PR and Marketing, Sin Fronteras

In its "PR Toolbox" section, PR Week addresses how to market "to the growing Hispanic population." The answer: radio. "There are now approximately 700 Spanish-language radio stations in the U.S." And, according to Rise Birnbaum of the broadcast PR firm Zcomm, "Spanish-language stations are even more receptive than general-market ones" to audio news releases and radio media tours. In a separate article, PR Week further examines Hispanic marketing. Porter Novelli's Fernando Figueredo says, "It wasn't really the 2000 census, it was 2002 that all of a sudden we were the number one ethnic minority. ... Over the past two years, we've seen a lot more attention to the market," including by "many of the major companies." But "in the advertising world they're only spending 2% of the total buy even though [Hispanics account] for 14% of the market. In the PR world ... it's probably less than 2% of the total PR buy."