Abstract

This study explores the growing Latino market and examines URLs printed in Spanish-language advertisements in People en Español magazine. The data collected from the People en Español advertisements were used to visit advertisers’ websites to discover if advertisers also cross-market and cross-communicate in Spanish to Spanish speaking readers.  The study finds that although Latino web presence is growing, major American advertisers do not cross-market or cross-communicate effectively to Spanish-speaking readers online.

Introduction

As the Latino population continues to grow in the United States, marketers see this burgeoning growth as consumer growth.  They seek to increase their bottom lines by directly marketing to Spanish-speaking immigrants and Latino citizens in the Spanish language in print, broadcast media, point of sale displays, outdoor, on the web, on signage, during promotional events, and in other venues (Epstein 2005, www.hispanicprwire.com). 

Review of Literature

Not just black and white anymore

Deborah Ramirez published Multicultural Empowerment:  It’s Not Just Black and White Anymore in the Stanford Law Review (1995).  In the article she discusses the beginnings of race-consciousness in the U.S. and policies that effectively ignored Latinos and other racial groups because of census miscountings and undercountings.  Because Latino numbers were seen as miniscule compared to the black population before 1990, America was primarily considered a black and white nation (Ramirez 1995).  Ramirez reports that even with lower population numbers in the 1960s, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and other minority groups were included in many color conscious remedies to cure racial discrimination and oppression, such as affirmative action initiatives, housing subsidies, social and educational funding programs, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. With new population growth, Ramirez writes that Latinos cannot continue to be ignored anymore politically or economically by governmental institutions, educational institutions or private entities. 

Advertising and marketing industry changes

Ramiez was correct and Latinos are not ignored any longer.  Since the 1990 Census that indicated mushrooming ethnic growth in the United States, there has been a steady rise in multicultural marketing initiatives by major companies and ethnic marketing firms (Robinson 1994).

Reasons for industry changes  

Marketers and advertisers are spending more resources on ethnic marketing, especially reaching Latino consumers because the Latino market has grown to be 14.2 percent of the U.S. population, making it now the largest minority population, over the 12.2 percent African-American population (2004 U.S. Census Bureau).  With these increasing numbers, coupled with growing Asian populations and other ethnic groups, minorities as a whole will no longer be the “minority” in the U.S. by the year 2060 (2004 U.S. Census Bureau).

Population growth is also translated into dollars.  Latino spending power is expected to reach almost $1tillion by 2009 (2004 Magazine Publishers of America).Companies like Coca-Cola USA , AOL, and Bank of America are seeking to capitalize from this new market growth opportunity. They have developed multicultural community relations departments and advertising/marketing initiatives to target American Latinos.

Latino firms are on the rise as well.  Latino firms like Negret Lopez , Alpunto, Accento, and bvk Meka, have earned accounts from major companies like Tyson Foods, Sprint, Samsonite, Pfizer, Citigo Petroleum, Southwest Airlines, Scripps, Heinz, Kia Motors, and Pepsico. Mainstream advertising agencies, like Burston-Marsteller, have opened Latino research and marketing wings and deliver regular emailed newsletters to provide current marketing tips and research to clients that are pushing to target this growing group. Advertising Age and Nielsen Research have even published studies on the growing Latino consumer population and the African-American consumer.  Advertising Age even sends free daily Hispanic Marketing New Alerts via email to online subscribers.

Theory

Political Economic Theory

Political Economic Theory explains this change and the relationship between population growth, spending power, and target marketing.  According to this theory that evolved from Marxist theory, businesses and organizations cater to the needs and interests of groups that have large and growing capital so that the companies can grow capital (McQuail 1987).  Furthermore, under this theory, people without capital are kept out of power and are ignored by governmental, corporate, and media systems because they are perceived as having no economic value (Murdoch & Golding 1977).  This theory also implies that media (advertising to broadcast media) are a part of the economic system of a country and have close relationships with the political system.

Acculturation and Assimilation in target marketing

Lisa Penaloza and Mary Gilly (1999) studied marketer acculturation and consumer acculturation and these concepts also can be applied to explain what happens when Latino markets are targeted.  Acculturation happens when people of different cultures interact and adapt or assimilate aspects of one culture into another, while maintaining the old culture.  There is usually dissonance and resistance between adopting new and keeping old cultures (1999).

Penaloza and Gilly  (1999) found that when marketers try to target growing ethnic markets, they attempt to assimilate consumers into the mainstream (popular) culture and respond when consumers resist these attempts.  At the same time, as marketers learn to target ethnic (Latino) consumers and work to build relationships with these markets, they align with that community’s needs, expectations and interests.  In doing so, marketers are also acculturated into that ethnic culture.     

