Sponsored content: to blend or not to blend. Part 5

By Gonzalo López Martí- Creative director, etc. / LMMiami.com

• Advertising sometimes feels embarrassed about the fact that it is out to sell stuff.
• Hence sponsored content is based on the “when in Rome” premise: advertising must blend in.
• It must never look like an intrusion.
• Are there any cultural/anthropological explanations for this?
• Possibly.
• For one thing, Anglo Saxon Protestants, generally speaking, see business and commerce as a win-win relationship.
• Anglos tend to be more forthcoming, open-minded and pragmatic about the whole thing.
• In Latin culture, however, it is a big faux pas to, say, mix friendship and business.
• Our Catholic upbringing, among other factors, associates most things related to lucre and commerce with filth and deceit.
• For us Catholics, business seems to be a zero-sum proposition mired in underhanded manipulation in which one party wins and the other loses.
• Always.
• Mind you, I’m generalizing here.
• There are, of course, exceptions to the rule.
• But more often than not a Hispanic will consider it in bad taste if, for instance, a friend attempts to sell a friend an insurance policy.
• Or a tupperware set for that matter.
• It all has to flow in such a way that it feels like a casual exchange of favors.
• Doing business with Latinos can be excruciatingly misleading and equivocal.
• And slow.
• It takes dozens of meetings, small talk, dinners and beating around the bush.
• You never really know when the deal is sealed.
• It feels like a never-ending mating ritual.
• Some people who have taken to analyzing the issue claim that behind all the backslapping, exchange of family pictures and late night tequila shots, lies a pathological mistrust of others.
• Latinos are so prone to nepotism that the only way to do business is to forge a friendship.
• Paradoxically, given the HispanoCatholic premise that someone always gets inevitably screwed in a business deal, doing business with friends and family is an unspeakable taboo: all transactions must always feel like a casual exchange of favors.
• Among Hispanics, business deals must be handled with the utmost care lest thay rapidly escalate to hostility and a heated sense of affront.
• In Hispanic culture, for instance, asking a friend or relative to sign a contract or IOU can be construed as a serious offense.
• Let me give you an example: my aunt and my cousins are dentists.
• They’ve treated my extended family and I for decades.
• They’ve never charged us a dime.
• More so, every time I tell any of them that they should at least charge me for materials, instruments, equipment and what have you, they give me a stern look and change the subject ipso facto!
• They consider it insulting that money should conspicuously changed hands between humans who share the same genotype.
• Oddly enough, our POTUS is partial to the Hispanic Catholic worldview in which someone always gets painfully screwed in a business deal.
• In fact, he seems to regard business dealings and negotiations as activities meant to derive some sort of sick pleasure out of screwing others.
• But back to advertising.
• If openly selling stuff makes you feel guilty, dirty or self-conscious try sponsored content.
• The advertising offshoot that could keep everyone content.
• Wink wink nudge nudge.