Language Selection in Hispanic Marketing.
September 13, 2005
Communication issues related to Spanish and English speaking populations create challenges for the marketing industry. The marketing department that can identify and successfully overcome these identified communication barriers can be successful in targeting the Hispanic communities using the language and the cultural identity that contribute to their purchasing decisions.
The U.S. Census bureau in 1930 attempted to “count” persons that were of the “Mexican race.” (California Counts, 2003) Obviously the category was scientifically and socially incorrect and removed in subsequent census documents. The problem of accurately identifying the Hispanic population in the U. S. Census remains a problem even today. In California, according to California Counts (2003, p. 2), over six million persons in the 2000 Census survey reported their race as “other.” Ninety-nine percent of the persons making this selection were later determined to be “Latino.” The use of the identifiers “Hispanic”, “Latino” and “American” are not well settled. (California Counts, 2003, and Latino vs. Hispanic, 2005) The market research department must be careful in using “self-identification” research materials that may contain inaccurate results leading to incorrect assumptions about potential marketing opportunities.
Hispanic Marketing: A Cultural Perspective (Korzenny and Korzenny, 2005) examines the consequences of assuming the translation of an article from the English language into the Spanish language will effectively communicate the intended message to the reader of the Spanish translation. The social and cultural implications of technical translations can misdirect, mislead and, more importantly, misinform the Spanish-language reader. The insensitivity of the English speaking public to the cultural and linguistic nuances of persons of a Spanish-speaking country of origin and/or culture can lead to unintended slander, confusion and hostility by the reader of a technically correct Spanish translation of an English language document. (Korzenny and Korzenny, 2005)
Sapir and Whorff (cited in Korzenny and Korzenny, 2005, p. 93) hypothesized that the language of a person determined how they thought. The theory is explained further as “In linguinists, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH) states that there is a systematic relationship between the gramatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it.” If this controversial theory is accepted, the person who speaks Spanish would necessarily “think” differently than an English speaking person. The theory is based on the concept that a person thinks in a language and is therefore limited to thoughts that can be expressed in that language. This would lead to an inability to effectively communicate certain “concepts, ideas and values” between “primary” Spanish and English speakers. (Korzenny and Korzenny, p.93) The implication of this theory for English-speaking persons attempting to market to Spanish-speaking persons would be that the failure to “converge” their ideas would deeply hinder any marketing attempts.
The identification of “Spanglish” as a form of language communication uses code switching described by Crystal (1987) as “…[language] switching [that] occurs when an individual who is bilingual alternates between two languages during his/her speech with another bilingual person.” Korzenny and Korzenny (2005) point out that the mix of language may be sentence to sentence, word to word or even within a word. The ability of persons to interpret the “Spanglish” communication would be difficult due to the introduction of new words and sentence structure that would require the listener to speak both English and Spanish. The use of “Spanglish” in marketing communications should be carefully considered because the ability to relate to this language form may be limited to specific bilingual populations. (Korzenny and Korzenny, 2005, p. 100)
The use of the Spanish language in marketing media is not a mechanical “translation” task. (Korzenny and Korzenny, 2005) . Hispanic, Latino, and American are some of the words that are used by persons that speak the Spanish language to identify themselves to non-Spanish speaking persons, but these labels do not correctly identify the individual culturally. Hispanic, Latino or American may be associated with a person who is of Colombian, Mexican or Puerto Rican cultural heritage.
The problem of collecting accurate data is exemplified by the Census 2000’s attempt to “classify” ethnic and racial characteristics of the American population using terms that are not adopted or acknowledged by the population sought to be identified. The Spanish-speaking population rightfully identifies with a culture and heritage, not an American label. The marketing industry needs to be cognizant of the actual identity of the Hispanic market by understanding and communicating in a culturally sensitive manner.
The marketing manager must consider if the product message can effectively reach the intended market segment by English language media, Spanish-language media or mixed English and Spanish language (Spanglish). In considering this language selection, the market manager should be aware of not only the language preference of the potential Hispanic market, but the cultural identity of the Hispanic market he/she would like to penetrate. The market researcher needs understand the implications of communications theories such as the Sapir and Whorf hypothesis. 2004 U. S. Hispanic Market Report states that only seventy-eight percent of Hispanics speak Spanish. (2004 U. S. Hispanic Market Report, 2004) The successful marketing manager will not rely on a “Spanish” translation to reach the culturally rich and diverse “Hispanic” market, but on a through knowledge of the cultural values and practices of their target population.
Judith Kyle
Js*****@********su.edu
jk***@********su.edu
B.S. Business Management, JD, M.S. Heath Care Administration, M. S. Political Science Attorney specializing in Medical Malpractice, I work at the Florida State University in the Athletic Department while pursuing a doctorate in Sports Management with an emphasis in Sport Marketing. Ms. Kyle is an experience marketer who prepared marketing campaigns in association with her law practice, her management of non profit associations and political campaign activities.
Student in the Hispanic Marketing Communication Program at Florida State University
1. Based on a “taxonomy” found in at http://www.mexica.net/chicano.html the term Latino includes all persons whose origins related to Latin America. Hispanic persons include all people who speaks Spanish. Mexican denotes the inhabitants (citizens) of Mexico. Hispano refers to persons in the U. S. southwest who identify with the Spanish settlers of the area and not with the Mexican settlers. Chicano is used to identify persons of Mexican descendants.
2. 2004 Hispanic Market carefully describes the parameters of their research in regard to sample size, location, identification and sample methodology. The research does rely on the U. S. Census for some of the demographic results reported.
3.This lack of culturally sensitive communication can occur when English is the shared communication language, but the cultural heritage of one speaker is Mexican and the other person German.
4. This theory was not widely accepted by linguistic professionals. “Recently, however, there has been resurgence in the idea of linguistic determinism, largely due to a study by Peter Gorden which examines the language of the Piraha tribe of Brazil. According to Gordon, the language used by this tribe only contains three counting words: one, two and many. Gordon shows through a series of experiments that the people of the Pirahã tribe have difficulty recounting numbers higher than three (Gordon, 2004). However, the causal relationship of these events is not clear. Critics have argued that if the test subjects are unable to count numbers higher than three for some other reason (perhaps because they are nomadic hunter/gatherers with nothing to count and hence no need to practice doing so) then one should not expect their language to have words for such numbers. That is, it is the lack of need which explains both the lack of counting ability and the lack of corresponding vocabulary.” (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, 2005)
5. While the 2004 Hispanic Market publication determined that the majority of the persons responding to their survey would prefer the term Hispanic to Latino to describe their ethnic identity, the survey conducted by a classmate and reported on September 21, 2005, indicated that the term “Hispanic” is used when communicating to a person who is not part of the community of persons who speak Spanish and/or have cultural origins in Latin America. The preferred designation is the person’s country of origin.
References
Korzenny, F. and Korzenny, P. (2005) Hispanic marketing: A cultural perspective. New York: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.
Latino vs. Hispanic. Retrieved on September 25, 2005, from http://www.confusedkid.com/primer/archives/2003/09/latino_vs_hispanic.php
Skiba, R. (1997) Code switching as a countenance of language interference. As retrieved on September 25, 2005 at http://iteslj.org/Articles/Skiba-CodeSwitching.html
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, (2005) Wikipedia Free Enclypedia: Retrieved on September 25, 2005 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis
Tafoya, S. M. (2003) Latinos and racial identification in California. California Counts: Population Trends and Profiles: Public Policy Institute of California.
The 2004 Hispanic Market (2004) Synovate
