By: Elizabeth Kern
The United States has witnessed near-constant increase in the Hispanic population over the last 20 years. This demographic has been projected to make up a third of the population by 2060, and their purchasing power should not be underestimated. But how do we reach them using their own language? Let’s break down some tips and tricks of bilingual marketing.
Start with Research
The first step for any marketing effort is always research. Bilingual marketing is no different. Brands that want to engage in this type of marketing should look to qualitative research methods to better understand how their target audience feels about bilingual advertisements. Focus groups, expert consultations, and surveys are great places to start.
For example, as discussed in this Forbes article, a study done by TikTok with Hispanic Gen Z users sought to understand how engaging with the same types of advertisements in Spanish, Spanglish, or English affected the users’ feelings about the ads. Their research found that TikTok users want their bicultural identities to be reflected in brands and often prefer communicating in both languages (Spanglish, in this case) to communicating in the dominant language of their geographic region (English). This type of preliminary research allows brands to cater their TikTok advertising to a Spanish-speaking audience. Without it, a brand may come off disconnected.
Key Strategies to Implement
After doing some in-depth research, a brand should have a good understanding of what’s culturally relevant to their target audience. Advertising should use the target audience’s language to talk about these topics, relating them back to the brand. This may include idioms, trends, references and more. What’s important here is that cultural moments are leveraged properly. Consumers should feel that the brand is celebrating their identities in an authentic way. For example, a company trying to reach Mexican consumers by engaging with Day of the Dead should not just stick sugar skulls on their products for a day, but instead build a space in their owned, shared, and paid channels for interaction and culture sharing in Spanish and English.
In order to ensure that the content is culturally relevant, brands must continue collaborating with native speakers into the execution phase of bilingual marketing. One great way to do that is by working with influencers. The shared digital space has proved instrumental in gaining reach for brands. Partnering with an influencer who already has a strong presence in the target community will spread the message faster and increase credibility.
Why Bilingual Marketing?
The benefits of bilingual marketing are many. First off, reach can be more than doubled by releasing content in more than one language. Awareness turns into engagement when the target audience sees a brand that is authentically representing them, and consumers are more willing to advocate for these brands.
Additionally, brand trust and loyalty increase with an improved customer experience. Consumers that are more proficient in the foreign language than in English may feel more comfortable engaging with the brand if they see a bilingual effort that caters to them.
A Word of Caution
Brands should remain aware of who they are and what their product is. According to this article from 2016 about translated advertisements, marketing an iconic “American” product in another language can be tricky and feel more like pandering than a commitment to bilingualism. While some campaigns like “Share a Coke” have been successful anyway, it is important to recognize that more culturally neutral brands will have an easier time marketing bilingually.
Additionally, each step of the process should include collaboration with native speakers that are part of the target audience. A native speaker should always be on the creative team to ensure that messages are translated thoughtfully if not crafted entirely separately from their English counterparts. A lack of collaboration and self-awareness is unethical by any standard, and will not reap the same benefits as a cross-culturally competent campaign.
Conclusion
Spanish is my second language and I’ve been studying it for about eight years. I hope to use Spanish in my career after graduation to reach multilingual audiences, but I recognize that I should never be the only Spanish speaker on a team. I chose to write this blog to demonstrate how bilingual marketing is not a trend, but a powerful tool. This is especially true in the United States, which is notoriously behind on language development. However, if native speakers are not consulted along the way, bilingual campaigns can be embarrassing for a brand. Cross-cultural competency is of the utmost importance in today’s market, and brands need to start speaking to people in their own languages if they really want to reach them.
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