The MoPR Blog

Many people who celebrate Cinco de Mayo with a cold beer (or two or three) each May 5th believe that they are celebrating Mexico’s Independence Day.

Not so.

Besides being ano\her reason to break out your sombrero and party, the true significance of the holiday is that on the 5th of May in 1810 4,000 Mexican soldiers defeated the French at Puebla, Mexico. Mexico actually declared its independence from Spain on September 15th that same year.

Here in metro Portland, where MoPR is headquartered, we have many opportunities to enjoy traditional Mexican food and celebrations such as Cinco de Mayo. Every year Portland holds a four-day celebration that attracts more than 300,000 people to the Waterfront Park for a Cinco de Mayo celebration. The fiesta exposes Oregonians to traditional cuisine, art, music and folklore from Mexico and Portland’s sister city of Guadalajara. Needless to say I will be attending.

I became even more excited about these festivities this year when I found out that MoPR client Talkster will be launching its free calling services in 14 regions throughout Mexico for the iconic holiday. With the addition of the Mexico calling area just think of how many people Talkster will help to communicate with family and friends this Cinco de Mayo and year-round!

Oregon’s already huge Hispanic population is growing consistently. Nationwide, the Hispanic population continues to grow at an unfathomable rate – they are the nation’s largest ethnic minority. With this growth, the need for an affordable method of communication for immigrants, business people and U.S. citizens calling to and from Mexico will become even more important and necessary.

Hispanics as a group consume a great amount of mobile technology, with 75 percent of all U.S. Hispanic households carrying multiple mobile phones and over 50 percent regularly using text messaging and other personal handheld technology services, according to a recent study by M: Metrics. In addition, 32 percent of Latinos are moderately or highly receptive to mobile marketing messages and respond favorably to text message advertisements, according to a study by the Mobile Marketing Association.

Talkster’s free calling service to Mexico will offer this enormous population the ability to communicate with their loved ones and business partners for free and can eliminate the need for this demographic to purchase calling cards. Talkster is also giving advertisers another way to target the growing Hispanic market.
This growing demographic is making major waves in the technology and business arenas, and I can’t wait to see how Hispanic-Americans help to shape the future of our country.
Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with a cold drink, some hot tamales and unlimited free calling to and from Mexico with Talkster!