Monday, Sept. 27, 2004 | 9:10 a.m.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Viviana Medellin wasn't looking for a car when she attended a Cinco de Mayo festival sponsored by a Kansas City Latino organization two years ago.
But there Medellin met Kathy Tinoco, a saleswoman for a Ford dealership in nearby Raytown, who was showing a group of vehicles and -- in Spanish -- explaining their features and financing.
Tinoco has spent the last year and a half at Dick Smith Ford focused entirely on reaching out to the Hispanic community, an effort the dealership estimates has brought in $825,000 in new and used car sales.
Medellin eventually bought an Explorer from Tinoco. Her husband, Richard, was so impressed with his wife's experience that he changed dealerships to buy an F-150 pickup from Tinoco last month.
"It was the fact that she was bilingual and very knowledgeable about her job," said Viviana Medellin, adding that she liked the fact that Tinoco was at the festival. "It makes a difference to see the presence of a dealer out there."
U.S. auto dealers, aware of the rapid growth of the Hispanic population, are increasingly marketing to this vast consumer group that was underserved or even overlooked in the past.
Hispanic shoppers such as the Medellins are responsible for 8 percent of all new vehicle sales, according to a 2003 study by J.D. Power and Associates, making them the largest minority group in the new car-buying population. By 2020, the study said, that number would grow to 13 percent.
Grupo Viente Inc., a Leawood, Kan.-based dealer consultant, estimates Hispanic customers spent $163.5 billion last year for new and used cars.
In addition, Census figures show the Hispanic population, currently at more than 39 million, is the fastest-growing group in the country and expected to reach a quarter of the population by 2050.
To help dealers learn about marketing to Hispanics, the National Automobile Dealers Association and the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association have begun offering training sessions at their national conferences, as well as holding local seminars around the country. NIADA recently sponsored a "Hispanic Summit" in Overland Park, Kan., that attracted representatives from 55 dealerships.
"I feel as far as training dealers across the country, we have just begun to scratch the surface," said association CEO Mike Linn. "It's an area they're all totally confused in, but seeing that it's such a large part of the marketplace, they want to capture it."
As speakers at the Overland Park seminar explained, the Hispanic marketplace is vibrant but does present pitfalls for the dealer who approaches it as he or she would other minority groups.
For example, ads in mainstream newspapers or on the nightly TV news will miss Hispanic immigrants who just recently came to the United States and often get their information from AM Spanish-speaking radio. On the other hand, advertising primarily in bilingual newspapers will often miss second- or third-generation immigrants who have become more Americanized and may barely be able to read or speak Spanish.
And then there's the question of what form of Spanish to use. Mauricio Espinosa, president of Grupos Viente, told dealers that they should find out what regions the majority of their Hispanic customers come from.
"There are 17 different Hispanic words for 'wheel' or 'tire,"' Espinosa said. "Your translated flyer may not make any sense if it was translated in one dialect and your customers come from another dialect."
Dealers may need to translate parts of their Web sites and sales documents into Spanish. Espinosa and others also stressed while hiring bilingual employees is natural, they should be salespeople first and not simply translators.
"We're talking about developing a new level of specialization" similar to used cars or leasing, said Keith Whann, a Dublin, Ohio-based automotive industry attorney.
Tinoco, for example, was selling cars at Dick Smith Ford for two and a half years before the dealership's management decided to use her to focus on the Hispanic market. With an estimated 150,000 to 160,000 Hispanics in the Kansas City area, the dealership had always tried to reach out to the community, general manager Phillip Smith said.
National Automobile Dealers Association chairman Charley Smith owns a Chevrolet dealership in Hobbs, N.M., and said dealers like Tinoco's are learning what he and dealers in such states as Texas, California, Florida and Arizona -- those with large Hispanic populations -- have known for years.
"You're seeing it all over," Smith said. "I think both manufacturers and dealers are realizing that this is a market that they want to become more knowledgeable about."
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