JP Madrid
Cool. Hey Ernesto, how are you doing?

Ernesto Posadas
Hey JP doing well.

JP Madrid
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. Let’s just jump right through it. So you work a lot in targeting people of the Hispanic population in advertising. So do you think creating marketing campaigns targeting the Hispanic demographic is important? Obviously you do. But tell us a bit about that.

Ernesto Posadas
Well, so like, in order to like, right, I’m like first generation, like Latin, right. So my mom’s from Maduro, so dad’s from Guatemala. So I want to make sure that Latinos have a voice and like, a space, you know, within the American culture and the American demographic. And I think a big part that is like misunderstood is kind of like our spending capacity, right, our spending power. And I think…

If you’re a company, no matter how small or how large, you know, I worked for a local state farm insurance agent and crushed it. It was number one in sales for two and a half years that I was there straight out of college because I was literally linking it directly to the Latino community. So it really is, you know, everybody from state farm, corporate, Walmart, Home Depot, corporate to…

you know, man pa restaurants and down the neighborhood should be marketing to the Latino demographic in some way, shape or form. And I think you see that more and more, even with the people that they choose on TV ads, right? So like if you’re watching the Super Bowl or you’re watching basketball playoffs or whatever, like you’re now noticing that like the people that are actually like in the in the in the commercial, like the actors, they’re now like.

They’re multiethnic, they’re Latino, they have a mixture of African American with Latino. It can be used, it can be interpreted in any kind of way. It used to be, and even up until, I want to say like five years ago, where everybody was like beautiful and blonde and white. I’m not beautiful, right? I mean, that’s wrong terminology, but that was what every ad was. Everybody was blonde and white and blue eyed. Even the Latin American company.

even the Copa Airlines who I worked for in the past five years, who’s Panamanian based, all of their ads were these blonde, white, complexed people, actors. And I’m like, yo, your demographic is brown. So I thought that was super interesting how it’s literally changed. I’m sorry if I went off on a tangent there, JP.

JP Madrid
No, I think that’s really what I’ve experienced also as a Hispanic and in the marketing work we do and in the trends we see, I think I was reading that there’s more Latinos in the US now than there are in Latin America. Or it’s something like that. Don’t quote me on it. I saw TikTok yesterday. But

Ernesto Posadas
Thanks for watching!

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah.

JP Madrid
It is an exponent, like the number of Latinos in the United States has grown exponentially, so you’re not targeting them, you’re not really doing your job.

Ernesto Posadas
Love it.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah, so I mean, I even like went as far, you know, I got all nervous and I was like, oh man, I gotta like sound smart. And you know, you gotta look at the data, you know, eventually like, you know, us Latinos are really passionate, like, you know, we matter and everything, but like, I looked up the data and the data literally shows, you know, 60, almost 61 million Hispanics in the U.S. which is a bunch. And then the forecast for 2050 is 2050 of,

the Hispanic population is going to be 100 million people, 100 million Hispanics in the U.S. And then our forecasted buying power in 2020, which was two years ago, was $1.72 trillion. And I’m sure that’s just grown in the past two years. So like $1.7 trillion and you’re just deciding not to market to that demographic. You’re, I don’t know, you’re just missing out.

Meara McNitt
So, yeah, so obviously like for bigger companies, like it’s really easy for them to like reach out to that demographic, but for smaller and like medium sized businesses, you know, they might not have a ton of resources at their disposal beyond like Google Translate, which definitely know the Google Translate does not do a good job. So how can SMBs like speak to Spanish speaking populations in their marketing?

Ernesto Posadas
I think the easiest way, especially to target to Latino community is, and look, I’m not an expert, I’m in sales more than anything, is actually hiring Latino or Latino generational workers to your firm. You put a Latino in your firm, obviously, when you have an event, they’re going to invite their whole family and that’s like at least 32 people.

