The great debate: Spanish or English online?

By Jose Villa / Sensis

My former colleague and respected Hispanic digital marketer Lee Vann recently wrote a rebuttal https://hispanicad.comcgi-bin/news/newsarticle.cgi?article_id=36913> to my latest article on Hispanic digital behavior http://www.thinkmulticultural.com/2013/06/06/how-digital-is-changing-the-hispanic-market/> .

While I appreciate his spirited disagreement and do not disagree or dispute any of the data points he has shared in his article, they fail to make a compelling argument that because Hispanics continue to speak Spanish that they prefer to conduct their digital lives in Spanish, or consume digital content in Spanish.

Vann’s argument is not a new one. In fact it’s an argument that traditional Hispanic agencies have been making for decades: namely that because Hispanics speak Spanish at home and watch [some] Spanish TV, that we need to focus our efforts to reach them in Spanish. They fail to focus on how much of time Hispanics spend speaking, reading and writing in Spanish, online and offline. The point of my article, based on the research we have conducted, is that most of their time spent online is in front of English interfaces and consuming English content.

I’m not arguing that they don’t consume some Spanish content online. Just that it’s only a small portion of their time spent online and usually around culturally-specific passion-points, like sports (futbol) and music (listening to Spanish music).

I also stand by my recommendation that Spanish language websites can be counter-productive. It’s not a profitable position for someone in the business of building websites, particularly Hispanic ones, to make. However, it’s what the data overwhelmingly tells us.

Jose Villa
SENSIS
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