Archive for the ‘translation’ Category
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Every year, there are a few occasions that seem to offer easy opportunities to connect with Hispanics, such as Cinco de Mayo, Three Kings’ Day or Hispanic Heritage Month. Advertisers new to the Hispanic market might think they can win new customers by appearing at cultural events or doing Spanish-language promotions around these occasions.
However, without a solid Hispanic marketing plan, promotions at cultural events are unlikely to win Hispanic consumers’ long-term loyalty. A company needs to be committed to Hispanic marketing before planning a Cinco de Mayo event. Otherwise, such promotions will likely be seen as either meaningless or opportunistic.
Although there’s no magic formula for success with Hispanics, there are a few criteria by which one can assess if a company has committed itself to the Hispanic market. Companies that have met all of these criteria are much more likely to find long-term success with Hispanic customers.
(more…)
Tags: AHAA, Best Buy, Cinco de Mayo, Hispanic, Hispanic Heritage Month, Hispanic marketing, HispanicPR, Kraft, language, Miller Coors, public relations, Sears, translation
Posted in AHAA, Best Buy, Cinco de Mayo, Hispanic, Hispanic Heritage Month, Hispanic marketing, HispanicPR, Kraft, language, Miller Coors, Sears, Spanish, translation | 25 Comments »
Friday, September 4th, 2009
The Spanish language may seem daunting with so many different dialects in use among U.S. Hispanics. Luckily, there is a common, non-regional version of Spanish used often among U.S. Hispanics in formal settings such as business and news media. This version is has come to be known as “Walter Cronkite Spanish,” after the reporter once regarded as the most trusted man in America. Walter Cronkite had a voice and manner of speaking that seemed to transcend all American accents and local idoms, a “generic” English, so to speak. In turn, “Walter Cronkite Spanish” refers to a more formal, dictionary-based Spanish, free of regional idioms.
Formal Spanish is useful for Hispanics to communicate in business across national borders. As such, when using “Walter Cronkite Spanish,” a bus is an “autobus”, not a “gua-gua”, a friend an “amigo”, a car an “automovil,” and so on. These may not be the terms that some Hispanics use in their homes and personal lives, but they are terms they understand when used by others.
(more…)
Tags: grammar, Hispanic, HispanicPR, language, Latino, Spanish, translating, translation
Posted in Hispanic, Hispanic 101, HispanicPR, Latino, Spanish, translation | 4 Comments »
Friday, July 17th, 2009
A recent Nielsen Consumer Insight study compared the success of different types of ads in the Hispanic market. Nielsen focused on Hispanic bilinguals, those who reported using Spanish and English “equally”, on the “likeability” of different television ads they saw. First, they compared likeability for Spanish and English language ads for the same product. Spanish-language ads rated 62% on likeability, while English scored 41%. The subjects also had 8% higher brand recall of Spanish ads.
Then Nielsen examined different kinds of Spanish ads. One type they looked at were “translated” spots, where the execution was the same as it had been in English, but dubbed or translated. Translated ads scored higher brand recall than English ads, as you’d expect.
(more…)
Tags: Add new tag, bicultural, culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Spanish, translation
Posted in bicultural, communications, culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, language, Latino, Spanish, translation | 8 Comments »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
This week, the AARP released a survey looking at older Hispanics in the U.S. workforce, and the survey provides a good example of the difficulties of doing survey research on Hispanics. The AARP asked older Hispanics, age 50-69, about their job satisfaction, and found that despite higher levels of physical activity on the job, lower wages and less job security, Hispanics ages 50-69 reported less stress and higher job satisfaction. At least, that’s what they said for the survey.
The AARP admits in the report that there’s a cultural issue here: Latinos feel more of a need to respond positively when asked questions in surveys, and are less likely to complain so as to be polite.
This problem was taken on in a great piece last year by Ricardo Lopez of Hispanic Research, a NJ-based Hispanic market research firm. Lopez has been in this business for over 20 years and he says that while glad that more companies are looking to do Hispanic research, the old methods will not work with un-acculturated Hispanics. Just as culture’s a factor in our marketing, it’s also huge in our market research.
(more…)
Tags: Focus Group, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Research, Spanish
Posted in culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, language, Latino, Research, translation | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
This may sound obvious, and it is, but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t consider all the factors that go into translating documents and websites. There are some great tips for Spanish translation in an article by Channin Balance (Steps to Managing Spanish Language Translation , 5/4/09), on Juan Tornoe’s blog.
As we all know, writing universal translations for the Hispanic audience isn’t easy: Spanish is a language of 23 countries, and each nation brings its own slang, grammar, idioms and cultural references. Those of us communicating to Latinos in the U.S. work to adapt materials into a “generic” or neutral Spanish that will effectively reach the cross-section of Latinos in this country. This article is a good resource for those working in the Hispanic market (or who want to), especially the “tips for success” section at the end. I’d love to hear thoughts on other tips/advice for Spanish translations.
Tags: Hispanic, HispanicPR, Spanish, translating, translation
Posted in communications, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, public relations, translation | 1 Comment »