What’s true for Millennials is twice as true for Hispanic Millennials

Scarborough Research released a study on marketing to Hispanic consumers. Reaching this rapidly-growing demographic should already be high priority for you, and the Scarborough study confirms that recruiting Hispanic Millennials requires a strong Internet presence.

The highlight of the study is that Hispanics are 211% more likely to download content from the Internet than the general population.

Music is the number one download for this demographic, as it is for most. But if you produce videos, podcasts, or a PDF of your college catalog the Scarborough study may offer some encouraging news.

In a 2007 report, the Hispanic College Fund found that almost 98% of Hispanic high school students claimed they wanted to attend college or university. Obviously, many of these students haven’t followed through on their dreams, but our job is to recruit the ones who have.

Given such a plugged-in group within the ultimate plugged-in generation, your institution should have lots of great online content for Millennials to plug into. I can’t think of a better plug for blogs, podcasts, online video and chat rooms.

Millennials: The most ethnically diverse in American history

My colleague Thomas Tseng has a fascinating post, “Millennials: Key to Post-ethnic America“, where he observes that while the millennial generation represents the most ethnically diverse group of people in American history,few social commentators actually agree on what this important demographic detail implies for marketing to millennials.

By their sheer numbers, Millennials are already reshaping the nation’s ethnic makeup. Not only do they represent a “baby boomlet” in terms of population size, but according to recent figures from the 2008 Current Population Survey, 44 percent of those born since the beginning of the 80’s belong to some racial or ethnic category other than “non-Hispanic white”.

And what does this mean for marketing?

As a market segment, Millennials represent a precarious consumer. In the marketing world, they are shaking the foundations of advertising and media. Enabled by technology, they are contributing to a fragmented media landscape that grows ever more disparate and porous. Forced to keep up, advertisers question whether they can ever again rely on traditional media to broadcast messages for a lifestyle characterized by instant text messaging, mobile media, and virtual social networking.

Look for a white paper from the team that runs this blog coming shortly on how we can use these technologies in higher education to reach out to this technologically and ethnically diverse population.