Opportunity Audiences: Today's 3 Big Growth Demos
The first in a new series this week, two cultural experts identify who you'll need to reach for future success in TV and film. Today: Bicultural Latinos
Linda Ong, with cofounder Sarah Unger, runs Cultique, a strategic advisory that analyzes and translates culture for businesses and brands — including major media and entertainment companies on all platforms. In a special series this week for paid subscribers to The Ankler, the pair highlight three growth audiences that offer major new opportunities for Hollywood. First up today: Bicultural Latinos.
The entertainment industry is a largely homogeneous ecosystem. Put more academically, Hollywood runs on mimetic desire — a desire built through imitation of others, as defined by business guru Luke Burgis in his book, Wanting. In other words, people in Hollywood want what other people in Hollywood want, whether those are streaming services, superheroes, sports rights or A-list stars.
As a result, the industry has become an ouroboros of culture — sequels, spin-offs, remakes, reboots and “re-imaginings” — that continually rehashes IP to save on marketing costs and spike short-term shareholder value.
Although that strategy has produced this summer’s box office hits and staved off disaster for the theatrical business (for now), is this a sustainable, long-term approach strategy for Hollywood? Not really.
As cultural analysts, we look down the road for business trends and opportunities, and we see three sizable U.S. groups that live outside the confines of the industry’s current mimetic desire:
Bicultural Latinos
The heartland
Cross-generational viewers
We call them “opportunity audiences,” as they represent a chance for Hollywood to expand its range and reach, but more importantly grow its businesses. Over this series, we’ll explore these audiences, hungry for Hollywood storytelling but overlooked, or perhaps just misunderstood, by the industry.
We’ll start with the group whose power is too big to be ignored — Latinos, specifically the massive Bicultural Latino audience: huge entertainment consumers with intercultural, cross-generational superpowers, making them the key to both the wider Latino audience and mainstream America as well.
In today’s column, we will unpack:
Why Hollywood fundamentally misunderstands the Latino audience
How a growing group of influential Bicultural Latinos can unlock both larger Latino and mainstream audiences
The eight things you need to know about Bicultural Latinos and their cultural influence
How Bicultural Latinos embody and embrace traditional American values
How Hollywood is currently telling the wrong Latin American stories
Four essential storytelling strategies to reach Bicultural Latinos
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