Latin_KNOW: The Latino Marketing Report

Spanish speakers watch TV in English too!

So it seems that Vehix.com, according to this Washington Post article, is finally waking up to a reality that most of us who are halfway interested in the topic and have some knowledge of the community are already well aware of.

While the Spanish-speaking, Spanish-consuming market (meaning both monolingual Spanish-speaking market and those who prefer to have their news served up in Spanish, watch telenovelas in Spanish, etc. while using English in day-to-day life while still fancying a Thalia Hershey's candy) is a  highly lucrative market segment, many -- millions of Latinos, bilingual or not, are watching English-language TV as well. Why? Some speak English fluently and can alternate back and forth, receiving entertainment in English while still welcoming messages from marketers in their native language.

And there are more channels in English. Spike TV's typical lineup of wrestling and car chases doesn't alienate anyone, since they cater to the universal language of "guy". A monolingual Spanish speaker can easily be found perusing the likes of Spike or ESPN, so Vehix.com's decision to advertise on these networks was, in my opinion, a sound one. One interesting thing is that Vehix.com doesn't have a site in Spanish (HELLO! Vehix's business is an online business! Why waste advertising money on targeting Spanish-speakers when there is no information given in Spanish?), so the welcoming message of "en tu idioma" ends when you get to the site.

Here's the intro to the story:

On a recent Monday night, during the back-to-back wrestling shows "WWE Raw" and "WWE Raw Zone" on the cable's Spike TV, David Carcamo saw a commercial. The for-the-boys programming on Spike, it must be said, is in English. The 30-second commercial, touting the auto Web site Vehix.com, however, was in Spanish.

"I was like, ' What?!' " says Carcamo, 18, a senior at Cardozo High School in Northwest Washington. He understood the commercial, no problem there. But a Spanish spot on an English-language channel? "Maybe the antenna was off. Or something. Maybe it was just a mistake," he wondered.

A TV commercial for Vehix.com, featuring a Hispanic couple and with Spanish dialogue, has been appearing on English-language cable channels in the area. (Morey Evans Advertising)

"I was confused when I first saw it," says his friend, Sergio Romero, 19, also a senior at Cardozo. Like Carcamo, he's bilingual. "I thought I accidentally changed the channel to Telemundo."

They laugh.

Vehix.com., a one-stop shop for car buyers, is using the Washington area -- home to an affluent, diverse, growing Latino community -- to conduct an experiment: running a Spanish-speaking commercial on cable channels such as Spike, Nick at Nite, FX and Sci Fi, to name a few. The first ad, put on the air in February, features a bald, chubby actor and a Spanish voice-over. Three weeks ago, it began to be replaced by an ad featuring Latino actors speaking in Spanish. Either way, the result is more eye-catching than reading a flier in English on one side and Spanish on the other about a yard sale in Columbia Heights. Andrew Ward, a vice president at Comcast Spotlight, the advertising division of the nation's largest cable provider, says these are the only Spanish ads on English channels of which he knows.

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NYT: Philadelphia Seeks Out Hispanic Visitors

From this Sunday's Travel section of the NYT:

For nine years, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation has been working to make Philadelphia's Liberty Bell/Benjamin Franklin image appeal more specifically to African Americans, students, seniors, families and, most recently, gays and lesbians. Now Philadelphia is figuring out how best to say bienvenidos to Hispanics.

"Our goal is to raise Philadelphia's visibility as a new destination to one of the fastest-growing populations in America," Meryl Levitz, president of the tourism organization, said in an e-mail.

At stake for cheese-steak central and its five-county region is a larger piece of the $37.2 billion that Hispanics spend on domestic travel, according to numbers determined in 2003 by the Travel Industry Association of America.

Philadelphia's tourism corporation expects to spend some $900,000 in the next three years to attract Hispanics, according to Ms. Levitz. Already there is a twice-yearly tour, called "Latin Flavor, Latin Soul," of the neighborhood of El Centro de Oro (the next tour is Sept. 10). By August, the corporation's Web site, www.gophila.com, will have an area  addressing Hispanic travelers.