JP Madrid
Hehehe

Ernesto Posadas
It’s a joke, but you know, I mean, it’s just like that inclusion or like, you know, I mean, there were so many people that came to me when I was at State Farm that otherwise in their head thought that State Farm’s for like, you know, the, the richer people or like, or the, or the more established Americans. Um, and then when they, they found out and I was there opening the opening, I mean, the door with welcome arms, they’re like, oh my God, this is great.

I think SMB is just doing a conscious effort to target the Latino community, joining your local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which literally has events. I’m on the board here of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana. We have an event at least every month and it’s literally all SMBs. And it’s not just Latino firms, right? It’s not just Latino clients. It’s all the different clients. And even those small Latino SMBs that are just starting off

larger chambers, they have opportunity to gain those connections, to get bigger contracts, to work for, you know, we have a couple of places that have gotten contracts with the New Orleans Convention Center for like maintenance and cleaning just by, you know, those backward and forward linkages. So just like extending your hand out and saying, hey, look, welcome, come to my place is the first step. Maybe like a hiring of somebody.

of the Latino demographic would be also good. And just having a menu maybe that you can offer in Spanish would be something that wouldn’t be too difficult. And then if you wanna go the extra step, you look at somebody like your firm, Online Optimism, and do a conscious effort to reach this demographic and look at your return. And I guarantee you that your return over time will not only pay you back exponentially, but I mean, start to grow.

JP Madrid
And you know, one of the things that I see in marketing, especially in the United States, where the Hispanic population is from so many different countries and cultures, there are certain difficulties in communicating to everyone and getting them to, you know, understand or speaking to them as they are used to being spoken to. So in your experience, how do you navigate that? You know, we have many different words for a straw.

And how do you go for that?

Ernesto Posadas
That’s actually a funny one if you don’t want to say a straw to somebody in Colombia or in Panama the same way you call a straw in Central America. Like the way Hondureños and Guatemala call a straw is a completely different term than the Panamanians. Anyway, to that question, JP, before we like dive into it, where are you from? Where is your family from? Guatemala. Ah, si. And Miara?

JP Madrid
Yes.

JP Madrid
I’m from Guatemala. Guatemala, so…

Ernesto Posadas
Meara?

Meara McNitt
Mira.

Ernesto Posadas
near me there you go where’s your family okay cool like Louisiana like New Orleans okay cool yeah so uh JP my dad’s Guatemalan and my mom’s from there and like they’re right next to each other and they’re tiny and the amount of like cultural differences is insane right so um literally when I go to like my Guatemalan family and we go eat at Pollo Campero which is like their

Meara McNitt
Yeah, I’m from here. Here. New Orleans. Yeah.

Ernesto Posadas
Do not, don’t you dare eat that fried chicken with a fork and a knife. I’m like, what are you supposed to eat fried chicken with? I was like, my hands, they were like, you better eat it with fork and a knife. I’m like, okay. But I think, look, I like to think of it this way. And New Orleans is very Central American and the Central American nations are different, but.

JP Madrid
Hehehe

Ernesto Posadas
We’re more similar than we are different, right? But then you’re looking, you start looking at Los Argentinos, you start looking at Los Chilenos, Los Colombianos, even the Panamanians are a little like different. Mexicans, you know, very different, but Mexicans at least have the dominant kind of like media that we watch. So like if we watched Telemundo or we watched Univision, it’s all like almost Mexican based. I wanna say that once

Latinos get here. We are pretty good about uniting as Latinos, right? I want to say, look, we have differences. But I don’t feel bad if I go to a Colombian festival. Like, I’m going to celebrate it, too. So I want to say, in that regard, like speaking in different, I mean, you want to use like the.

