US Census Is All About Hispanic, Local

This is a very big year for the Census and not just for the obvious reason that new national Census numbers are forthcoming. The new data, which will be trickling out in coming days, reveal some profound shifts in demographic trends that will have major implications for marketers: You had better start thinking local, advises Karl Greenberg at mediapost.com.

It might help marketers that for the very first time, the Census will be putting out annual small-area data. The yearly data will look at occupational distribution, educational attainment, commuting patterns, housing, and socioeconomic status, according to Robert Groves, director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

"This has never happened before," noted Groves. "In prior years, we offered a big dose of data every 10 years, which became less and less valuable as the years passed." He said the new product, The American Community Survey, is based on ongoing polling of three million households.

He says this local data, free to advertisers, will be a valuable tool for targeted marketing. "If I were an advertiser, I'd study patterns in geographic areas and use those data to target messages and in-language media buys for areas with large non-English speaking populations."

Another growing sub-population with profound marketing implications are people with a multi-racial self-identity, according to Groves. "This is still single-digit but it is growing 30% to 50% state by state," he said. "This is critical because many of these people have feet in two cultures, so they should be great for translating across cultures, which is great for the advertising industry."

Groves spoke at a morning general session of the Advertising Research Foundation conference.

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