Blog Post #10: Spanish Advertising

Spanish-speaking immigrants are becoming a large minority in many states, especially states near the Mexican-American border. According to ABC news, over $350 million dollars were spent in 9 different states (including California and Texas, states with large Spanish speaking contingencies) on the 2012 presidential election campaign. Only $16 million of it went to Spanish language advertising. With 45 million Spanish speakers living in the United States, it seems those minorities are being underrepresented quite a bit. One example is this video, depicting the famous Latino singer Marc Anthony endorsing Barack Obama in Spanish.  The campaign is just one example of very limited Spanish language advertising, with most of it happening only in certain regions.

Singer Marc Anthony endorsing Obama in a Spanish language TV advertisement.

I went to high school in a very African-American and Hispanic dominated area, and every day I drove to school I was subjected to Spanish billboards and radio advertisements. I have seen advertisements that are directly catered to the Spanish-speaking culture, and one’s that are just straight translations of English ads (like the McDonalds ad below). Now that Spanish speakers are almost 1/6^th the American population, I believe advertising agencies should step up the amount of advertising attention they give Spanish speakers, catering to their culture and purchasing power. Spanish is becoming a very predominant language in the US, and it’s definitely something advertisers should think about taking advantage of. 

McDonald's recent Spanish advertising campaign. "Me Encanta" is a literal translation of the English advertising campaign, "I'm Loving It".

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