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Last week Google hosted its first marketing forum dedicated to the U.S. Hispanic market. Braving the streets of New York after almost 20 inches of snow had fallen, several hundred professionals showed up, and that's because when Google talks, people listen.

"The idea was to communicate Google's commitment to this audience and to share best practices in the US Hispanic digital space," said Mark Lopez, who left Hispanic portal Terra.com last November to head up this new "specialist" team for Google. The goal of the forum was twofold: 1) to drive home the point that Hispanic audiences, especially younger Latinos, consume digital media first -- before TV and other media, and 2) that Hispanic marketers, media buyers and planners should rethink the role of digital in their media mix to reflect the reality of their audiences.

Neither concept is new; research from E-marketer, Forrester, the IAB and others has been showing this for at least a couple years now. But for people who work in the Hispanic digital space, like me, the fact that Google is now saying it will make a huge difference. Why? Because it's Google, man! If Univision and Telemundo had said this, it wouldn't matter as much. Honestly, it would be perceived as just Spanish-language media trying to expand its reach online.

But this is Google, the company that revolutionized the way we use the internet -- no matter what Facebook fans say. And this is big -- an acknowledgment of the growing importance of the Hispanic market and its youth, which is more digitally savvy than the general market.

Google's goal, of course, is to increase the overall share of marketing dollars dedicated to Hispanic digital from a measly 3% to 4% of total Hispanic ad spend to about 12%, which corresponds to the actually usage of the medium by Hispanic consumers. READ MORE