Acculturation theory and Language choices

This acculturation and alignment with needs and expectations of the Latino market can also be understood by consulting the theory of accommodation.  When one group accommodates another by respecting the other group’s culture with accommodations, then the accommodated group perceives the first group as sensitive to the culture (Giles 1973).

This theory was further applied as the speech accommodation theory in the 1994 study, Exploring Language Effects in Ethnic Advertising (Koslow,  Shamdasani, Touchstone 1994).  According to the authors, when advertisers use the Spanish language in ad copy, Latinos who are Spanish speakers tend to perceive this gesture as an accommodation that should be rewarded with their consumerism and loyalty.  The accommodation tends to influence consumers’ perceptions of the advertiser because Spanish speakers think the advertiser’s language choice shows corporate sensitivity to the Latino communitiy’s needs (Koslow, Shamdasani, Touchstone 1994).   

The researchers also found that sometimes this sensitivity is challenged if Latino consumers perceive that advertisers use Spanish too often, and if the consumer either does not use Spanish or has insecurities about the use of the language. They write, “the more Latinos come to them of themselves as American, the more they may feel offended by the use of the Spanish language in advertising (Koslow , Shamdasani, Touchstone 1994, p. 578).

When analyzing cultural sensitivity of websites, Singh (2004), wrote that when companies design websites targeting ethnic consumers, they should consider semiotics, cultural values, language usage to show sensitivity to the targeted market, and be careful of using translations and translation software.  Alba (1990) writes that the English language and its adoption for new immigrants is related to generations.  Older immigrants may tend to be slower in using English over Spanish, if they adopt English at all.  Melissa Johnson (2000) studied the content of U.S. ethnic Latina magazines.  She found that magazine content pushed Latinas to assimilate into mainstream culture and values, though they did not necessarily adopt the English language.

Latinos Online

Literature about language choice in online advertising is limited, however, researchers have shown interest in Latino behavior and access online. According to results of telephone surveys resulting in the third annual U.S. Hispanic Cyberstudy, conducted by AOL/Roper Public Affairs (2005), the 62 percent of the 603 Latino AOL and AOLatino subscriber respondents, under age 35, use the Internet to send instant messages. Twenty-percent send these messages in Spanish, while 34 percent send instant messages equally in English and Spanish.  Also the majority of Latinos in the study said that viewed the internet as a primary source for information.

Just a little over half of the respondents said they get more information about products and services online than from television, newspapers or magazines.  Fifty-two percent of the online Latino respondents have a broadband internet connection at home, in keeping with 50 percent of the general online population.   Also according to the study, 14 percent of the Latino online consumers became home internet users within the last six months of the study compared to 7percent of the general at home online population.  This means more Latinos are getting connected to the internet faster than the general population of internet users.  Finally, the Latino respondents report spending an average of about 9.2 hours a week online at home, in keeping with the 8.5 hours that the general population spends per week online.  At work, participants said they spend an average of about 11.5 hours online, compared to the 9.4 hours that the non-Latino populations report.   

Latinos are reportedly the fastest growing population not only in the U.S., but on the web also, according to Nielsen NetRatings reports posted on the Multicultural Advantage site.

Digital Divide

Although Latino presence is growing online, researchers report that there is still a digital divide in U.S. by race and socio-economic status (Crandall, 2001), and accessibility to higher speed internet (2005 Multicultural Advantage). In his article, Cyber-Race, Kang (2000) proposes that because race is a social construction, that affects everything one does from voting, to developing relationships, to how the internet is used, equality can be reached and the racial and digital divide can be bridged through the web.

Again, this study will explore if advertisers and marketers that place Spanish-language display ads in a popular Spanish-language magazine also feature Spanish content on their websites.

Hypothesis:

Based on the literature and current trends, one would think that advertisers and marketers that market to Latinos would have easily accessible Spanish on their U.S. websites.  However, since this is a newer phenomenon, a null hypothesis will be used.

Null Hypothesis: Advertisers that place Spanish display ads in a popular Spanish-language magazine do not also cross-market or cross-communicate well to Spanish-speaking readers online. 

Research Questions:

RQ1:    Do web URLs printed in Spanish-language magazine advertisements drive consumers directly to Spanish-language content?

RQ2:   Do advertisers that place Spanish display ads in a popular Spanish-language magazine have URLs that indicate that the content is in Spanish?

