Culturally Customizing Websites for U.S. Hispanic Online Consumers NITISH SINGH St. Louis University ncsingh72@gmaii.com DANIEL W. BAACK Baii State University dwbaack@bsu.edu ARUN PEREIRA St. Louis University pereira@slu.edu DONALD BAACK Pittsburgii State University debaack@pittstate.edu The U.S. Hispanic online market consists of the most affluent and educated members of the U.S. Hispanic population. The segment is large, increasing in size, and its members prefer culturally-adapted marketing messages. Currently, no frameworks are available to help marketers culturally customize websites for U.S. Hispanics. The objective of this study is to address this gap. The goals are to identify the ways in which Hispanic preferences for web design elements differ, and to explore how these preferences vary based on acculturation. The results indicate that Hispanics have culturally-rooted preferences for web content and that acculturation levels are important segmentation variables. We would like to acknowledge the grant support we received from Lionbridge Technologies Inc. INTRODUCTION Hispanic consumers are an increasingly desirable target market for many U.S. businesses. Kraft, General Foods, and Pepsi-Cola all have marketing divisions that focus on ethnic groups, including Hispanics (Torres and Gelb, 2002). This trend is partially driven by the rapid growth of the U.S.'s Hispanic population, which is six times faster than the overall market. The U.S. Hispanic mar- ket, numbering 44.3 million in 2006 (www.census. gov), is expected to reach 60 million by 2020 (Pew Research, 2005). According to Nielsen Monitor- Plus (www.nielsenmedia.com), $5.59 billion dol- lars was spent in 2006 on Spanish-language media targeting Hispanics, a 14.4 percent increase from 2005. Business spending on Hispanic media is projected to increase a further 5.4 percent in 2007. In addition, Hispanic purchasing power is pre- dicted to reach $1 trillion per year by 2010 (HispanTelligence, 2006). These statistics are likely to capture the attention of many marketing professionals. One of the least understood aspects of Hispanic behavior is how members of this segment react to and become involved with electronic commerce. Over the past decade, online marketing and ad- vertising has moved to the core of the business- consumer interaction (Plummer, 2007) and is posed to become the dominant marketing channel (Edel- man, 2007). Over the same time period, increasing numbers of U.S. Hispanics have gone online. Ac- cording to the AOL Latino 2006 Hispanic Cyber Study, the online U.S. Hispanic population in the United States has reached almost 16 million. Esti- mates suggest that by 2010 the number of U.S. Hispanics consumers online will reach almost 21 million (eMarketer, 2006). These individuals are typically the most affluent and educated members of the Hispanic population (Business Wire, 2006; Winebrenner, 2005). They use the internet to learn about various brands and to compare prices. Many consider the internet to be the best source of information for making purchase decisions (Busi- ness Wire, 2006), which makes them an attractive market segment. At the same time, reaching this target market is often challenging. One major marketing challenge is acculturation differences between U.S. Hispanic consumers. Ac- culturation may be defined as the process of learn- ing a culture that is different from ones own, which in turn leads to changes in values, atti- tudes, behavior patterns, and language use (Berry, 224 JDÜROflL or HOUERTISIOG RESEHRCH June 2008 DOI: 10.2501/S0021849908080264