The Great Spanglish Controversy

February 2, 2005
By Rochelle Newman-Carrasco

(Susanna Whitmore, SVP Business Development, New American Dimensions and Laura Sonderup, Director, Heinrich Hispanidad contributed to this report.)

The number of conferences dedicated to the topic of US Hispanic marketing has increased exponentially over the past two to three decades. When I entered this industry in 1979, there were about 8 million Latinos living in the United States and I could count the annual conferences on one hand. Today, there are upwards of 40 million consumers loosely defined as Latino or Hispanic and it feels like there may be as many conferences in a given year.

At one such event held this past week in Miami, the 11th SRI Hispanic Marketing Conference, I was struck by a shift in the content of the program and the attitudes of the attendees (which included top level marketers from Citibank, GMAC Mortgage, Ballys Fitness, Coors Beer and others).

Historically, marketers have been presented with demographically detailed presentations about several tried and true topics which included: the growth of the US Hispanic market (fueled by birth rate and immigration), the brand loyalty of the US Hispanic market (full of personal anecdotes about choosing a cereal in the US for the very first time) and the important role that the Spanish language and Spanish language media played in the lives of Latinos nationwide (accompanied by reassuring research that indicated that ads in Spanish were significantly more effective with this target than ads in English).

So how was this conference different?

First, there were virtually no packaged PowerPoint presentations insisting we understand that Latinos will represent a full 25 percent of the United States in the not too distant future. It was doubtful that anyone in the audience did not already know that. But unlike audiences of days gone by, who would have stared at the sizeable statistic in shock and awe, this group would have been less than impressed. I call this generation of marketers the Segmentation Seekers. They are not interested in looking at the US Hispanic market in the aggregate as their predecessors were. Instead, they are using assorted approaches to break this market into more meaningful marketing pieces.

Language segmentation is among the most common and the most controversial of segmentation starting points. Marketers and agencies can literally come to blows over the subject of being bi - (bilingual that is). But language is just one episode in what can feel like a reality show called "Segmenting the Segment."

SiTV said, "no, not si" to the idea that Spanish is the language of choice among young, upscale Latinos. Instead, their programming and their advertisers speak to the audience's cultural identity, achieving relevance and resonance in English or in the bilingual blending of English and Spanish commonly referred to as Spanglish or code-switching.

"Language of choice" is becoming increasingly important in marketing decision-making as the Hispanic consumer marketplace gradually shifts from one dominated by immigrants to one comprised of individuals born in the United States and raised with English language media.

The argument against the Spanish-only approach is clear, say proponents, when you look at the numbers. Today, nearly 70 percent of Latinos in the U.S. are under the age of 35 and 65 percent of them are U.S. born. According to some, at least seventy percent of the growth in the domestic Hispanic population over the next generation is expected to come from Latinos born in the U.S.

There is also the age-old debate about whether you can really use the same advertising approach to market to Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Americans Central and South. Is regional segmentation required? And if so, how does one reckon with the growing presence of Mexicans in New York and Miami, markets that historically were dominated by Puerto Ricans and Cubans respectively?

Marketers responsible for higher end brands or complex financial products are prioritizing income segmentation. And rightly so, as it is a waste of valuable resources to address advertising for a premium home loan to a consumer without established credit. This is as true in non-Latino markets as it is in this market segment. The problem is that for too long, Latinos were simply all lumped together; the rich and the poor, those who prefer Spanish and those who don't, the cyber-savvy and the cyber-challenged, the traditionalists and the try-anythings, and so on and so on. As diverse as people are is as diverse as Latinos are, and this diversity is what provides marketers with so many rich options for selective targeting and creative choices. Citibank, for example, identified a new credit card opportunity by acknowledging that Latinos did not fall into their traditional marketing buckets of prime and sub-prime. As such, the idea of a "non-prime" consumer was born.

Source: RetailWire

Special thanks to Rochelle for making me aware of this article.

