Companies Tailor Their Pitches to 2 Languages : A Bilingual Battle for the Latino Market Share

Air travelers, please fly naked. Smokers, switch to low-asphalt cigarettes. Mothers, sprinkle your babies with dust.

Tapping the huge Latino market in the United States--estimates range up to $130 billion a year--is a task which leads through linguistic minefields.

When Braniff Airways not long ago ran Spanish-language newspaper ads to boost traffic to and from Latin America, it invited travelers to fly in leather seats, rendered as en cueros .

While some Latinos understood the invitation, others snickered at the thought of flying “in the buff.” Similarly, a tobacco manufacturer offered cigarettes that many prospective clients understood to be low in asphalt rather than in tar.

An advertising agency discovered just in time that polvo for babies translates into “dust,” instead of “powder” ( talco ).

Marketing experts chuckle at such gaffes--similar ones occur when U.S. firms advertise within Latin America--but they underline a debate over which language should be used to address an estimated 20 million people whose common language, Spanish, has baffling variations from region to region.

The issue affects not only advertising and the battle for the Latino wallet, but the larger field of communications, including magazines, radio stations and television networks.

One solution is relying more on English. But because language is considered the glue of culture, some Latinos are uneasy about using more English for fear of losing their Latin culture.

Advocates of English say such fears are unfounded. “There is a growing awareness that being bilingual and able to easily move from one culture to the other is a tremendous asset,” said Harry Caicedos, editor of the Miami-based Vista magazine.

Written in English for Latinos, Vista is a newspaper supplement which switched from monthly to weekly publication in September. Carried by 28 newspapers, its circulation grew from 427,000 to 1.2 million in three years.

“Our audience are the Hispanics with the greatest purchasing power,” Caicedos said.

Hispanic, a glossy, English-language monthly based in Washington which began publishing in April, is aimed at the same market--U.S.-educated, bilingual Latinos and Americans of Latin descent who have been in the country for generations.

Hispanic’s staff could serve as case histories for the type of reader they want to attract. Managing Editor Maria Elena Sharpe, of Mexican descent, comes from a family which has been in New Mexico since colonial times.

Using more English than Spanish when she grew up, Sharpe made a long trip to South America to brush up on her Spanish.

Editor-in-Chief Alfredo Estrada, who came from Cuba as a child, speaks Spanish to his father and English to his wife.

Some researchers say that English is an inefficient tool in reaching Latinos. “Spanish is the language that talks to their heart,” said Jim Loretta, vice president of Strategy Research Corp., a Miami-based company which is running detailed studies of the Latino population.

In a survey of language skills, Strategy Research found that 80.7% of Latinos read Spanish very well or well, compared to 42.1%, who read English with equal ease.

Vista’s pre-launch study, in contrast, said that 71% of Latinos surveyed in 11 cities read English well.

While there appears to be a niche for English-language publications for Latinos--a third magazine, Hispanic Business, also prefers English--there has been an explosion in Spanish-language television and radio stations.

The Miami-based Spanish-language Univision network now claims more than 450 affiliates across the country. A rival network, Telemundo, began expanding two years ago.

Hundreds of Spanish-language radio stations have loyal followings. “People listen to them because they like Latin music, of which there is not enough on other stations,” Caicedos said.

Reaching the whole market, analysts say, requires both languages along with close attention to regional distinctions and consumer habits which often differ markedly.

“Shopping is a whole different concept,” said Loretta, who is of Mexican origin. “The Anglo (white American) will rush into a supermarket after work, buy whatever is needed, and rush out again. A Latino mother will take the kids along and make the event a celebration.”

Time is not of the essence, as Kentucky Fried Chicken found out some time ago. The company ran advertisements aimed at Latinos, which stressed the convenience and speed with which they could buy a chicken. The ads had little effect.

Latinos, it turned out, were interested in chicken, not convenience. Sales took off once the company flouted its product as pollo de los pollos , the chicken of chickens.

While average Latino incomes run around $10,000 a year below the U.S. average, marketing experts say that Latinos often buy the most expensive food and household goods sold.

No matter what language is used to attract Latino consumers, advertising concentrates on mothers, who make the decisions on most purchases, except for expensive durable goods.

Experts predict that the number of bilingual Latinos is bound to grow: roughly three-fourths of Latino population growth is due to Latinos born in the United States; only 25% is due to immigration.

“Those born here will grow with two languages,” said an advertising executive, “and you will need two languages to speak to them.”