Over the past few months, several industry colleagues have asked me the same question: Should our clients air English-language creative work in Spanish-language media outlets?
Before I share my perspective, it is important to mention that historically most Spanish-language media companies have not accepted ads in English, mainly for fear of alienating their viewers, readers, and listeners. Recently, this practice has been changing for tentpole events; hence, the questions I am getting.
My answer is straightforward: this is a terrible idea for all parties involved. I explain the why below.
First, let’s assess this from the advertiser’s perspective.
Over the past few years, the market has learned—with a scientific level of detail—the main drivers of effectiveness when advertising to Hispanics thanks to multiple ROI and Marketing Mix Modelling studies. These studies converge on the same set of drivers:
1 – Using original Spanish-language content
2 – Employing dialogue (versus voice-over-only creative ideas)
3 – Incorporating culturally relevant storytelling (Hispanics like to be entertained in ads)
4 – Using humor (humor delivered from a Hispanic perspective, to be precise)
5 – Relatability
Except for the first driver (using the Spanish language), any ad in English could be highly effective if it delivers on the other four drivers, but this is different from what we see in the marketplace today: The ads aired in Spanish-language media are the same ads created and aired for non-Hispanic consumers.
These ads may be fine, but because they lack authenticity, they have significantly less probability of being effective and moving the needle with Hispanic consumers, and worse, they may even risk alienating the segment they are trying to connect with.
What was intended as a mechanism to create efficiencies and synergies will likely result in a waste of resources in the short term—with the additional long-term risk of undermining brand perceptions among the Hispanic segment by being considered out of touch.
Some may say that using ads in English could be considered a smart strategy to test the potential of marketing to the Hispanic segment, but this argument needs to be revised. First, testing without accounting for segment best practices may not produce the best possible results. Second, if in 2023 you’re still testing to determine whether to invest in Hispanic-segment marketing, you’re decades too late to the game. Testing is a valid approach to understanding how to connect with the segment, not to decide if you should connect to it.
For a Spanish-language media channel, this might not be a good idea, even if it brings in more revenue in the short term. To begin with, ads created for a different segment and in a different language may drive their primary audience, Hispanic consumers, to switch to more relevant content options.
Secondly, by being less effective, these ads may not deliver the results advertisers are expecting. As a result, these networks may be excluded from future media purchase cycles, turning what is considered a short-term revenue driver into a long-term absence from brand media plans due to low or negative performance.
In summary, English-language ads made for non-Hispanics will fail to deliver results and make it seem like Hispanic advertising is ineffective. This decision could result in a negative impact on the media channel’s future finances, as advertisers may not return for future media buys.
For advertisers looking for an efficient/budget-conscious way to include the Hispanic segment in their advertising plans, a more practical approach would be to slightly reduce their media spend and reallocate these dollars to fund original, culturally relevant creative ideas.
Consider a US$ 5 million investment using an English ad aired on a Spanish-language channel. For example, let’s assume a 1:1 ROI ratio, which means the advertiser would gain back sales of US$ 5 million due to this investment.
Now imagine that this hypothetical advertiser follows ROI studies’ best practices, reduces the amount of media spending by 10% (i.e., $0.5 MM), and invests this amount in producing original Hispanic creative.
Then suppose the ROI of this authentic creative idea generates even an ROI of 1.5x (i.e., a 50% increase). In this scenario, this $4.5 MM media buy will generate sales of $6.7 MM. This ROI significantly eclipses the original $5 MM scenario and would even leave a margin for any eventual negative impact associated with a lower media reach or frequency due to the 10% reduction in the media budget.
In this example, I used a 50% ROI increase as an assumption, but in real life, according to the latest available research, the ROI for authentic, culturally relevant Hispanic ideas can be up to three or four times higher than the ROI for ideas created for the general market consumer.
Everyone wins when advertisers sell more products or services and achieve a higher ROI on their Hispanic advertising investment. Customers receive more relevant messages, advertisers grow their business, and media channels solidify their positioning of ratings and effective advertising partners.
Serving ads in English on Spanish media channels is a dangerous move towards reverting to the outdated “one-size-fits-all” Total Market approach that costs advertisers hundreds of millions of dollars in unfulfilled sales, market share decline, and wasted resources.
Decades ago, Hispanic marketing was a discipline driven mainly by intuition and gut feeling. And while intuition is still important today, we have a Hispanic advertising marketplace supported by facts, research, and data. While it may be tempting for some to ignore these facts in the short term, there is a path to achieve growth by incorporating the industry’s best practices.
Brands and marketers should remember that when it comes to multicultural marketing, reaching a consumer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re connecting with them. It’s time to spend more time and resources on what you’re communicating versus only focusing on where you’re communicating.
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