RQ3:    When URLs listed in Spanish-language magazine ads do not feature a link to Spanish-language content, is there a visible link to Spanish-language content on the advertisers’ homepages?

RQ4:    Are all URLs functional in display ads in a popular Spanish-language magazine?

Methodology

To understand if advertisers cross market and cross communicate successfully from Spanish-language magazine advertisement to website, advertising content for twelve issues of People en Español magazine were analyzed.  The magazine, People en Español , was used because it is a popular magazine printed in Spanish in the United States.  Although it is a spin-off from People Magazine, People en Español  addresses issues about and highlights celebrities in the Latino community, both in the U.S. and in Latin America.  The publication is targeted to both males and females, but its primary circulation is female.  It has a large national circulation.  Spanish speakers that are monolingual and bilingual both read the publication.  A major reason this publication was chosen for this study was because it also draws large American companies that buy large display ads.  These advertisers represent a diversity of industries from food to automobiles.

Data Collection & Print Advertising

Coders analyzed only display ads in People en Español .  Ads smaller than one column and classified ads were not included in this study.  While viewing the display ads, coders recorded the name of the company highlighted in the advertisement; the size of the advertisement; the language used in the ad; and the World Wide Web address (URL).  After data from the magazine display ads was recorded in a spreadsheet, the list was sorted and duplicate URLs were temporarily eliminated for easier and more organized web surfing.  The mean for advertisements per issue was 65.25.

Data Collection for & Web Sample

Duplicate URLs usually represented that advertisers placed the same ad or a similar one in a number of issues.  When advertisers used different URLs for the same company, that URL was visited and recorded as new data.  Not all advertisements featured a URL.  If no URL was listed in the ad, that advertiser’s site was not visited unless another ad from that advertiser listed a URL.  After duplicates were deleted from over 700 advertisements in 12 issues, a total of 155 display advertisements with URLs became the final sample size.  Within that sample, 14 of the pages were expired, did not have a server associated with the page, or had unusable URLs.

Coders then visited the web URLs provided in the print display ads.  Coders looked over each site and recorded if the URL went directly to Spanish-language content; if the URL took the coder to an English-language page with a visible link to Spanish-language content; if the viewer had to mine down or navigate through the site to find Spanish language content, or if there was no Spanish language content on the site. After duplicates were eliminated, a total of 155 websites were visited.  Although two volunteer coders were used for to collect data for this study, intercoder reliability was not an issue after coder training and demonstration.  There was no opportunity for bias because of straight-forward yes and no questions in the coding system.  Either Spanish language content was present immediately, on another page linked to the homepage, or it was not on the site at all.

Results:

Frequencies and percentages were used to analyze data.

RQ1:       Do web URLs printed in Spanish-language magazine advertisements drive consumers directly to Spanish-language content?

Findings in Table 1 indicate that only 24 or 16 percent of the sample had direct links to Spanish content.

Table 1:

Frequency:  Direct Links To Spanish Content Located on English Homepage, N:  155

RQ2:       Do advertisers that place Spanish display ads in a popular Spanish-language magazine have URLs that indicate that the content is in Spanish?

Many of the URLs with direct links to Spanish sites usually were obvious because they contained the words “español”  (Spanish for the word Spanish) after a backslash.  An example of this type of website would be www.visa.com/espanol, www.lactaidenespanol.com, and www.fordespanol.com.  Other URLs featured other Spanish words that indicate that they lead to a Spanish site.  For example, www.2424leche.com (leche is Spanish for milk) and www.boxtops4education.com/escuela (escuela is Spanish for school).  Twenty-two of the twenty-four URLs contained Spanish words.

RQ3:       When URLs listed in Spanish-language magazine ads do not feature a link to Spanish-language content, is there a visible link to Spanish-language content on the advertisers’ homepages?

After a reader visits a URL from an ad in the magazine (revista), they may have to look for Spanish content on an English language homepage.  In Table 2, findings show that 28 percent of People en Español advertisers in the sample displayed a visible Spanish link on their English language sites. It took just one click on the homepage/site to locate Spanish content.  Content was usually on a navigation bar that read, “español,” however, some read “In Spanish.”  The “español,” is usually located at the top of the page on the navigation bar or on bottom right-hand side of the screen. The armed services did a consistent job of placing the “español” on English homepages  at www.goarmy.com and www.goang.com.

Also Table 2 illustrates that 3 percent of the sites required coders to click around using more than two navigations to find Spanish content.  Usually the content was located on an English page where the web surfer had to understand to click on an international site.  Some international sites had limited countries in its choices.  Most made coders select the country of Spain to find Spanish language content.