Castellano term, you’re not going to use more slang unless you want to get to a certain demographic. And I think the Mexicans are pretty good about that when they advertise on Univision or Telemundo. They use kind of like the mainstream term of things. So I want to say like the Latinos in the community, like, yeah, we have a lot of different countries, a lot of differences in culture and whatnot. But I do want to say that I would like to think that

the communication is appreciated in one way or the other. And we would overlook any kind of mistake kind of deal. So if you walk up to me and say, Ola, blah, I’m gonna be like, go back to your country, speak to me in a better accent kind of deal. We’re gonna be like, oh, he’s trying, he actually cares kind of deal. I wanna say that’s the difference between how…

foreigners are treated in Latin America versus how foreigners are treated here per se, right? I’m born and raised American, right? I love America, land of the free country. You know, we have opportunity, but, you know, when somebody speaks to us in an accent, we like look down upon them, but at least they’re trying. Whereas in Latin America, if somebody comes up to us and starts speaking Spanish, even though that’s not their first language, they’re at least trying, you know? They’re giving it a shot and attempt, and we want to embrace that and welcome them into our culture, you know?

Ernesto Posadas
Sorry if I went on another tangent.

Meara McNitt
So to summarize, basically your point is that like, if businesses wanna put the effort in, they’ll be appreciated and recognized by the Hispanic communities, regardless of if they like get it perfect or not.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah.

Ernesto Posadas
Right. I’d like to believe that. I mean, I would recognize that and say, man, thank you, you know, you gave it a fair shot. Now, if they like, you know, just Google translated something, at least they tried. But like, hey, I would be the first one to say like, hey, if your menu is wrong, be like, hey, you might want to correct this. This doesn’t look right, you know, just, just.

Meara McNitt
Yeah, yeah. Oh no, we definitely have a no Google Translate policy at the office and ask the people who actually know how to speak our various languages that we’re translating to, to revise.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah.

JP Madrid
I will also add to Ernesto’s point about the trying aspect in like communicating to folks and trying to bring them into your brand and your story is that I think once you take your shot and try with the Latino community, they are very loyal to your brand. I think the Democratic Party got in trouble for saying that in 2016, but it is very true.

Latinos are very loyal to their brands. And I mean, if not, look, go to any, look in their pantries and you’ll see a bunch of Goya, even though Goya hasn’t even been that great to the community, but people are loyal.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. I tried to buy Nagoya. I love my adobo. And every other people make adobo. I don’t know. I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, there’s so many brands that like, you know, fabuloso, like, I think fabuloso, I think they just named it that it’s not even a Latin American, like, it’s like Johnson and Johnson or whoever, like, they just named it fabuloso and like,

Meara McNitt
Are there any other brands?

Ernesto Posadas
It’s just become like a staple in like a Latin American restaurants for sure. And households, you know, it’s interesting.

Meara McNitt
JP, do you have any?

JP Madrid
Yeah, for sure. Brands? Let me think. I mean, I definitely thought it would also even though I started, I don’t know, there’s so much more options in the US as to for household cleaners, but I feel like there’s still a draw there. And then hot sauces, I feel like everyone has their own thing, but.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah.

Thanks for watching!

JP Madrid
I think Firewoodless is definitely a good example of that.

Meara McNitt
love it. All right, well, JP, is this next question for you? Did you ask it or did you

JP Madrid
Um, I, so I sort of the bilingual one, I’m sorry. I’m not sure if this is how the podcast goes sometimes, but this one, I basically just asked that so you can jump to the next one.

Ernesto Posadas
Thanks for watching!

Meara McNitt
Okay, I wasn’t sure if you like, skirted around it. Okay. Oh, okay. So let’s circle back. So you mentioned how like the projected outcomes for like the amount of the United States population that’s going to be Hispanic or Latino or, you know, like the buying power. So if brands today are choosing, you know, like, nope, let’s not reach out to them specifically. Like, what do you think that’s gonna happen?

Ernesto Posadas
Thanks for watching!

Meara McNitt
down the line, like what are the potential outcomes of that?

