Relying On Spanish Alone Does Not Ensure Your Brand Is Making an Impact

Our beloved Spanish language has been used as the be-all-end-all of Hispanic marketing for too long. It’s been used almost exclusively in many cases to justify the marketing spend—a quick fix in a lackluster effort to get the job done.

But what if I told you, agencies and brand managers, that you can no longer target Latine consumers and audiences in Spanish? Could you justify the need without the language difference in your organization? This question is not meant to dismiss language as a powerful connector and an integral part of Latine culture. But it is only one element of the rich Hispanic community.

Hispanic and Latinx Communities Still Feel Typecast In Advertising

We all recognize this audience deserves attention. After all, Hispanics accounted for 52% of U.S. population growth between 2010 and 2021. It’s an audience of growing size and spending power that brands can no longer ignore.

Relying on Spanish alone does not ensure your brand is making an impact or driving relevancy and resonance. All it is truly doing is ensuring basic understanding, and if that were all that’s needed to make great marketing work, then every communication would get massive results purely for being in English.

But they don’t, right? So why is Spanish used that way?

Language is not a strategy

If you’ve been part of agency life in the past two decades, either in the diversity space or adjacent to it, you might feel the struggle of using only Spanish as a way to connect with the Latine community.

But language isn’t the only thing that can capture Latines’ attention, and applying Spanish or Spanglish isn’t a one-size solution to engagement. While most Latines speak Spanish, and many are rediscovering Spanish, U.S.-born (who make up two-thirds of the Latine population) and younger Latines are not as fluent (65% say they cannot carry a conversation well in Spanish), and are not as attached to language as a determinant of culture (78% say it’s not necessary to speak Spanish to be considered Latine).

Spanglish use is widespread among Latines (63% speak Spanglish at least sometimes), but relying on that alone in communications can often feel forced and inauthentic because it’s not the same for everyone and it’s not just any word that works if switched to another language.

What the industry needs to focus on is a deeper understanding of Latine consumers as people, not just as Spanish speakers or descendants, but what moves and drives them, in all their dimensionality.

Advancing cultural understanding

The industry has tried to brand things differently, from translating to transcreation (the process of adapting a message from one language to another while maintaining the original messaging), and from representative and inclusive to authentic. It’s tried to reinvigorate the integrated agency teams process to allow for insight sharing and collaboration.

In my personal experience, all agencies have been willing to learn, grow and adapt. All brand managers have been interested and positive about these changes, yet using Spanish continues to be the mainstay and is used in lieu of a deeper understanding of Latines, their culture and what makes them tick.

Meanwhile, marketing efforts fall back on rudimentary insights like “family is important to Hispanics,” and we justify these tactics to check boxes and obtain budget approval. It’s important to note that Latine, Latinx, Latino/a and Hispanic are used interchangeably today for a segment of people who live in the U.S., but that segment is not homogeneous.

More culturally resonant marketing requires advancement in the tactics and insights driving these efforts. It starts with understanding that there are nuances between Latine audience segments and identifying where your brand opportunity lies within the vast spectrum of Latinidad.

The Spanglish Advantage in Advertising

Deepen your understanding of who this audience segment is and what they need from your brand to deploy your message in its most effective manner. The first thing you need to do is talk to a vast array of Latines across the socioeconomic spectrum and across generations and backgrounds. Understand the people behind the labels, and then you can understand how to activate your brand’s opportunity within the audience.

As a marketer, immerse yourself in the culture. Listen to the music, eat the food, follow the sports and the athletes that identify as Latine in its many forms. Read books about and written by Latines. Approach the world as one you want to understand rather than one you want to sell your brand to. Understand what they love, and you will understand them as well.

In order to understand us, you need to dive into the culture and appreciate all of it, if you truly want your message to resonate in any language.