HispanicTrending

The Associated Press reported on May 21st that Labbat USA, the US Distributor of Tecate Beer , “will pull billboard ads next month that were decried by some Hispanic lawmakers and community activists as offensive”.

The billboards, meant to publicize that the brand was being sold in a bottle, feature a leaning Tecate beer bottle with the tag line “Finally, A Cold Latina.”

Critics said the ad propagates negative stereotypes of Hispanic women as being loose or overly sexual.

As a son, husband, and father of Hispanic women I most certainly and strongly agree with the critics. The stereotyping of Hispanics, or any cultural group for that matter, is offensive to its members, period. Even though Labatt USA’s director of marketing said, “This billboard was created to be tongue-in-cheek and humorous, for a mature adult audience… We intended no disrespect in any way, and in fact, we heard from many Tecate drinkers who told us the ad is clever and funny,” just the insinuation that all Latinas are hot, without being a strong defining characteristic of their product, was a big gamble that in the short term did more bad than good for the company. I don’t believe this incident will make or brake the success of this beer (which is pretty good by the way), but I hope it teaches us all a lesson that advertising is not meant to be “clever and funny”, but it is supposed to persuade people into taking the action that the advertiser wants them to take, which in this case was buying their “cerveza”.

For the complete story visit Yahoo! News

May 25, 2004

MSNBC Reports today, that Republicans and Democrats alike are paying close attention on how they adress the very diverse group of Hispanic voters. It is not about translating their “anglo” message into Spanish. It is talking to the mind, heart, and soul of each individual voter. They are finding out that it is not only one Hispanic group, but a diverse amalgam of groups, with some things in common, but many differences as well. Being careless with this reality can make or brake a candidacy.

Republican and Democratic ad makers and strategists say Spanish translations of English ads aren’t as effective as “culturally sensitive” commercials about how education, jobs and health care — the main concerns among Hispanics — will improve their lives.

On this article published on The Dallas Morning News on May 21, 2004, journalist Lesley Tellez gives another clear example of the new face of Hispanics in the U.S. Latinos are not to be stereotyped into the Spanish-speaking, Tejano or Salsa-listening, taco-eating crowd any more. They are making their distinctive mark on every aspect of life in America:

Latinos have become increasingly important in the hip-hop radio ratings war, leading some stations to hire Latino DJs, play Spanglish ads and send incessant shout-outs to the Latin crews listening.

In San Antonio, one rap station shot to No. 1 after formatting itself almost entirely to the Latino community. In Dallas, where hip-hop has long been viewed as a strictly black domain, officials at “K104” KKDA-FM and “The Beat” KBFB-FM are subtly competing to attract young Hispanics.

Thu, Apr. 08, 2004
By Linda Campbell
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

What exactly does it mean to be Hispanic, Latino or whatever the term of preference?

Depends.

On whether your family has been in the United States for generations or recently moved here. Whether you’re young or old. Whether you trace your heritage to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central America, Spain or a combination. Whether you speak mostly English or Spanish or only one of them.

But if you listen to the latest national poll on Hispanic voters, you’d get the impression that there was a neat little box defining that population — and ¡caramba! — we’ve discovered it’s not quite so simple.

Or simplistic, as the case may be.

Star-Telegram.com

May-17-2004
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the process of acculturation of minorities into American mainstream culture, providing a framework that analyzes the most important factors that influence the process of acculturation. The minority analyzed throughout the research is the Hispanic community because of two main reasons. The first reason is the controversial arguments published recently by Samuel Huntington that alert that Hispanics, especially Mexican-Hispanics, do not acculturate into American culture, which could potentially fragment U.S. culture for the first time in its history. The second reason why I have decided to prove these factors of acculturation in Hispanics is because it is the largest minority in the United States since 2002, with the high probability of becoming the second largest concentration of Hispanics in the world in less than ten years and the eighth largest purchasing economy in the world, ahead of Canada by 2007. Once understood all the factors and differences that affect the acculturation of Hispanics, the ending chapter will be dedicated to understand the marketing implications derived from the emergence of this minority, understanding how to segment most efficiently and analyzing within each segment different consumer behaviors, media consumption and more efficient ways to target and understand this important and growing segment of the U.S. population.

To view full thesis CLICK HERE (Adobe Acrobat Reader required):

Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy Thesis
Submitted by Alberto Comenge
April 2004
Under the advisement of ProfeHssor Bernard Simonin

HispanicAd.com