Burcu Arikan

Last semester, I was interning at a well known Hispanic-targeted advertising agency. Why I was there?

- First, I got my acceptance from this agency without knowing any Spanish word:)

-Second, I was in Texas and the Hispanic population is really high in Texas (second after California).

At the agency, I was working on a new culturally relevant strategy for an automotive brand that targets national Hispanic market in the United States. While working on this campaign, one more time I noticed that, Mexicans and Turks are very similar to each other culturally and physically. ( When I was in Mexico, everybody was thinking I’m a Latino, even the police holding my passport).

Hispanics are early adopters of mobile data services, especially text messaging and more involved to use social networking sites than any American. Because of immigration, they want to keep in touch with family back in Latin America. Also, family and friends are very important for them, like in Turkey. As I know, text messaging is the most expensive way of using cell-phones in the U.S. Therefore, I don’t know why they’re using text messaging so often. Maybe, like us, they’re thinking it’s cheaper. Anyway, at the end of all these studies, I found a couple of good websites for mobile marketing strategies.

http://www.mobilemarketer.com/

http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/