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Affluent Hispanics...They've Got Money and They Spend It!

December 12, 2014 Author: Mario X. Carrasco

U.S. Hispanic consumers continue to grow in numbers and flex their spending power. This growth is having repercussions across all levels of the socio-economic spectrum. Affluent Hispanics, those earning $100K+ per year, are an interesting group in particular because while they currently represent approximately 12.2% of Hispanic earners, they punch above their weight as compared to non-Hispanic Affluents when it comes to contributing to overall spending.

To better understand these differences and where, exactly, affluent Hispanics are spending their money, we conducted a nationwide survey through our Omnibus Plus+ to look at four main categories of spending:

  • Family activities
  • Vacations
  • Sporting events
  • Brands

Though the study covered all income levels, the following findings are specifically about Hispanic consumers with a household income of more than $100,000. Here’s what we uncovered…

Family activities
In this category, we looked at everything from camping and fishing to gambling and golfing. In many categories (including shopping, cooking, reading books and wine tasting), affluent Hispanics and non-Hispanics measured out at about the same level of activity.

For a few of the activities, non-Hispanics rated higher than Hispanics. Some of these categories included visiting museums, couponing (sort of the opposite of spending) and boating.

But there were a certain activities where Hispanics spend much more time and money than their non-Hispanic counterparts, including:

affluent_hispanic_activities
 

Perhaps an influencing factor affecting the activities Hispanic Affluents over-index non-Hispanic Affluents is youth. On average, Hispanics earning $100K+ a year are 7 years younger than non-Hispanics in that income bracket.

Vacationing
Evidently, getting away from the hustle-and-bustle of the rat race is of very high importance to affluent Hispanic consumers.

In fact, 23% of affluent Hispanics take five or more vacation each year – compared to just 9% for non-Hispanics. And when it comes to really getting away, 44% of Hispanics travel internationally, 9% more than non-Hispanics.

And it’s not just frequency. Affluent Hispanics are also the big spenders on vacations vs. non-Hispanics…
Hispanics Non-Hispanics
$3,000+ for a Domestic vacation 55.7% 33.0%
$10,000+ for an International vacation 31.1% 14.0%

On average, affluent Hispanics spend 29.7% more for a domestic vacation and 25% more for one out of the country. This increase spend, may also be a function of larger family sizes among Hispanics.

Sporting events
In our study, we asked about attending live sporting events – everything ranging from the Big 3 (NFL, MLB and the NBA) to FIFA soccer and NASCAR. And in every single category, a higher percentage of affluent Hispanics have attended at least one event in the past two years. For example:

affluent_hispanic_sporting_events

 

While the support for FIFA Soccer was no surprise, marketing budgets for golf and tennis should consider targeting Affluent Hispanics since the underlying interest is there.

Brands
While the level of activity and dollars spent are certainly two measures of affluence, the specific brands that people buy are a different kind of psychographic measurement. In this respect, Hispanics are attracted to those brands with a reputation for being the top-of-the-line. When we asked, “Which of the following brands do you own?”, here’s what we uncovered…

With some of the more mass-market brands – like Nike, Whirlpool and Wrangler – affluent Hispanics and non-Hispanics measured out at nearly identical levels.

But for many of the high-end brands, wealthy Hispanics owned them at a much higher rate the non-Hispanics…

affluent_hispanic_high-end_brands

Summary

Why do affluent Hispanics spend at levels higher than their non-Hispanic cousins? Here are a few suppositions:

  • Perhaps they see it as part of the American dream. Having arrived economically, they indulge in purchases that perhaps their parents couldn’t.
  • It could simply be that their more youthful age profile and larger families leads to greater levels of spending.
  • Or maybe spending money – on things like vacations and sporting events – is yet another way to expand the family and community experience, so important in this culture.

Regardless of the reasons behind it, if you’re an advertiser, retailer or ad agency, it’s time to pay attention to Affluent Hispanics. It’s an important – and growing – segment of the U.S. population that has money and is willing to spend it… and if you’re not focusing some of your marketing dollars on this group, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

We are pleased to offer free of charge the full contents of the report referenced in this blog entry. Please click the link below to get your copy now.

Download this study.