Hispanics and Print Advertising – Spanish Language is Key

The Hispanic population in the United States is a minority, which you as a marketer are well aware of as you try to find effective means of reaching out to them through your advertising. Minorities tend to have a lot of pride in their heritage and cultural traditions. As far as Hispanics and print advertising are concerned, you can create a place for yourself among minority newspapers and magazines in order to relate personally to your customers. These targeted forms of media can deliver a personal punch in news and advertising that the general media cannot for a minority group. Hispanics flock to anything that targets their needs and concerns specifically, rather than as an afterthought.

Hispanics and print advertising refers to online print in addition to physical newspapers. As with any kind of advertising focused toward the Hispanic population, it is important to make ads in Spanish. This shows your respect and understanding for the culture. Even if they are bilingual and could understand an English advertisement just as well, they are more drawn to an ad that is clearly just for them. This is a great technique for building patron loyalty and getting return customers, two things every marketer wants.

Inexperienced marketers may shy away from using the Spanish language when targeting Hispanics and print advertising for a few reasons. The first is that they feel like they are cutting out a large portion of customers that may have interest in their product by using Spanish. While this may intrinsically be the case, if you are truly trying to reach to the Hispanic market, you will be much more effective with the use of Spanish. Also, you can simply run two ads, one in English and one in Spanish, if you want to keep the non-Hispanic white demographic satisfied as well.

The other reason marketers might hesitate to run a Spanish ad is that they do not know the language. This can obviously be a profound setback, as direct translations concerning Hispanics and print advertising more often than not will fail to transition in a sensible way. This brings up the importance of transcreation, rather than simple translation. Phrases that are cliché in English will not have the same meaning in Spanish if not transcreated to fit into the context. You are not expected to accomplish this by yourself, but if you want to have the most effective advertisements, you will need to seek help with the transcreation of your ads.