Moving beyond language in Hispanic advertising
David Morse, head of research firm New American Dimensions, just published a nice piece on AdAge’s Big Tent blog declaring that Hispanic advertising needs to
move beyond language
Obviously this is a philosophy I have embraced for years, so it’s nice to hear a smart colleague join the growing chorus of voices calling for a sea change in how Hispanic advertising is executed.
While I support David’s thesis, implementing it in practice opens up a whole can of worms that need to be thought through. Among them are:
– If Hispanic advertising moves beyond language, how does that further complicate the dynamic between Hispanic ad agencies and their increasingly antagonistic general market pals?
– Even if agencies started pushing this philosophy (as we have at Sensis), buy viagra online it doesn’t mean that clients are going to buy-in (as we have experienced)
– If Spanish language advertising is wrong, how do we reconcile that with the huge ratings of the Spanish-language broadcast and radio?
One interesting question I’ve thought a lot about is whether this type of philosophy, if implemented, would evolve Hispanic advertising to look a lot more like African American advertising?
Lot’s to think about and much change to come…
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Jose,
I’m honored that you call me a “smart colleague.” Especially since I agree with all of your points here.
Jose, not every body gets it, but you do. I’ve always said it.
From the client side, building the case is very difficult. Imagine that you buy in, you still have to decide if that’s coming from your GENERAL MARKET BUDGET (big $$$) or your diverse segments budget (small $). It should come from your diverse segment, but the media costs are going to be huge, so that’s probably your whole diverse yearly budget going to general market media, with arguably a lot of general market waste. What do you do the rest of the year, then?
Maybe media needs to rethink their partnerships (Telemundo/NBC anyone?) and negotiate Hispanic aimed advertising in general market media at hispanic media rates. The smae goes for print, radio and online. That would be a first step.
[...] Joe Villa, another multicultural expert from the Los Angeles based agency Sensis, recently blogged in response to Morse’s post. Villa, also a proponent of culture over language, hypothesizes on how a [...]