Spanish Becomes Fashionable on Madison Ave. : Ad Agencies Begin to Cater to Huge Latino Market With Special Campaigns
Strolling through Puente Hills Mall one afternoon with her son and daughter, Whittier housewife Mercedes Miranda, a first generation Mexican-American, seemed just another consumer on the lookout for a sale.
Yet Miranda, who was born in Texas and speaks fluent English, poses a special challenge to advertisers trying to interest her in their products: Which language do they use? Like many members of the rapidly expanding Latino consumer market in the United States, Miranda says, “I would prefer to see advertising in Spanish.” She thinks that advertisers who do so are showing concern for Latino consumers, and that persuades her. “I am more likely to buy the product,” she said.
For other Latinos, however, English is the preferred language. The differing outlooks, in fact, mirror the current national debate over how federal, state and local governments should deal with bilingualism. It may be money that resolves the issue--the money the burgeoning pool of Latino customers is ready to spend on products and the money consumer-products makers are willing to spend to reach those potential customers.
The size of the Latino market has grown so large and so fast that it is transforming the way Madison Avenue communicates as no other consumer group has. Not only are the creators of advertising campaigns using Spanish in addition to--or instead of--English, but in many cases, the creators themselves often are Latinos. Some major advertising firms now have specialty divisions--staffed by Latinos--to develop Latino-directed campaigns; other agencies turn to minority-owned or operated companies for the work or as consultants.
Since the advertising geared to Latinos appears mostly on TV, radio and outdoor billboards rather than in relatively unobtrusive media such as newspapers and magazines, Spanish has assumed a public profile that is hard to ignore. And just as Madison Avenue made “Ring Around the Collar” and “Where’s the Beef” household slogans, many experts predict that the advertising community will pave the way for a bilingual marketplace.
McDonald’s spends an estimated $6 million of its $311.4-million advertising budget on Latino marketing, according to Advertising Age, a New York-based trade magazine. The fast food chain also has signed the pop group Menudo for promotional tours. Beer maker Adolph Coors, has been directing special attention at Latinos--it declared the 1980s the “Decade of the Hispanic.”
“Most of the big national advertisers are creating Spanish-language ads whether they are regional or national in scope,” said Richard Tobin, president of Strategy Research Corp., a Miami consumer research firm. “Little by little we are becoming a more bilingual country.”
Share Characteristics
Already 20 million strong and growing six times the rate of the national population average, Latinos in the United States make up a $76.5 billion-a-year consumer market, according to an estimate in the December, 1984, issue of Santa Barbara-based Hispanic Business magazine. Yet they share other characteristics more commercially significant than the language and culture that distinguish them from the Anglo consumers.
Latino consumers are very brand-loyal, according to a 1984 study by the New York-based consumer research firm of Yankelovich, Skelly & White.
That same study also found that Latinos are more receptive to new products than the general market and that because of their generally larger family size, they spend more per family on food, beverages and clothing than non-Latino households.
Although the Latino population is expanding rapidly, their share of the economic pie is disproportionately small. Their median family income is about $17,000, compared to the national median of about $25,000, according to the most recent Census Bureau figures.
What’s more, they hardly resemble the affluent consumer most often sought by Madison Avenue. The group has only a marginal stake in the ownership, management and participation in mainstream U.S. business.
Boosting Ad Budgets
Still, companies last year spent $284.5 million to reach the Latino market--27% more than the $224.4 million they spent in 1983 and a 72% increase over 1982, according to Hispanic Business. On Madison Avenue, at least four of the nation’s biggest advertising agencies--J. Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam, Ted Bates Worldwide and McCann-Erickson--have created subsidiaries to specialize in Latino advertising.
Most significantly, all three networks--ABC, NBC and CBS--say they are exploring the possibility of offering bilingual telecasts.
The Federal Communications Commission paved the way for such broadcasts in July, 1983, when it voted to approve stereo TV and so-called second audio programming--a multiaudio TV system developed by Zenith and dbx Inc. of Newton, Mass.
Of 200 local stations that have the capability, four now simulcast some of their programming in Spanish, including Los Angeles television station KTLA, according to Television Digest, a New York-based trade newsletter. (A specially designated television set or an adapter is necessary to receive such broadcasts.)
Several years ago ABC television simulcast Spanish language television sound tracks over local radio stations. Officials familiar with the project said the response was good. But ABC spokesman Jeff Tobin said although the network still has an interest in such programming, it has not made a decision about whether to offer it regularly.
Even that is heathly recognition for a market that hardly existed a decade ago.
Many companies first recognized ethnic markets in the late 1960s when they focused on black consumers. In reaching out to the nation’s 27 million blacks, these companies helped fuel the growth of black radio stations and publications such as Essence, Ebony and Black Enterprise.
Similar Marketing Efforts
Although there are no national Latino magazines equivalent to Ebony, companies are directing similar marketing efforts at Latinos, who collectively will make up the largest minority group in the United States by the end of the century.
