Wal-Mercado of the Twenty-First Century

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"Wal-Mart Stores accounts for 65% of Latino music sold in the U.S. -- more than double the giant retailer's market share in the general market," writes AdAge. "Now, it wants to get even better at marketing to Hispanics." The plan involves "revamping hundreds of stores during the next two years," according to Simon El Hage of Lopez Negrete Communications, which has been Wal-Mart's "Hispanic agency of record" for 12 years. "Lopez Negrete, the seventh-largest Hispanic agency, is leading the effort to develop Wal-Mart's 21st-century Hispanic store model." The new model is on display at a Houston, Texas, prototype store. The prototype features a larger "Hispanic-oriented dry grocery" and an in-store bakery, run by "an outside Hispanic operator." El Hage stressed the importance of rural Hispanics to Wal-Mart, saying, "Because the general-market population is aging, guess who's going into rural America today? Latinos. So the new rural format for Wal-Mart will also have to accommodate the new Latino."