Latino Cinema-Goers: The Big Over-indexing Consumer

Do broadcast and cable media have an opportunity to drive box office growth through the advertising of new movie releases via Spanish-language and Hispanic-targeted media?

New research says yes.

According to MRI-Simmons and E-Poll, Hispanic moviegoers aged 18 and up are 36% more likely to see at least one movie a month.

Furthermore, 41% of Hispanic moviegoers attend one movie a month or more, compared to 30% of all U.S. moviegoers.

Factor in teens, and Hollywood has a Hispanic growth opportunity.

MRI-Simmons and E-Poll also note that 1 out of every 5 Hispanic moviegoers prefer to see a new movie on opening weekend; this makes them 69% more likely to do so compared to the average moviegoer nationwide.

What do Latino theater attendees like to see? The top three genres among Hispanic moviegoers are Action/Adventure, Comedy, and Drama; and in each category, their favorite actors and actresses are sometimes profoundly different from the overall U.S. population. This mirrors conclusions reached in studies conducted by Mintel, with the support of the Adam R Jacobson Consultancy, earlier this decade.

Product preferences differ among Hispanic movie fans

A January 2019 analysis using MRI E-Score Celebrity Fusion shows how the Hispanic fans of today’s leading film stars also differ in their preferences across a host of product categories, from bottled water to candy.

Hispanic moviegoers who are fans of Jennifer Lopez are 32% more likely than the average U.S. population to be Kit Kat consumers in the past 6 months. But, those who like Mila Kunis are two times more likely to be M&M’s Almond consumers.

Lopez, Kunis, and Sofia Vergara are the most-liked film actresses among Hispanic moviegoers.

How this ties in to candy sales is intriguing and could yield marketing strategies that boost concession receipts — a profit driver at such luxury theater chains as iPic and Silverspot Cinema.

The MRI E-Score Celebrity Fusion also identified that Hispanic moviegoers who like Leonardo DiCaprio are 62% more likely to be Fiji bottled water consumers in the past 6 months, compared to the U.S. average.

Interestingly, DiCaprio, Keanu Reeves and Chris Rock are the most-liked film actors among Hispanic moviegoers polled in this research study.

 Product favorites among Hispanic moviegoers
who like film actors and actresses

The findings on Hispanic moviegoers come from the January 2019 MRI E-Score Celebrity Fusion – a fusion of the MRI-Simmons Doublebase 2018 data and data from E-Poll’s E-Score Celebrity study. Doublebase 2018 data represent two waves (roughly 48,000 consumer interviews) of MRI’s Survey of the American Consumer.

The MRI E-Score Celebrity Fusion covers over 4,000 celebrities and 600 product categories, allowing brands, agencies, and media companies to see which celebrities best fit with their brands, sponsorships and media campaigns.