Establishing a bond
Editor's note: Felipe Korzenny is principal and co-founder of Cheskin, a Redwood Shores, Calif., research firm.
Marketing to culturally-diverse targets is a discipline that has grown in sophistication over the past 20 years in the U.S. Most large U.S. companies now have the likes of an ethnic marketing department, a multicultural marketing department, or a special markets marketing department. These departments have to answer important questions when addressing specific culturally diverse markets.
One key question for those attempting to address the U.S. Hispanic market in particular has to do with language use and prevalence. After all, how do you address such a large market, particularly when there are so many perspectives and beliefs about the language that should be used both for marketing and for market research?
The conceptual importance of language
An initial consideration in the debate about the importance of language ought to focus on the relationship between language and culture. Communication is the basic process of culture. It is through symbolic interaction that members of a culture pass traditions, beliefs, and patterns of behavior from individual to individual and from generation to generation. Communication is the basic glue that holds a culture together.
Language is the basic tool of communication processes and it tends to be an integral part of the culture it emanates from. Thus languages reflect their cultures of origin in the words and varieties of words used for particular objects. This is why Bedouins have an ample vocabulary for types of sand, Inuits for types of snow, and Mexicans for types of hot peppers.
Languages also reflect the style of cultures. The rhythm of speech and the degree to which the language is synthetic or analytic reflect the character of the culture. Spanish is much more analytic than English, which is more synthetic. The Spanish language requires the use of many more words to communicate the same concept that takes only a few words in English.
If culture and language are strongly related, then a very important link to explore is the role of language in thinking. If language influences the way people think, then language spoken by people of a culture ought to shape in subtle and non-subtle ways how that culture differs from another in its thinking patterns. The well-known Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been the subject of much debate and research over the past 80 years or so. Basically the hypothesis states that language determines or influences thought. What most scientists agree on now is that language may not determine thought, but certainly influences it.
If language influences thinking, then members of different cultures that speak different languages, or different varieties of a language, must differ in their patterns of thought. That is why communicating in Spanish or English with Hispanics ought to make a difference. Further, this argument suggests that Hispanics who do not speak Spanish anymore because they have replaced it with English or another language are themselves not as closely tied to the culture of their ancestors as those who speak Spanish.
What language do U.S. Hispanics prefer?
According to the latest Census figures there are about 35.3 million U.S. Hispanics. Several sources estimate that there are about an additional six million that are undocumented and difficult to pinpoint. Even the conservative estimate of the Census highlights the great magnitude and importance of the U.S. Hispanic market.
Understandably, most marketers and market researchers wonder about which language to use with this growing market. Have Hispanics largely acquired the English language and are thus reachable in English? The Census has not yet released language information, although it is estimated that will happen later in 2002 or even 2003. In the meantime, what can the marketing profession assume?
In interviews Cheskin conducted with up to 4,000 Hispanics nationwide in the U.S. we found that in the year 2000 about 70 percent of all U.S. Hispanics preferred to conduct a market research interview in Spanish (see graph below). Further, when asked about language of preference for communication when given a choice, 58 percent indicated they preferred Spanish, 27 percent said English, and 14 percent indicated not having a preference.
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From these figures one would conclude that the Spanish language is more likely to reach the vast majority of these consumers. We could also assume, however, that younger consumers would be more likely to prefer the English language while older consumers would prefer the Spanish language.
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Our data was surprising in this respect because there was a curvilinear trend in which males ages 21-34 and females 28-34 indicated a preference for the Spanish language over any other age group as indicated in the graphs above.
This tendency is puzzling, as the most obvious assumption is that younger Hispanics are most likely to learn English and quickly adapt to the U.S. culture. This data, however, suggests that there are other elements at play. A year 2000 Census brief indicates that as of 1997 10 percent of people in the U.S. were born abroad, and that about half of them were from Latin America.
This explains why younger Hispanic adults, particularly males, are those most likely to prefer communicating in Spanish more than any other age group. These are the young immigrants that come to the U.S. in search of better lives. Once established, they then bring their families to the U.S. This revelation makes it evident that marketing to young Hispanic adults in English is not a given, but a very relative proposition.
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Media exposure measures provide additional food for thought. In the year 2000 U.S. Hispanics indicated being exposed to an average of 11.5 hours per week of television in Spanish and 10.8 hours in English. This is remarkable particularly because opportunities for watching Spanish language television in almost every market are very few compared with English options. Similar findings held for radio exposure where average Spanish language exposure is slightly above the average for English language radio listenership (see graph above). These media preferences highlight not only the practical but the emotional links between in-language media and these consumers. It will be of great interest to observe how the new trend in Spanish language media growth evolves. Will the advent of Telefutura, mun2, Televisión Azteca, and Hispanic Television Network increase Spanish language television exposure by offering additional choices?
For marketers and market researchers, these trends have important implications:
- Marketing in Spanish continues to be an important way of reaching the largest numbers of U.S. Hispanics.
- Reaching the majority of Hispanics in Spanish is not just a practical issue to aid comprehension; emotion seems to be more strongly tied to Spanish than to English.
- Conducting research with Hispanic consumers must provide the option for Spanish-language interviewing and discussion so that the majority of Hispanic voices are heard.
- In uncovering cultural trends of importance to marketers, the language in which research is conducted will likely impact the findings.
- Questionnaires and other research instruments must be culturally adapted to reflect intended meanings that literal translations are likely to miss.
- Since language and culture are strongly related, researchers that aspire to uncover deep meanings in consumers need to be members of the culture, not just speakers of the formal language code.
Establishing links
Think about it! Marketing and market research is about uncovering and establishing emotional links with consumers. The Spanish language is a strong emotional aspect of the life of Hispanics. Understanding the role of language will aid the practitioner in establishing that emotional bond.
SIDEBAR
Wake-up call
Sage Research's Kathryn Korostoff says the tech meltdown served as a wake-up call for many companies and has spurred them to conduct more research. "Right now, in technology markets, people are so concerned about customer loyalty. As soon as the market started to turn down, technology companies started coming to us and saying, 'We need to make sure that the clients we do have are happy.' And data like the kind we uncovered in the Brix study about what causes people to chum is really valuable."
In addition to a big increase in brand research, Korostoff says tech companies are also doing more product development research. "For a while in tech markets, people thought, 'We'll develop a product, and if it flies, great; if it doesn't, we'll just develop another one.' They aren't doing that anymore. Our clients are being very careful. They are coming up with product concepts, testing the concepts, and working to make sure the new products address a real need before they spend millions of dollars developing them."