HispanicTrending

October 30, 2005
By Diwata Fonte

When Braniff International Airways translated its "Fly in Leather" slogan for a Spanish-speaking audience, it intended to highlight its high-class interiors and seating.

But instead of conjuring images of luxury, the message caused confusion, humor and a little bit of unease.

"Vuela en cuero," the literal translation, urged customers to fly in their airplane — naked.

Marketing to Hispanic consumers has its history of calamities, as in this 1970s case that is often cited as an example of translation gone wrong. Awkward attempts still abound today as companies experience the growing pains of the new audience.

But executives and consumers say that the results are becoming more sophisticated, specialized and respectful of differences within the market.

"I think we’re really learning and taking risks in what works and in what’s effective," said Virginia Madrid-Salazar, owner of Madrid-Salazar Marketing & Public Relations in Fresno. "Marketing to the Latino community has really evolved."

Marketing is not just about advertising in Spanish, she said, and companies are paying more attention to the different segments in the community such as first-, second- and third-generation families.

For example, she said she’s working with First 5 Tulare County, which helps provide children 5 and younger with a healthy start.

"We’re not only talking to new residents," she said, "but we’re also talking to middle-class Latinos. There’s a broad difference in the community there."

With $1 trillion of purchasing power predicted by 2010, according to the research firm HispanTelligence, companies are spending increasing amounts of resources on reaching the U.S. Hispanic market.

In 2004, advertisers spent about $3.09 billion to market to this group, an 11% increase from 2003, according to U.S. Hispanic Media Markets Report.

In the central San Joaquin Valley, this population is difficult or impossible to ignore, with almost one in two residents claiming Hispanic or Latino backgrounds.

Hispanics or Latinos make up 46% of the population in Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Madera counties, according to the 2000 census. The percentage is highest for Tulare County, where Hispanics or Latinos make up 50.8%.

But with all this interest, leaders in the Hispanic business community are quick to point out the complexity in attracting Hispanic customers, especially regarding the nuances of language and culture.

"What Hispanic market are you talking about?" queries Gil Jaramillo, executive director of the Tulare Kings Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

"Too often people just think about the Hispanic market, and use too broad a brush stroke."

Using his own family as an example, Jaramillo described the diversity within the Hispanic market, and within individual families.

Jaramillo’s family has been in the United States for three generations, he said, and as professionals are just as apt to eat Italian food at Olive Garden as more traditional rice and beans.

"[This month], I took my grandson and a couple of his friends to see the Green Day concert," he said. "We don’t just listen to mariachi music."

Jaramillo agrees that he is seeing vast improvements in the way that companies cater to U.S. Hispanics with bilingual signs, with Hispanic faces in English-language commercials, and with hiring Hispanic employees to make their customers feel more welcome.

But language still poses a problem, he said. With the diversity of the Hispanic market, careful decisions must be made between the correct usage of Spanish, English or both.

Translation is especially rife with trouble.

"Typically, the major turnoff to Hispanics is when you have a badly translated ad or a brochure," said Felipe Korzenny, a professor at Florida State University and author of the book "Hispanic Marketing: A Cultural Perspective." "That used to be much more common a few years ago than it is now, but it is still a problem, particularly with smaller businesses."

Mistakes in literal translations, such as the case with Braniff, are common, he said. A hat store might advertise its "head coverings" in Spanish. Another version might include Spanish words around an English acronym, like "PIN" for personal identification number, he said.

"Every day, I see something silly," he said.

Financial institutions have even more trouble with this, because terms such as "escrow" — where a neutral third party holds assets until the transaction can be finalized — do not have literal translations in Spanish, he said.

Korzenny said in his research, he found that Hispanics with weaker English skills would rather see something in English than in confusing Spanish.

But companies that succeed in sending the right message can reap loyal and appreciative customers.

According to Simmons Market Research Bureau, more than half of the predominately Spanish speakers in the United States feel more respect for companies that advertise in Spanish, feel more loyal to companies that advertise in Spanish and remember products that are advertised in Spanish.

"It’s kind of neat because it shows they’re trying," said Exeter resident Rosa Ruiz, 18, who is bilingual.

Language is just one aspect of marketing, experts say.

Understanding cultural values is becoming even more important, especially with a large portion of the Hispanic population speaking only English, or preferring English.

"You have to market a little bit different, not in a bad way, but in a different way," said Eric Lindberg, owner of the Computer Gym in Visalia.

Lindberg’s company is trying to create a program targeting the Hispanics who feel they want to learn more about computers, such as using the Internet, and Microsoft programs.

Besides working with his contacts in the Hispanic business community and running articles in English and Spanish in a business newsletter, he is also considering a marketing strategy that appeals to family bonds and parents’ desire to help children with their homework.

But he’s also concerned that the advertisements are not condescending, he said.

