The Hispanic Digital Market Goes Mainstream at San Diego Interactive Day

Earlier this month, I was honored to lead the first ever Hispanic panel at the 11th Annual San Diego Interactive Day, right in my hometown.

As I thought about my experience, I realized that the digital conference was a perfect reflection of today’s Hispanic digital market in that Hispanic digital is finally going mainstream.

I made a point to attend the pre-conference mixer as well as the full day of the conference and was really impressed. I found the breadth and quality of speakers to be excellent. I walked away with many actionable nuggets of knowledge thanks to engaging speakers from Pinterest, Huge, Moz, Razorfish, and the San Diego Padres and Chargers. I was also inspired by the award-winning creative shared by The One Club. Most importantly, I had the opportunity to network and share ideas with many talented and passionate people in the digital marketing space.

I need to come clean. I had never been to San Diego Interactive Day despite the fact that I live in San Diego. Prior to this year, there was never a Hispanic or multicultural session at the event and I also perceived that only large, national brands were interested in Hispanic digital marketing.

A few months ago, SDX, the group that puts on San Diego Interactive Day, reached out to me to represent the Hispanic digital market at this year’s event. I was a bit hesitant at first but my uncertainty quickly turned to enthusiasm after my first meeting with the SDX team. It was clear that highlighting the Hispanic digital opportunity was a priority this year.

Together we assembled what turned out to be the first Hispanic panel at San Diego Interactive Day, The Hispanic Digital Imperative. The panel featured seasoned Hispanic digital executives and long time friends Rene Barasoain from Facebook, Cesar Martinez from mitú, and Oscar Padilla from Pulpo.

The panel covered data that clearly illustrated why it is imperative for marketers to invest in reaching digital Hispanics. Next we showed an entertaining video featuring “Raymundo” that helped bring the market to life. From there each panelist presented successful Hispanic digital case studies from brands including Microsoft, Verizon, Tecate and “a Major Airline.” We concluded with a highly energetic and engaging Q&A session with attendees that included local, regional, and national brands.

San Diego Interactive Day 2015 was a huge success and a step in the right direction for the Hispanic digital market. Next year we hope to build on the success and include more Hispanic digital programming and inject a multicultural point of view into many of the sessions.

¡Nos vemos en San Diego Interactive Day 2016!

If you’d like a copy of the presentation, please get in touch!