Marketing tips for
Engaging the U.S. Hispanic Consumers
How To Reach the U.S. Hispanic Market
If you are running a business in the U.S. you need to know that the Hispanic Market is the fastest growing group of consumers.
The Hispanic Market represents $1.5 trillion in purchasing power. Close to 56 million of Hispanics live in the U.S. That is 17.1% of the total population or 1 out of 5 U.S. residents. Business leaders who are contemplating how to reach such an enormous market segment, often ask me the same question: “Do we really need Spanish, or can we get by with just English?”
Spanish-language advertising campaigns targeting U.S. Hispanics are often riddled with poor translations that is not culturally relevant for this market.
One of the most common assumptions that I see when I talk with CEOs or marketing executives is that some of them still think that the Hispanic Market is homogeneous … can you believe that?
Some of them think that Hispanics are just people who speak Spanish or they’re just Mexicans. Others think that because they want to reach the U.S. Hispanics’ more acculturated group there’s no need to create a campaign appointed to this target audience because they share similar consumption power compared to the general market, so, with the Anglo Campaign they are still reaching Hispanics…
And others think that with a little translation of the English campaign into Spanish that is the most effective way to reach the Hispanics …
Well, let me tell you something: all these assumptions are wrong, wrong and wrong!
This is why most companies lose thousands of dollars or millions of dollars for not getting it right from the beginning … So, let’s get it right, there are more than 20 different nationalities that speak Spanish, so depending on what country you are from, we have different language variations, in English it’s called slang … So you need to be very careful who translates your ads or who translates your collateral materials, because you might be insulting somebody without knowing, or your massage can be absolutely out of context. A typical example of this is when The American Dairy Association, decided to create a campaign promoting milk consumption (Got Milk) so when they translated the Anglo campaign into Spanish the tagline was “Are you lactating? … When you translate that into Spanish it means: Estas lactando? … FAIL!! This happens, this is crazy, in less that 24 hours they had to pull the campaign out of there …
So, if you really want to market to the U.S. Hispanic market effectively and efficiently, and you want to do it right, you’ll need to have a deep understanding of the entire culture, of the Latino core values, what truly motivates these consumers to engage with your brand. Most importantly, you’ll need to have a solid strategy with cultural relevant messages, that truly appeal to this target audience, that has been crafted and created for them and to them. Only then, you will see the ROI, only then you will see the growth of your brand and the growth of your business