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Restaurants lead in Hispanic marketing spend

Among the top 500 advertisers, the Hispanic share of overall ad spend increased to 8.5 percent, indicating restaurant marketers understand the share of revenue the Latino consumer can generate.

June 18, 2015

The Hispanic advertising share in the restaurant industry climbed to 11.4 percent during the period 2010 to 2014, according to a new report from AHAA: the Voice of Hispanic Marketing. Among the top 500 advertisers, the Hispanic share of overall ad spend increased to 8.5 percent, indicating restaurant marketers understand the share of revenue the Latino consumer can generate, said the AHAA, a Hispanic-focused marketing trade organization.

Restaurants boosted their aggregate Hispanic advertising spend by 68 percent to $559 million in 2014. The average Hispanic advertising investment per restaurant increased 30 percent, from $16.6 million in 2010 to $21.5 million in 2014. The restaurant category is spending more than top 500 U.S. advertiser peers by allocating 11.4 percent to Hispanic dedicated media, the AHAA said. The Latino consumer category is now classified as a "Leader," defined in the release as company investments in the category between 6.4 and 14.2 percent. McDonald's, Yum Brands and Wendy's lead in Hispanic ad dollars, while Whataburger, Denny's and AFC Enterprises lead in the share of overall Hispanic ad spend with allocations above 20 percent.

Over the five-year period, top 500 advertisers boosted spending on Hispanic targeted media by 61 percent. The top 500 marketers boosted average spending from $9 million in Hispanic targeted media in 2010 to $14 million, below the restaurant category average of $21.5 million, AHAA said in the release.

The AHAA collected data for its study from the Nielsen Monitor Plus, which tracked more than 340,000 companies' advertising expenditures in English and Spanish. Santiago Solutions Group analyzed the data for AHAA by dividing companies into five tiers based on the percent of its budget spent on Spanish/bilingual media: Best-in-Class (more than 14.2 percent), Leaders (6.4 percent – 14.2 percent), Followers (3.6 percent – 6.3 percent), Laggards (1.0 percent – 3.5 percent) and On the Sidelines (less than 1 percent).