Latino Leaders Say ‘No’ to Amigo Stores
Retail developers in the Los Angeles area are learning a valuable lesson from people like Manual Lozano, mayor of Baldwin Park. The lesson is that while it’s important to target your offering to your audience, it is even more important to actually know what they want before you pitch a new project.
Recently, Mr. Lozano and other officials from Baldwin Park listened to developers make a pitch on a new project in the community. Having studied the demographics of the area, the developers proposed a shopping center with a “Latino feel,” according to a Los Angeles Times report.
The mayor, a second-generation Mexican American, was not happy being presented with a project based on what he believes is a typecast of Baldwin Park and its citizens.
“We want what Middle America has as well,” he told the LA Times. “We like to go to nice places like Claim Jumpers, Chili’s and Applebee’s… We don’t want the fly-by-night business, the ‘amigo store,’ which they use to attract Latinos like myself.”
To get what Middle America has, Mr. Lozano and the Baldwin Park City Council, are considering using eminent domain to clear a 125-acre area in the community to build a mixed-use project that would include housing, theaters, retail stores and theaters. If given the go-ahead, the project would be the demolition of 80 homes and the removal of 100 businesses.
Some in Baldwin Park believe that the Council, made up entirely of Mexican-Americans, is ashamed of its roots.
“I was born in Mexico and raised in this country. I agree we need some change. But what they want to bring here is totally unrealistic. Applebee is good, but a Kabuki? And also a Trader Joe’s? Come on, I don’t even go to Trader Joe’s,” said Rosalva Alvarez, the owner of a beauty shop located in the area being considered for development.
Anthony Bejarano, a graduate of Georgetown University law school, is among Mr. Lozano’s allies on the Council. A fourth-generation Mexican American who speaks “very little Spanish,” he told the LA Times, “I love to go to traditional Mexican restaurants. I shop at Vallarta [supermarket], but I can’t get everything I need. At the end of the day, it’s all Mexican restaurants here. When we want Italian, when we want sushi, where do we go? If I want a pair of Kenneth Coles, I have to go to Arcadia.”
Santa Ana has faced many of the same issues as Baldwin Park.
Councilwoman Michele Martinez, also a fourth-generation Mexican American, said broadening the types of businesses in the city has more to do with immigration status than cultural pride.
“I have nothing against 50 quinceañera shops, but I don’t shop there. Many of my friends don’t shop there,” she said. “Parents and grandparents may shop there, but young kids are not going to shop there, unless they’re immigrants.”
Discussion Questions: What lessons are there for developers, retailers and consumer brand marketers in the Baldwin Park experience? How quickly is acculturation taking place within Latino communities and how do marketers successfully navigate the differences in evidence in Baldwin Park?
What we see here is a clash of first, second, and third generations. You really do have to know which you are dealing with, whether as a developer or a retailer. There’s a lot of expertise here in LA, but either these guys didn’t tap into it, or were ready to rely solely on what a demographic report was telling them. They sure as heck didn’t call me!
It’s not an issue of acculturation. It’s an issue of basic marketing. Segment marketing requires the same elementary principles that mainstream marketing.
Research the marketplace and conduct a feasibility study exactly in the same manner you would mainstream USA. While acculturation plays a role within the feasibility of a concept, to assume that it is the main or only determining factor would be a horrible mistake.
Unfortunately, it’s not the first time issues or situations like these surface. I cover this topic on my blog (http://carlosarambula.blogspot.com/).
This is a perfect example of seeing the Latino market as a monolith instead of looking more closely at the experience layers that make up Latino life in this country. Each layer could be a viable target, and the delicate operation is to find the most profitable target based on the area and competition.
The developers and city council are in immediate need of a much more analytical marketing/demographic investigation to support a well-researched strategy for this project. Each participant appears to have looked at their personal experience as if it spoke for everyone. Based on research and analysis, one must identify which layer is appropriate to target.
