The U.S. Census Bureau this week announced that Denver's white population slipped below 50 percent for the first time, making it the largest county in the nation to cross such a cultural threshold.

Hispanics are one of the fastest-growing populations both in Denver and nationwide. Companies from Fortune 500 firms on down are eager to tap into their burgeoning spending power, forecast to reach $2 trillion by 2020.

But targeting the Hispanic audience means more than just translating English-language marketing campaigns. Laura Sonderup, managing director of Denver-based Heinrich Hispanidad, sat down with the Rocky Mountain News to discuss the nuances of multicultural marketing.

1 How do you advise clients to market to Hispanic audiences?

It's really about understanding your segment. If somebody says, "I want to reach Hispanics," I'll say, "That's great. That's a good place to start, but let's sit down and really talk about your brand, your product, your service and subsegment." Because it's no different than saying, I want to reach all car owners. That's fine, but car owners come in so many different sizes and shapes and genders and lifestyles. And it's no different with the Hispanic audience. It is not a monolithic audience. So it's really digging a little deeper.

2 What's the difference then in reaching Hispanic consumers who have lived in Denver for four generations, compared with people who might be recent immigrants?

Let's use the example of someone more recently arrived in the country - and without regard for their immigration status - because consumers consume regardless of that. If you are more recently arrived, you may tend to be more Spanish-dominant, you may tend to have less knowledge of American culture and American brands and products, and the educational message might be far more appropriate for that consumer. Not in all cases but maybe more appropriate.

If you took that same educational message and targeted someone who is fifth-generation Hispanic and doesn't speak a word of Spanish, can you see, suddenly, how there's not only a disconnect, but you're likely to offend.

Very early on, you frequently saw that kind of disconnect in the financial services industry. Someone probably told someone that "Oh, people from Latin American countries have typically had bad experiences with their banks so you have to educate them about the FDIC."

Yes, that's exactly true with a small segment, but if you consider that fully acculturated individual who considers him or herself to be a Coloradan, that can be very off-putting because you're making assumptions about someone simply because they're a Martinez, a Rodriguez or a Gonzales. Which is a really, really dangerous assumption to make.

3 The topic of immigration can sometimes be a lightning rod. How do you counsel your clients to approach it?

Another thing that I really struggle to educate my clients and other individuals is sometimes immigration is so frequently in the news. But I think a lot of times inadvertently people start to think Hispanic marketing equals improperly documented individuals. That's not the case at all, and in fact those individuals make up a very small percentage of the nation's overall Hispanic population. I think - and by the nature of being undocumented - it's very hard to count - but recent estimates are 10 percent. So, if you believe that Hispanic marketing means marketing to undocumented individuals, you're walking away from 90 percent of an audience that wants to do business with you.

4 When did companies really begin to take interest in reaching out to Hispanic consumers?

When we really saw Hispanic marketing explode was probably in 2001 with the release of the 2000 census. It was front-page news, and everyone was talking about the explosive growth. But what people don't think about is companies like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been doing this for a long time. They've known this market represents a terrific opportunity.