Comprende your market.

Successfully taking Latino marketing beyond Spanish-language media will require moving the focus away from conventional presumptions about that sector, a new study suggests.

Carl Kravetz, chairman of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies and founder of Cruz/Kravetz Ideas, issued the first results of the group's Latino Identity Project at the recent Multicultural Marketing Conference in Los Angeles.

The project found four quadrants of Latino identity that marketers ought to understand: interpersonal orientation, time and space perception,

spirituality and gender perception.

"It's not such so much what unites Latinos that's important; rather, it's what makes us different from non-Latinos," said Kravetz. "Conventional factors such as acculturation, ethnic pride, language preference and socio-economic level that we thought defined Latino cultural identity are, in fact, contextual and not defining factors in our new model."

On the interpersonal issue, the project found Latinos give more emphasis to groups than individuals--a clear contrast to U.S. culture. To succeed in reaching Latinos, marketers should understand the family as a unit, take into account group decision-making, use expert spokespeople and offer ways to alleviate the inherent conflict between individual needs and group cohesion.

On the time and space continuum, Latinos focus on the present and past more than then the future and consider appointments more of a goal than a commitment. On a personal level, Latinos touch and kiss more than non-Latinos.