Ernesto Posadas
Look, I mean, I think every immigrant population assimilates, right? So the Italians assimilated, the Irish assimilated, German assimilated. There’s still like small intricacies that a culture tries to maintain. And I think the Latino culture is like very strong. And the fact that we all share the same continent is one of those things that like is very, it’s like very relevant to kind of that cultural difference. But

I did I was reading earlier to prepare for this. It’s like in twenty sixty, twenty five percent of the population in the US is going to be Hispanic or Latino descendants. What’s going to happen to a company if they’re not advertising to them? I don’t know if they’re I can’t say they’re going to go to funk or anything, but I can tell you that they’re just I can tell you that they’re just missing out on sales, they’re missing out on.

on revenue that otherwise they could be a game changer for them. I literally read earlier today that Tesla had come to a deal with the state of Nuevo Leon, which is a very business forward bordering state in Mexico, that they had created an express lane. So

so that they can ship Tesla’s down to Mexico. That’s just an example, right? So like an example of like the capacity and buying power of Latin America and how directly correlated that is to the US and to US markets. It’s it’s very intriguing. I mean, I remember when I read the State Farm and this is 2012, guys. I’m old. So 2012, I remember watching like.

at like the Mexico US soccer game. And it was in Estadio Azteca, which is the Mexicans, Mexico City, Mexico, the famous soccer stadium. It’s like their, it’s like their church. Yeah, literally it’s their church for soccer, right? And the, I don’t know if you ever watch, like if you watch sports, specifically soccer, around the stadium, the soccer field, they have the little banners with the advertisement of whoever’s advertisement.

JP Madrid
The Mexican Superdome.

Ernesto Posadas
And if you’re watching like the web, uh, European soccer leagues, usually it’s like Qatar airways or, uh, Emirates or something, you know, trying to advertise. But I remember specifically seeing state farm advertised there. And I was like, stay farmed today. And I was working there. I was like, do they write insurance in Mexico? And I went back and went to like work the next day and I was like, Hey, D did we write insurance in Mexico? And they said no. And I remember being like, geez, there were so many Latinos.

watching that game in the US that State Farm invested millions of dollars to advertise in Mexico City in a stadium where they don’t write insurance because of the amount of viewership that they had in the US. So to me that was just like a wow, like a click clicking moment. You look at Home Depot, you look at Walmart, Lowe’s, all of them advertise heavily to the

Ernesto Posadas
So, and look, I don’t even watch Latin TV. I watch Latin TV when I go to like my parents’ house, you know, like when my dad has soccer on or something, or, you know, they have dish latino. So we go over there and, you know, they’re watching something in Spanish. So that’s when I get like my Latin TV time. Other than that, you know, not watching too much TV per se.

JP Madrid
Get your dose of Caso Cerrado. It’s our Judge Judy.

Ernesto Posadas
Oh my god. That lady was so when I was with Copa, she was like one of the guests at the Gretna Fest. This is like two or three years ago. They like paid her I don’t know how much money to be one of the guests at the Hispanic sector of the Gretna Fest. And this is Ernesto Schweikart and Todd Acom over at Telemundo 42. They like planned the whole.

Latin side of Gretnafests and so I was very involved we sponsored it with Copa Airlines and they brought in uh

JP Madrid
I, her name just slipped my mind, but.

Ernesto Posadas
Uh, yeah, Colombo, something like that. But she’s hilarious and she literally is the judge Judy of Latin America. And people are going crazy. I was just like, I’m laughing. I was just like, I don’t get the whole like celebrity thing. You know, to me, it’s, you know, just people.

JP Madrid
Yeah.

Meara McNitt
You know, that inspires a question of like, if someone is trying to make their marketing more authentic towards Hispanic and Latino populations, like where would they go to find knowledge like that? Like obviously hiring someone who that is just part of their life would bring that information in. But like suppose it’s a small business where it’s just like a mom and pop two person team or something like that. Like what could they do to educate themselves on the cultures to like make their marketing more authentic?