Table 2:

 Frequency:  Direct Links To Spanish Content Located on English Homepage, N:  155

RQ4:  Are all URLs functional in display ads in a popular Spanish-language magazine?

Unfortunately, 11 of the URLs from the ads did not function.  Either the server was down, another entity now owned the URL (or it was a misprint), or the site was down. In fact, Kraft Foods ran 4 ads with URLs featuring a website name that began with the word “comida” (food). This URL found no server.

Additional Findings

Only 10 percent of the total ads from 12 issues of People en Español featured URLs that had any Spanish language on the site.  A total of 71URLs out of the sample, or 46percent featured no Spanish on the site at all.  Seventy-three or 47 percent featured at least some Spanish, whether it was directly displayed on the URL provided in the Spanish language ad, took one click to get to content, or if it took several navigations to reach it on an international page.  This is shown in Table 3.

 Table 3:

 Frequency:  Direct Links To Spanish Content Located on English Homepage, N:  155

Conclusions and Implications of Study

Although 47percent of the sample had some Spanish on websites pulled from People en Español’s Spanish language advertisements, only 16 percent of the sample had an obvious direct Spanish URL.  Furthermore, servers were down and there were some URLs that went to other sites. Also, if one is monolingual in Spanish, it may be difficult for her to navigate through a site to find an international site, that may be in Spanish, but not in her country’s genre of Spanish.  If this is the case, the consumer may lose interest or become frustrated.

Thus, the null hypothesis is supported.  Advertisers that place Spanish display ads in a popular Spanish-language magazine do not also cross communicate well to Spanish-speaking readers online. 

Companies that are serious enough to invest in targeting the growing Latino market with multiple advertisements in People en Español should make it easier for Spanish-speaking Latinos to find out more about their products or services.  If an advertiser lists its URL, it should be expected that a Spanish speaker may visit the advertiser’s website, especially since researchers report that Latinos use the web to gather more information (AOL study).  Because of speech accommodation theory (Koslow 1994), Spanish language advertising copy used in print and on an advertiser’s website may help Latino consumers become loyal and perceive companies as being sensitive to their community.

It should be noted that not every reader of People en Español speaks only Spanish.  Some readers could be bilingual.  Thus, websites don’t have to necessarily be in Spanish. However, since Latinos who also use the internet to text message in Spanish (AOL/ study), are the fastest growing web users (Source), it would benefit companies to provide Spanish content

 Limitations

There are some limitations to this study.  Not all Latinos web users, especially Spanish speaking immigrants and older Latinos. There is still a digital divide.

This study pulled its sample only from People en Español.  Athough advertisers in anther publication may be the same, a different study may yield different results.  Also, a larger sample of several years worth of publications could be more generalizable.  An intercoder reliability formula was not calculated. 

Recommendations for Future Studies

This study opens new ideas for future research.  A future study should examine web and print content to determine how companies are targeting Latinos.  Which genre of Spanish are sites and marketers using most often—Spanish from Spain, Argentina, Mexico or Columbia?

Another study should explore if small businesses and local websites, especially in Texas and Florida, are capitalizing on the whopping Latino market in those states.  Are Latinos a resource that local businesses neglect?  A researcher could also compare content in print ads, television spots and on the web to see if marketers are delivering a consistent message and the types of ads marketed to this population.

Cross cultural studies about marketing similarities and differences for reaching African American and Latino markets would also be an interesting study.  Another study would be an ethnographic study about how Latinos use the web and what they want in a web experience.  Another recommendation would be a study about how different sub groups within the Latino community are courted by marketers, and what these groups expect from marketers according to their subculture.  This could also be applied to study Latinos by generations.

Finally, Ramirez (1995) writes about conflicts among ethnic groups as the population changes and government, corporate America, and public entities are more inclusive of Latinos and other group.  In the court case Johnson v. De Grandy  she writes, “the court found that Latinos and blacks were politically cohesive intraracially, but at odds with each other interracially (p. 969-970).”  A fascinating study would be to explore the dynamics of relations between African Americans and Latinos as these changes occur.  

References

Alba, Richard D. (1990). Ethnic Identity:  The Transformation of What America, New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press.

Crandall, Robert (Winter 2001). “The Digital Divide Bridging the Divide Naturally.”  The Bookings Review.  19(1), pp. 38-43.

