By: Levi Shapiro

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Cuban-American mommy-to-be Gloria Dobal "loved everything" about online pregnancy site Baby Center. However, she had difficulty sharing the experience with family members who prefer Spanish. "My mother is from Cuba and I wanted her to enjoy this with me," she said. After two days, Gloria switched to Baby Center En Espanol (www.babycenterenespanol.com) and its mobile version. Although the sector is still nascent, some brands and agencies are beginning to target Hispanics with mobile tools and campaigns.

The numbers suggest an attractive demographic for mobile marketing. Nielsen's Q2 Mobile Advertising Report cites Hispanic data users as more likely (41% compared with 30%) to recall seeing ads on mobile phones and more likely (22% vs. 13%) to have responded. Moreover, according to ComScore m:metrics, Hispanics significantly over-index on mobile content consumption (71%) compared with the market average (48%). Brian Colbert, VP of mobile sales at ESPN, comments that in "all things mobile, the Hispanic audience over-indexes quite a bit."

Ansible Mobile President Larry Harris (who previously ran multi-cultural advertising at Bank of America) advises "the most important best practice is to consider what's in it for the consumer. The focus has to be on great content, integrated within an existing strategy and traditional DM at the local level." Ansible worked with a variety of agencies on J&J's mobile Spanish version of Baby Center (before there was even an English version) and attracted 4,000 active users, including Gloria Dobal. "Content is king," says Larry. "Just offering a short-code is not enough." The mobile program achieved opt-in retention of 93% last year and 85% this year.

Continue Reading: Targeted mobile marketing and Hispanics