Ernesto Posadas
That’s really, that’s a tough question. That’s rough. I would start grassrootsy. I would start with my community. I would find out what kind of Latino organizations are involved or are in your local community. Like I said, the chambers of commerce are always a good start. There’s always church. There’s always a Latin church around. It’s either like a Christian church or a Catholic church or something. And I think just, you know…

researching where you can get involved with your community is the first step.

Latina is very like New Orleans like we’re very like mom and poppy like shake my hand or like who’s where should I go for this or who do you know that does that. we’re not really like going to Google something like my parents like i’m like mom just Google it she’s like well, can you just can you just tell me can you just tell it like send it to me like yeah here you go.

JP Madrid
Yeah, I feel especially in the digital age, I think Latinos are more about their Facebook groups or WhatsApp groups. And that’s where they get a lot of their information. Unfortunately, it leads to a lot of chain messages that I’m sure, I don’t know if you might get as well. But it’s a very tight community and there’s a lot of sort of knowledge sharing. I personally know that in Guatemala, my mom…

Ernesto Posadas
Very true.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah.

JP Madrid
my aunt, they’re on this Facebook group and they’re all asking questions you could alternatively ask Google, like, where do you get this? Where do you get that? But rather than Google it, they’ll ask there. It’s wild to me. Also, even business is so driven through WhatsApp. For Mother’s Day, my sister and I were trying to send some flowers to my mom, first time I’ve ever done a purchase through WhatsApp. It was insane, but that’s…

Ernesto Posadas
I mean, I still do it.

Ernesto Posadas
That’s really cool.

JP Madrid
I think the US is slightly behind in that sense where a lot of these purchases are happening through there.

Ernesto Posadas
Wait, so you actually like use it like Apple Pay almost like you can purchase through it.

JP Madrid
Like I spoke with the like person I mean it was a business they had like a business profile and Spoke to them. They sent me a catalog Then sent me like a payment link and I did it through there and I was like I might as well have gotten scammed But I don’t feel scammed and sure enough next day first thing in the morning. They were delivered. It was Truly crazy. Yeah

Ernesto Posadas
That’s amazing. No, I mean, go ahead, go ahead, Mir.

Meara McNitt
it.

Meara McNitt
I feel like Facebook Messenger is trying to do something similar to that, which makes sense because Meta owns all of it. Of course, they’re trying to put their things in different places, but that was my only thought.

Ernesto Posadas
Well, look, I work for GrubHub. I used to work for Waiter. Credit card processing is a highly, highly profitable industry. Just that 3% over every transaction. I mean, it’s just insane. And usually when you’re doing overseas transactions, you’re not doing just $10, you’re doing at least $100 or so, you know? And if a million people do that, that’s $3 million.

million people that every day is $3 million a day. So it’s kind of like, you got to just kind of like think about it that way. You know? I mean, that’s the other thing is like, you’re looking at, you’re looking at like demographics, the U S like 60 million people, right? 60 million Hispanics. And if 60 million people spend a dollar a day on whatever you’re doing every day, like that’s $60 million a day over every day. Like that’s.

That’s a lot of money that you can literally tap into. This is inspiring me JP. Let’s start something man.

JP Madrid
Hehehehe

Meara McNitt
oh, my wheels are turning right now. Cause I’m like, wow, like people want to run ads on like meta and TikTok, but it’s like, well, if you’re trying to reach Hispanic populations, like run them on WhatsApp, like.

JP Madrid
I mean, like go into any website for a business in Latin America and you’ll surely see a WhatsApp icon there where you can start chatting with people. It’s crazy.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah.

Ernesto Posadas
It’s very true. We’re booking. So my family and I were going to Honduras and Guatemala for like Thanksgiving, a week before Thanksgiving, so for two weeks. And like we’re going to Roatan. So we’re booking the resort at Roatan. So like literally I had the WhatsApp number, I called them and that’s how we communicated. If I needed to talk to them, I even negotiate, I even haggled them. That’s how Latino I am on WhatsApp. And I was like,

JP Madrid
Yeah.