Comments

[felix gerena]

It seems like the main problem the article is addressing is about the definition of hispanic market itself. I think we should not take hispanic as a closed concept, but as a diversity. A diversity that can have some common traits, say language, for instance. But even in language there are evident differences. It´s not the same spanish the spoken by a mexican or a cuban.

Then what can we do? I think the first thing to do would be to be openminded. To build a brand open to hispanic communities. How? By recognizing their specificity, using signs that they recognize as familiar and compel them to come to us. But once you have demostrated you are a hispanic friendly brand you could offer different ways of experiencing your Brand in a hispanic way. Don´t be very dogmatic about the hispanic essence, be loose, be flexible.

The fact is that most companies marketing decisions depend of rigid and sometimes hierarchical structures that can make it difficult to be flexible in the cultural point. But if you need to have ten different approaches to hispanics, then why shouldn´t you have ten different tools?

Choose the basics. The basic tools that will make your brand friendly to hispanics. And from those basics go adding more specificities and try to discover what is the core element that makes a group of customers live their brand experience in a hispanic way.

Very good article, Juan and Rochelle.

[The Gringo]

I always try to hammer home to my fellow gringos the world of difference between the Spanish spoken among Mexican immigrants in Phoenix and Cubans in Miami. Further, there are immense cultural differences first- and second-generation Hispanics.

"There is also the age-old debate about whether you can really use the same advertising approach to market to Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Americans Central and South. Is regional segmentation required? And if so, how does one reckon with the growing presence of Mexicans in New York and Miami, markets that historically were dominated by Puerto Ricans and Cubans respectively?"

For nationwide companies trying to reach Latino communities, I have to wonder if it wouldn't make sense to bring in regional PR/marketing companies. A marketing firm based in Florida is likely to be more adept with the Cuban American market than, say, a firm out of L.A.

[Karen]

LATINOS is a huge and a very diverse community.
I think that people, other than latinos, must know and consider that being "latino" is a very complex subject. We belong to different countries, cultures, ways of thinking, acting and reacting.
I also think that considering as a refenrence the biggest communities in the US; mexicans, cubans and puertoricans, it can be a mistake. No doubt, is the biggest group, very respectable and loved by all of us.
Latinos we also are very suceptible people, we love to be part of such an important and diverse community but at the same time we need and we want to be considered as the group we are, peruvians, ecuatorians, chileans, etc.
Advertisers should, either segment or re-consider and adapt concepts into latino market.
Speaking of "spanglish" and searching information regarding this topic, makes me think that this concept or new "lenguage" has to be included as part of our identity. Definitively I disagree. It represents a danger to the hispanic culture, this is not our "language", for instance using it hasn't to become its replacement.

[Juana Aguilera]

Spanglish is admitting that you haven't mastered one language or the other. It's a language of an illiterate people. No, I'm not some redneck white guy. I'm Mexican that speaks Spanish without an English accent and English without a Mexican accent. Proud enough about the use of language to study both as specialties in college and constantly aware of why those Spanglishers can't speak very well. That language is at the level of children making up language because they haven't been exposed to good language in either Spanish or English.

[Maribel]

The United States languages are English and Bilingualism. There's a class for those who don't know English called English as Second Language.

[Ariel Coro]

This is a very interesting thread. I'm originally from Cuba but at this point I speak fluent spanglish. I disagree with the comment that spanglish is spoken by people that haven't mastered any language. I think that's a pretty big assumption and an ignorant comment. The brain plays tricks on you and when you live in an environment where you are surrounded by another language 23 hours of the day... you start taking inadvertent shortcuts.

I think that marketing to Hispanics is a challenge but at the same time, the sub segmentation approach is likely to fail since it's really hard to explain to people that are not sensitive to the culture the succinct differences among our cultures.

Great reading!

Ariel

[mark]

I agree that the comment about Spanglish is from someone with an elitist, ignorant agenda. Spanglish is a stupid word, like Ebonics. It's just word play, it's being colloquial which is what any good advertising is, and if your target speaks that way, communicate that way. Simple as that. We should stop worrying about language as a strategic concern, it's merely a tactical decision. If we don't have the courage to speak to clients this way, then well...good luck