of Hispanics has climbed nationwide, said Elaine Lacey, director of research at the University of South Carolina at Aiken. Immigrants from Mexico spend $3.5 billion in South Carolina annually, said Lacey.

The Hispanic population, nationwide, is expected to reach 50 million by 2007, with 100,000 Hispanics being born in or immigrating to the United States every three weeks, Lacey said.

From 1990 until 2005, the Census Bureau reported a 37% increase in the Hispanic population in Charleston County. York County experienced the most growth in the state with a 73% increase during that time.

Merely speaking Spanish often does not translate to winning over Hispanic buyers, said Jose Isasi, executive director of Makin’ It Work Pronto! Isasi works with international, national, regional and local companies to make a connection with Hispanic consumers.

“Language will open the door, but knowing the culture will really open the door,” Isasi said. Communicating in the Hispanic culture is how businesses will attract the Hispanic sector, Isasi said.

With a small Hispanic population relative to places such as Atlanta or San Antonio, Charleston already has one marketing success story, said Alan Donald of the Hispanic American Business Council, but that success came only after listening to Charleston’s Hispanic community.

Radio station WASZ 98.9-FM, which is known as El Sol and is owned by Jabar Communications, has undergone a reformatting to reflect the diverse Hispanic demographic.

Originally, the station played Latin contemporary, a Hispanic genre covering a broad range of nationalities and tastes. Several months ago, the station switched to a format known as regional Mexican to accommodate Charleston’s mostly Mexico-native Hispanic community.

“We tried to focus on the Mexican population here,” said Jamie Mascarin, a marketing consultant with Jabar Communications.

This move proved disastrous as ratings for El Sol plummeted.

“People in the community that were not of Mexican heritage were not happy about (the change),” Mascarin said. “We didn’t realize we had such a strong listenership amongst the Latino community here.”

After only several months, with ratings still falling and people expressing discontent with the change, Jabar Communication reformatted again.

Although El Sol is still labeled regional Mexican, the station now features a play list that incorporates Latin contemporary. The station plays music based on a reflection of the different nationalities represented in the Lowcountry’s Hispanic community, Mascarin said.

“As the population keeps evolving, we will have to evolve,” Mascarin said. “Nothing’s set in stone.”

In South Carolina, 75% of the immigrant population comes from Mexico, Lacey said. Other countries of origin include Spain, Puerto Rico, Columbia, Cuba, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala.

To understand Hispanic culture, businesses need to recognize the differences among the many Hispanic groups.

“You cannot think of us as homogeneous,” Isasi said.

The 2000 census reported a significant portion of the population of South American immigrants in South Carolina makes more than $50,000 per year. South American immigrants also tend to have a higher education level than other Hispanic and Latino immigrants and tend to own or operate businesses in the United States, according to the census.

However, according to the report, most Caribbean, Mexican and South American natives make between $20,000 and $35,000 annually in South Carolina. A 2005 study by the University of South Carolina found the Mexican population in the Lowcountry had an average annual salary of $22,736.

In Charleston, the Hispanic population is not large enough for businesses to target individual nationalities, said Donald. Instead, he suggested grouping nationalities by commonalities.

“Pick a target market and adjust your message accordingly,” Donald said.

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