Epstein, Paul (2005). “A New Audience: Marketing to Hispanics on the Internet” accessed on December 11, 2005 at http://www.marketingsource.com/newsletter/08-02-2005.html

Giles, Howard . 1973. Accent Mobility: A Model and Some Data. Anthropological Linguistics, 15 (February): 87-105.

Johnson, Melissa A. (2000).  “How Ethnic Are U.S. Ethnic Media:  The Case of Latina Magazines,” Mass Communication & Society, (2&3), p. 229-248.

Kang, Jerry (March 2000) “Cyber-Race.”  Harvard Law Review. 113(5). 1130-1208.

Koslow, Scott., Shamdasani, Prem.N., Touchstone, Ellen E.  (1994).  “Exploring Language Effects in Ethnic Advertising:  A Sociolinguistic Perspective.”  Journal of Consumer Research, (20).

McQuail, Denis. (1987). Mass Communication Theory, An Introduction (2^nd ed.).  London:  Sage Publications.

Murdock, Graham & Golding, Peter (1977).  “Capitalism, Communication and Class Relations, in J. Curran et al. (eds.).  Mass Communication and Society, London:  Edward Arnold.

Penaloza, Lisa & Gilly, Mary (July 1999).  "Marketer Acculturation:  The Changer and the Changed."  Journal of Marketing. 63(3), pp. 84-104. 

Ramirez, Deborah. 1995. "Multicultural Empowerment: It's Not Just Black and White Anymore," 47 Stanford Law Review, 957-992.

Robinson, Velma A. (1994). "African-American Consumer: A Pilot Study on Attitudes Toward Corporate Social Responsibility and Shopping."  Ames:  Iowa State University.

U.S. Census Bureau (2004) accessed on December 8, 2005 at http://www.census.gov/pubinfo/www/NEWhispML1.html

http://fdncenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=17800091  

Websites:

Accento Advertising http://www.acento.com/ (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Ad Age http://www.adage.com/section.cms?sectionId=123 (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Al Punto Advertising http://www.alpunto.com/parserclients.php?f=alpunto_clients (accessed on 12/7/2005)

AOLatino http://latino.aol.com/queeslatino (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Bank of America Diversity http://www.bankofamerica.com/careers/index.cfm?template=d_factsheets (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Burston-Marsteller http://www.marsteller.com/news/2002/hispanic12162002.html (accessed on 12/7/2005)

bvk Meka Advertising http://www.bvkmeka.com/main.htm (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Center for Hispanic Marketing Communications, Florida State University http://hmc.comm.fsu.edu (accessed on 12/10/2005)

Cheskin Blog http://weblog.cheskin.net/blog/archives/cat_hispanic_markets.html (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Coca-Cola Diversity http://www2.coca-cola.com/ourcompany/ourdiversity.html (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Hispanic Newswire http://www.hispanicprwire.com/news.php?l=in&id=5029&cha=13 (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Hispanic Newswire http://www.hispanicprwire.com/news.php?l=in&id=5328&cha=14 (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Hispanic Newswire www.hispanicprwire.com (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Juan Tornoe Blog http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/general_marketing_advertising/ (accessed on 12/10/2005)

Latin_Know Blog http://latin-know.typepad.com (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Lopez Negrete Advertising http://www.lopeznegrete.com/portfolio_brand.htm (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Magazine Publisher's Association "Market Profile"  http://www.magazine.org/content/Files/MPAHispMktPro.pdf (accessed on 12/6/2005)

People en Español www.peopleenespanol.com (accessed 12/10/05)

Pew Institute http://pewhispanic.org (accessed on 12/7/2005)

Spanish Got Milk campaign www.2424leche.com (accessed 12/10/05)

Toyota www.toyota.com/espanol (accessed 12/10/05)

General Mill's Boxtops For Education program www.boxtops4education.com/escuela (accessed 12/10/05)

Appendix

Figure 1:

Website examples:  Targeting Latino markets with Spanish Content

Figure 2:

Website examples:  Targeting Latino markets with Spanish Content

Below is a screen capture of Toyota (www.toyota.com/espanol), one of the most frequent People en Español advertisers.  There is also a capture of General Mills' Boxtops For Education program (www.boxtops4education.com/escuela) that placed several ads in magazine.

About the Author:

Velma Gooding is in the advertising doctoral program at the University of Texas in Austin, TX.  Her research includes ethnic marketing communications, how ethnic media images affect society, and marketing/communication dynamics and implications as the U.S. population changes to be more multicultural. She is the former owner of Synergy! Public Relations & Advertising Consultants, a multicultural communications firm, and instructor at various midwestern universities, where she taught race and media, journalism, advertising and public relations.