“You cannot be No. 1 in California or in the West Coast for that matter unless you have a good share of the Hispanic market--it is that critical,” said Coors spokesman Ron Kirkpatrick.
Many companies believe the key to reaching the Latino market is its common language--Spanish.
The study by the Yankelovich group concluded that Spanish, “more than any other characteristic, is the unifying force linking Hispanics of all nationalities.” Latinos, the study said, place great importance on perpetuating their culture and language from one generation to the next.
Indeed, Diane Yokota, a 21-year-old escrow officer from Covina who has a Japanese-American father and a Mexican-American mother, recalls that as a child “Mom always spoke Spanish around me . . . my father never spoke Japanese.”
The Yankelovich study found that 88% of 775 Latinos surveyed spoke Spanish and only 45% described themselves as being bilingual. However, 74% said their language goal was to become bilingual.
“The first objective of any Hispanic is to learn English,” said Andres Sullivan, senior vice president and creative director at Mendoza, Dillon & Asociados, a Newport Beach-based public relations firm. “But there is a drive to hang on to Spanish due to Hispanic pride. Previously, people tried to hide the fact that they are Hispanic.”
Expanding Beer Campaign
Miller Brewing Co. is trying to capture a bigger segment of Latino beer drinkers by extending its “Made the American Way” ad campaign to Spanish-speaking consumers who watch the Spanish language SIN Television Network.
Miller’s Spanish-language campaign uses the same music score by the Oakridge Boys as that of the Anglo spot--but set to a polyrhythmic Salsa beat, according to Sullivan of Mendoza, Dillon & Asociados, an independent Latino agency whose annual billings exceed $20 million.
However, the slogan has been changed to “Miller es de esta Gran Nacion,” which roughly translated means: Miller is of this great country.
“We show . . . all (kinds of) Hispanics in the commercials,” said Sullivan, explaining that the ads resemble Miller’s Anglo spots in trying to portray ordinary people at work and play. “It’s a mosaic of Hispanic America.”
Yet there are pitfalls to that approach.
“You can do one commercial to fit all Spanish markets, but it can become antiseptic since you can’t use any jargon,” said Carlos Montemayor, president of Montemayor Y Asociados Inc. in San Antonio. “What’s apropos (among Latinos) in Los Angeles may not be apropos among those here in South Texas or among those in Miami.”
Must Be Selective
Adds Rochelle Newman, account group manager for Font & Vaamonde Associates in New York: “You have to be especially selective with food products.” She said a company can no longer focus only on New York’s large Puerto Rican community because the growing Cuban community might feel offended.
Despite the odds, some effective and appealing Spanish language commercials have emerged.
Take film maker’s Ray Rivas humorous Spanish language commercial for Frito Lay’s Sabritones chips. The spot shows a Mexican family coming across the border and explaining, in Spanish, the merits of the hot and spicy chips to two skeptical American border patrol guards.
The guards, who also speak Spanish--but with a Texas twang--become engaged in a lively repartee. In one exchange, the family responds affirmatively when the guard asks if the goods they are carrying are “hot.” In another, one guard nudges his partner upon hearing “USA” in Spanish, and says knowingly in English: “that means U.S. of A.”
Humor, of course, has been used effectively in commercials worldwide. But one of the main staples of American advertising--the TV product spokesman--has proved risky in Spanish language advertising.
While Mario “Cantinflas” Moreno--a Mexican comedian whose appeal spans nearly all Latino cultures--has become as important to Coca-Cola’s Latino advertising effort as Bill Cosby is to the Anglo campaign, other Latinos too closely identified with one ethnic group can sometimes alienate consumers.
Fermia Platon, a vice president at UniWorld Group Inc. said that Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher “Fernando Valenzuela was loved in the Southwest, (but) in other parts of the country he did not receive an enthusiastic response.”
Not Always Central
What’s more, the Spanish language itself is not as central to the lives of some Latinos as it is to others.
Says Carlos R. Montemayor, president of the San Antonio-based advertising agency Montemayor y Asociados: “Some Hispanics are far more anglicized in their cultural preference. Their names are not ‘Francisco’--it’s ‘Frank.’ And if you try to appeal to them in Spanish either they don’t understand you or you risk pissing them off.”
For those Latinos who prefer English, a Coral Gables, Fla., company has recently begun an English-language publication, to appear monthly as a newspaper insert, that is directed at Latino readers.
Called Vista, the publication styles itself after the Sunday newspaper supplement Parade magazine. It is carried by 11 newspapers and has a total circulation of 427,000, said publisher Arturo Villar. He added that the first issue of Vista, published last month, carried seven pages of advertising within its 20 pages.
For those Latinos who prefer Spanish, the SIN Television Network has become perhaps the most influential Spanish-language medium in the United States.
Now watched daily by about 4.1 million Latino households, SIN expects to gross $55 million this year, 22% more than last year and more than three times the 1980 sales of $15 million.
“Spanish has become very fashionable,” said Robert C. Hitchen, vice president of marketing for SIN. “Everywhere you turn around, the country is discovering the Hispanic market.”