In the meantime there are three 15-second commercials on Telemundo in Philadelphia (part of local sponsorship of the Latin Music Awards ) and print ads in both national and New York City Spanish-language publications like Hispanic Magazine and El Diario/La Prensa, among other efforts like research at local conventions of Hispanic organizations.

Philadelphia is not alone. Tourism initiatives have been developed nationwide in other cities and states, like Illinois and Louisiana. Even the Royal Caribbean cruise line started a Spanish-language Web site in 2004.
PAMELA NOEL

Arizona Republic: Advertising reaches out to Latinos

This article gives a lot of information we keep hearing everywhere. This piece is one in about 20 I've read in the past few days about how marketers are "waking up" and realizing the potential in the Latino dollar.

PHOENIX — As businesses ramp up their marketing aimed at Hispanic consumers to the tune of more than $3 billion nationally, small specialty ad agencies are taking root.

Phoenix now ranks as the No. 9 Latino market in the United States based on population, and the past two years have seen the opening of at least five Hispanic-oriented agencies: Alternatives/Alternativos, Molina/Lopez, Raices Unidas, Del Sol Hispanic Advertising and IQ Espanol.

Companies are pitching everything from laundry detergent, cosmetics and diapers to cable, cars and homes to Hispanics.

The appeal is strong growth in population, estimated to make up 13.5 percent of the U.S. total, and growing purchasing power.

Nationally, advertisers spent an estimated $3.09 billion on Hispanic marketing, according to market research company HispanTelligence. That's expected to grow to $3.65 billion by 2007.

The Arizona Republic |  READ MORE

NYC Mayor Sees Value in Spanish

According to an article in Hispanic Business magazine, it looks like even Republican mayor of New York City Mike Bloomberg sees the truth: that in order to market himself effectively for re-election, he's going to have to learn to speak the language of the island's nearly three million Latinos, which represent 27% of the total population of New York County.

And Bloomberg looks like he'll need all the help he can get, since his competition this time around is a Latino himself, Democrat Fernando Ferrer. Ferrer (who calls himself "a son of the Bronx") not only has the natural advantage with Latino voters (who vote strongly democratic) of being a Latino himself, but he also has the good sense to position himself as one of them, "del barrio".

"Freddy", as Ferrer refers to himself in the "blog" section (called "Blog para Nueva York") of his campaign website, tells his Spanish-speaking audience that a lot has changed since he left his former public position of Bronx borough president to start campaigning: "..viajo más seguido en subway y autobús. Y ha cambiado la manera en que me relaciono y trato con los demás neoyorquinos." ("I take the subway and the bus more, and I've changed the way I relate to and deal with New Yorkers..."). I'd love to read on in Spanish, but when I click on the "mas" link, I'm redirected to the English version. Click again on "español" and nothing.

Maybe Mike Bloomberg's multi-million dollar campaign will pay for a good translator and more humble positioning for the Mayor than what's been created for Ferrer. According to the Hispanic Business article, Ferrer doesn't have the cash invest in advertising -- yet.

To reach Latinos, both candidates will need Spanish. There are thousands of New York City residents who either don't speak English or feel more comfortable being addressed in Spanish. But that's not all. To market to their Latino constituency, both Bloomberg and Ferrer need to go beyond translating their English-language web site into Spanish: it is imperative that they craft a message that will resonate with  New York Latinos. Good campaign marketing strategy, and the resulting message, will take into account their lifestyles, their education level, language, etc. But cultural sensitivity is more important: you need to sound familiar, and sound like a friend. The concerns of the New York Latino population is different from the concerns of other groups that reside on the island. Understanding that and crafting a message that sincerely addresses these concerns will go miles beyond a simple translation of an English ad, and is worth more than just calling yourself "one of them".

Hispanic Business Magazine  | READ MORE