Ernesto Posadas
I was like, look, I know I’m American in New Orleans, but give me the Honduran rate. Like, and they like, they were laughing and they actually gave me a better rate. Right. So it actually worked. Um, and then we were going to make this like reservation at the restaurant, those local, like high-end restaurant that I want, like that was recommended to me. So like got their WhatsApp number and then we’re texting back and forth and confirmed a reservation. So JP, you’re, you’re 100% correct. Like it’s, it’s their go-to, um, platform. And maybe that’s why.

Facebook bought it like 10 years ago for a billion dollars. They bought WhatsApp and so they’re taking over the world.

Meara McNitt
Yeah.

I know that’s one thing that the rest of the world makes fun of Americans for is our lack of interest in WhatsApp. My theory is that Apple just has such a hold on Americans with the iMessage feature that will never give it up.

JP Madrid
Where?

Ernesto Posadas
Thanks for watching!

JP Madrid
I also think it’s a cultural aspect because I mean, even through iMessage, there are like business profiles and you can do transactions and everything through there. But I think that in the United States, people are more used to like the immediate aspect of internet shopping or doing anything on the internet where you’ll go to a store, you’ll buy, you don’t have to speak with anybody. If you look at…

Ernesto Posadas
Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

JP Madrid
business in Latin America, they have gotten more sort of advanced technologically, but I think people still have the expectation of maybe having like an intermediary, like speaking with someone and it’s possible they’re just more comfortable doing it that way.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah. Also, I don’t think there are like, like processing platforms are there. Right. So like they’re PayPal’s and all that, like, they’re still, I think there’s too many different bureaucracies that they have to deal with to be able to like streamline it over the rest, the remainder of continent, right? So I don’t know how to, that didn’t make, that doesn’t make sense. Like the first time I went there, I was 22, 23, and I was like,

Can we just order it online or something like that? And they’re like, no, like it’s not secure kind of, kind of thing. I think, I don’t think the security wasn’t there kind of deal back in the day. And I don’t know, it sounds like it’s getting better. Um, but I don’t know if it’s up to par with like the U S kind of like merchant processing, right?

Meara McNitt
Well, JP will let us know if his card information ever gets stolen from sending those flowers, and that will be the true test of the security.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah, the other thing is like we have the FDIC here. So like, you know, if there’s fraud on your car, JP, like, you’re just going to get your money back. Whereas like banks over there would be like, prove it. And you’d be like, I don’t know how to prove it, you know, kind of deal. So that’s kind of like, I don’t know, that’s so interesting, right? This is very interesting. But I think ultimately like.

If you’re a company and you’re not looking at the Latino demographic as a potential client base, you know, get on it, get on it. You’re missing out on dollars. It’s a simple, simple reality.

Meara McNitt
Perfect. I think that wraps up our episode perfectly. So Ernesto, thank you so much for joining us. If someone wanted to reach out to you on social media, where should they do so?

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah, it’s Ernesto Armando on Facebook and then it’s Ernesto Armando on Instagram as well. And I don’t have like this like ErnestoArmando.com page or anything. But you know, you never know, maybe in the future. But Ernesto Armando on Facebook and I’m in New Orleans and then Ernesto Armando on Instagram as well. And feel free. Yeah, I’m very accessible.

Meara McNitt
Perfect.

Meara McNitt
Awesome!

Meara McNitt
Cool. All right. Thank you.

JP Madrid
Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

Meara McNitt
Say your thank you again, JP. I will not talk over you this time.

JP Madrid
I’m sorry. Do I have a script for this? Is it just thank you?

Meara McNitt
No, I just wanted you to be able to say goodbye. Yeah, without me talking over you.

JP Madrid
Well, thank you so much. Well, thank you so much, Ernesto. We really appreciate all of your insight.

Ernesto Posadas
Yeah. Thank you guys. I actually enjoy this. This is a lot of fun. It’s always fun. Let me know when you want me to come back. I’m happy to talk.

Meara McNitt
Perfect.