FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND STUDY REVEALS UNTAPPED OPPORTUNITY FOR BRANDS TO REACH LATINOS VIA MOBILE GAMING

New Report Shows Greater Reach, Engagement and Effectiveness by Targeting U.S. Hispanic Mobile Gamers

MIAMI, Feb. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A new study released today reveals the massive, untapped opportunity for brand marketers to reach an elusive but critical audience: Hispanic mobile gamers.  Commissioned by Portal Latino, the female-owned multicultural gaming leader, the report examines advertising effectiveness in popular mobile games such as Candy Crush and Pac-Man, as compared to the leading social media platforms.

Among the main takeaways, the research found over-indexing across several areas:

1. Captive Audience – 8-in-10 Hispanic consumers play mobile games at least once per week, and on average, are playing for 56 minutes per day.
2. Engagement - the same advertisements generated 30% higher attention and engagement among Hispanic consumers in mobile games than on social
3. Brand Recall - Hispanic consumers are 60% more likely to correctly recall a brand after seeing an advertisement in-game vs. social feed.
4. Purchase Intent - Hispanic mobile gamers are 20% more likely to purchase a product they saw advertised in a mobile game vs. social media.

"In an increasingly fragmented media environment — where marketers confront more platforms, more formats and more noise than ever before — consistently delivering performance is challenging," said Carolina Strifling, Co-Founder of Portal Latino. "Gaming has emerged as the sleeping giant of attention, combining massive scale with deeply immersive engagement. This report underscores that effectiveness isn't just about the ad or even the audience — it's about the environment and consumer mindset. When a user chooses to watch your ad, it's not interruption — it's permission. And when that converges with the exponential growth of the Hispanic segment, it shifts gaming from a tactical channel to a strategic growth imperative."

Conducted by the Cultural Inclusion Accelerator, a division of urVETTED, this statistically significant custom study benchmarked the performance of various ad types in mobile games against social media environments. It surveyed 2,988 adults—approximately half Latino and half non-Latino—with a ±1.8 percentage-point margin of error at the 95% confidence level."

"Mobile gaming is an untapped growth channel for brands—adding incremental reach and higher-quality exposure with the high-frequency U.S. Hispanic audience," said Carlos Santiago, Co-Founder of the Cultural Inclusion Accelerator, a division of urVetted. "Our study found that brands can drive stronger outcomes and move more consumers toward purchase because mobile gaming pairs a fun, relax-and-unwind mindset with cultural relevance—an advantage the volatile feed can't replicate."

Portal Latino was founded by two seasoned executives from leading global brands.  Co-Founder Carolina Bernal brings experience leading teams at global media buying firms Starcom and Mediacom, and most recently as Key Account Lead for Latin audiences at X (formerly Twitter).  Co-Founder Warren Strifling has 25 years of media experience, having led teams for Warner Bros. Discovery and Turner Broadcasting. 

For more information and to download the full report, visit: PLMedia.us

SOURCE Portal Latino