Consumido

Can you spot the Virgin? (photo)

Rob Walker's wonderful "Consumed" column in this week's Sunday Times Magazine has finally got to the basics of niche marketing to ethnic minorities, especially once they become large, collectively-deep-pocketed minorities such as Hispanics today.

The case in point is Pizza Patron, which sells "más pizza" for "menos dinero." Go to the store locator on the website and click through to watch the stores spread like the African killer bee invasion touted in the early 1990s. Says founder and prez Antonio Swad, in a company promotional release describing increases of over 35% in sales last quarter, "Our base is growing and so are we."

It's an idea that has that how-come-no-one-thought-of-this-before ring to it (which explains why it made Walker's column), but begs the question: Why has it taken so long to realize that the hispanic market is huge? Why does Hollywood, for example, lag so ridiculously far behind even the modest progress of television's "Ugly Betty"? (Did they really think "Spanglish" was crossing the ethnic divide?)

Walker looks beyond the dust-up in mid-January surrounding the chain's decision to accept pesos and sees the brilliance of repackaging a product in a context that matches the consumer: same product (pizza), different environment (Latino-friendly). Just what "Latino-friendly" means then becomes the challenge.