Another observation I have that may rattle a few cages: just being Latino does not a marketer make, anymore than being non-Latino qualifies one to make decisions about the correct target market for any shopping center. It seems to me that too much money is at stake to go on “gut feeling.” Marketing is not intuitive. Experts exist in the field and they should identify one before they risk any money.
Two observations on this story. First of all, someone along the line put stereotypes in front of facts. Talking to the prospective shoppers and users of the proposed businesses may either not have occurred, or been completed before all the responses were tallied. Companies who want to effectively expand overseas with American concepts, are encouraged to take the core brand essence, and modify the wrapping to satisfy the culture of the home country. The same can be said for developing projects in strong ethnic communities here in the states.
That being said, I read strong opposing arguments in the story. There are Hispanic shoppers who want to shop in traditional ways, and others–more acculturated–who appear offended by the traditional stores. If you take both arguments, it leads one to believe there is a potential for a very exciting mixed dynamic.
I recall many years back, when VONS in LA had a Hispanic concept store called Tiangues (are they still around?). While they carried many Mexican branded products that could only be found in small independents or South of the border, they also had incredibly fresh fruits and veggies which drew every social-economic-ethic segment.
Rather than utilize core marketing and product development disciplines, marketers seem to believe that their success with the Latino consumer can operate on a completely superficial level. If we “Latinocize” things via the Spanish language combined with the folkloric nostalgia of home town trappings, we will get the cash register to ring.
Life is not a Hollywood movie set. We are not creating fantasy worlds based on antiquated Hollywood imagery. There are real people with real values and a whole array of needs, desires and priorities. Their lives are fluid. They include their cultural identities, their work life identities, their socio-political identities, their gender identities. That’s a whole lot of identity. Deciding what is needed in a “Latino” community is basic marketing 101. Understand the constituency. Understand the various segments. There will be conflict. Don’t expect 100% buy in on anything. Be ready for those who will not like you…those you will even offend. Just decide who you are willing to offend or alienate or simply not please. You can’t please everyone.
There are those who want to hold on to tradition. I’m from the Lower East Side. I’m cringing as that neighborhood goes from being a ghetto to urban hip. I like the traditions of the cultures that made that community historically special. Does that mean that I’m not acculturated? I just like tradition. There are those that don’t. They want a Starbucks. They want to move on.
Mainstream America. What an interesting phrase. Does it look the same in San Antonio as it does in Schenectady? I doubt it. I am at a loss as to why a “mixed use” development could not include within it business targeted toward the Mexican culture (uses of the phrase Hispanic is too broad, and too stereotypical…Puerto Ricans and Cubans have very little in common with Mexican heritage consumers) as well as businesses which are not.
There is an extremely well run and highly targeted grocery chain in LA called Tresierras. They design, build and merchandise to a specific segment within the Latino market. Successfully. Many of their stores are located in multi-cultural communities. The stores are clean, well merchandised, and attractive. The merchandise mix is targeted, as are the services and in-store layout. The communities these exist in also support “mainstream” grocery stores because sufficient demand exists for them.
You could pick up a Tresierras store and put it into the same development area most Ralphs I shop at occupy…and the development would not suddenly have negative attributes. From my perspective, there’s a great deal of reactionary generalization going on here, and the community as whole would be best served to allow the marketplace to determine the retail establishments which will be successful. Dictating consumer behavior simply results in changed driving habits.
Once again we see that acculturation is a moving target, akin to a group of blind men describing an elephant. The comments here about the lack of wisdom in making decisions of this type based on personal preferences is right on target, but so typical of local governments. It is refreshing, however, to see a cultural group resisting the idea of remaking sections of America to resemble the country they or their ancestors fled.
The folks developing Baldwin Park need conventional retail site software and consulting services. Using MapInfo or Buxton or another similar provider, they’d learn the highest and best use of the property. Selecting the tenant mix is a critical skill of any successful mall developer.
Here’s my bet on what Baldwin Park would learn: the most successful stores would be a mix of national tenants, regional favorites and a few local veteran entrepreneurs. Some of the stores would be specifically Latino-positioned but most wouldn’t.