"I don’t want to insult anyone. Intelligence is something we all have inherently. I don’t care if you’re Hispanic or if you’re white," he said.

One way to approach this is to step away from translating and create a distinct Spanish message from the ground up, Korzenny said.

"Now the connection is not so much in language, but in culture," said Korzenny.

In the case of a campaign for pork, Korzenny said that translating the English slogan, "the other white meat" would not make any sense culturally, he said.

Instead, the campaign took a different angle in encouraging Hispanic consumers to eat more pork.

They based it on the misgivings some in the Hispanic community might have about eating pork, such as the fear they might get sick or that it is fattening.

Using these cultural reference points, he said, they used the slogan: "El Cerdo es Bueno," or "The pork is good."

In a local example, Art Reker, owner of Armadillo Advertising in Clovis, said he is working on a project to create a parallel Web site in Spanish for the insurance company Van Beurden Insurance Services.

Instead of just translating the Web site, they are "rebuilding" it, he said. All the photographs will be different, and the material — which has the same basic content — will be presented differently to emphasize some of the values they feel are important to Hispanic consumers, such as family and future and home.

In describing the values they zero in on when targeting Hispanic consumers, he said: "The Hispanic future is one that’s brighter and more positive and full of good dreams and our advertising appeals to that."

Ruiz, a student at College of the Sequoias, said she doesn’t see a lot of images of Hispanics or Latinos on television, but she agrees that those values are important in her family.

If your family sees you are pushing yourself to the extreme, she said, they will support you. Roots are also key, she said: "Always remember where you came from."

Madrid-Salazar said she knows that images with strong, shared memories and values can be powerful. She described the sensory feelings upon entering a bakery.

"There’s something that happens when you walk into a panadería and you smell the sweet bread and you know it," she said. "I don’t know if somebody who isn’t Latino would understand that and what that means … It’s just a part of who you are. There’s something about it that’s within you."

Despite some misguided attempts that may even offend Hispanics, Cesar Lucio, president of the Fresno Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said it’s understandable that businesses need to make their mistakes first.

"It’s part of the learning curve," he said. "They’re trying to hit different segments of the markets, and they’re going to find out what works and what doesn’t work. I mean, it’s new!"

Source: The Fresno Bee

October 27, 2005
By Luis Humberto Crosthwaite

Several years ago, I had the privilege of working with the Mixteco community in San Quintín, Baja California, while doing some research for a book.

I intended to re-create the story of an indigenous Mexican migrant, from his origins in the state of Oaxaca, through his travels to various cities in Mexico, and finally, his voyage to the United States.

The Mixtecos are a brave people who try to survive through the endemic misery that surrounds them. Different organizations, including the Mexican government, have tried to help the Mixtecos hold onto their roots through their voyages and contact with other cultures, especially urban ones. In San Quintín, there are bilingual schools with classes in both Mixteco and Spanish.

A long-standing complaint from many teachers in these schools is that many Mixtecos choose to forbid their children from speaking their tongue. Those parents prefer that their children speak, read and write exclusively in Spanish; they feel that speaking their mother tongue is a step backward, that it will be of no use to them in the future, that the language is just a sad testament to their ignorance and poverty.

I remembered my experiences writing that book because recently, Daniel, an American nephew of Mexican descent, was telling me the reasons he didn’t speak Spanish. He told me that his mother, who was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States as a child, suffered from racial prejudice in California, much of it because she didn’t speak English.

She decided that her children wouldn’t live through the same humiliations that had hurt her so much; so she made up her mind that her children would speak only English. She saw it as the only way to spare them the pain of being born in a country where skin color and cultural differences were reasons for discrimination.

In retrospect, Daniel understands his mother’s love and motivations, but he still regrets that tough sacrifice.

"My mother’s decision hurt us in the long run," he told me. "When we started working, we discovered that speaking Spanish would have been an advantage for us in the workplace."

Losing one’s mother tongue is not something to be taken lightly. Unfortunately, many Mexican immigrants in the United States, for various reasons, make the same decision many Mixtecos do when they leave their birthplace: that their children speak exclusively the predominant language of their new home.

Sometimes the decision is well thought-out; other times it is because of mere indolence. Parents let the child grow up not speaking Spanish because it’s easier for them. They let their children be entirely absorbed by their contact with television, school and their friends, and they make no effort at home to fight what will eventually become a total or partial loss of the mother tongue.

It is ever more common to find young Latinos in the United States who can barely speak Spanish, or indeed, not at all. These young people, in turn, will not have the necessary tools to transmit that language to their children.

Even though there’s always someone eager to advocate that English be the only language spoken in the United States, cultural diversity, throughout history, has been one of the strong foundations of this country.

Besides allowing their child to miss out on the great opportunity of being bilingual, parents who don’t stimulate the learning of their mother tongue are ensuring that their children lose a valuable cultural heritage, the last and most important connection to their roots.

Source: The Union Tribune