I recently read Felipe Korzenny’s newest book subtitled “Connecting with the New Latino Consumer”, which is an absolutely great read for every multi-cultural marketer, regardless of whether or not they focus on the Hispanic market.

I found the discussion of selecting Spanish vs. English language for advertising campaigns to US Hispanics particularly thought-provoking, with bilingual and bi-cultural consumers forming the largest and fastest growing sub-segment of this hugely diverse market.

Korzenny juxtaposes two points that illustrate this challenge well, from a marketer’s perspective:

• “The Spanish language is an extremely important part of the culture, and constitutes an axle around which the Hispanic culture revolves.”
• According to the most recent American Community Survey (ACS), 22% or more of US Hispanic households are exclusively English-speaking.

My experience has long been that, forced to make the binary choice between one language or another, for a campaign that will focus on or include bilinguals, marketers will labor over the nuances and impact of this decision for weeks, even months.

On the other hand, some market researchers may take significantly less time to rationalize the choice of language for a survey to bilinguals, which is specifically designed to more deeply understand and quantify consumer sentiment.  Arguably, there is no way to do this effectively if the survey fails to establish credibility with respondents, which begins with comprehension and cultural relevance, whether that is a consumer who prefers and connects more strongly with Spanish or with English.

For those who choose to survey bilingual, bi-cultural respondents in English-only, purely to save money on translation and survey adaptation, I’ll recommend again picking up Korzenny’s book on effective Hispanic marketing.

Before going any further let me say, I don’t mean to suggest that market researchers are ill intentioned, indifferent, or otherwise less thoughtful in how they approach the task of understanding bilinguals.  Instead, let’s consider some of the challenges they face, and a rational response that often leads to surveying exclusively in Spanish:

1)   “We need to survey a cross-section of the Hispanic market that is truly representative of the national population, but the brand can’t afford to spend an exorbitant amount to do so (i.e. paying for boots on the ground in Spanish-dominant neighborhoods nationwide).”

2)   “We need to be sure we gather the perspectives of Spanish dominant consumers, who represent over 25% of the Hispanic market, as well as the majority who are more bilingual.”

3)   “We believe that the sampling and data collection industry has historically been most effective in soliciting participation from more English-dominant Hispanic respondents, under-representing those who prefer Spanish in any significant measure.”

Because sampling and data collection companies have a direct incentive to sell their respondents as highly representative of the market, regardless of reality, a survey fielded exclusively in Spanish is often rightly seen as “offsetting” some of the bias described here.

What this effectively tells us is that many researchers don’t trust that their sampling providers have a complete grasp of how to properly represent the Hispanic market if left to their own devices.  Or worse, the provider does understand, but in order to sell more, they would satisfice with any respondent who can speak just enough Spanish to pass as bilingual and bi-cultural.

So what then is to be done, if surveying in Spanish-only introduces selection bias, leading to conclusions that reflect only a partial picture of the market?

The right answer is that for bilinguals in particular, in order to avoid biasing results surveys should be offered in both Spanish & English, with more than a literal translation, but a deliberate and thoughtful adaptation of all content, idioms and other culture-specific elements.

At the same time, if the safety net of surveying in Spanish-only is to be removed, researchers should be aggressively seeking sample providers who have:

• Well-developed, easily articulated acculturation models
• Proven success in targeting and balancing respondents to truly represent the whole market, before they ever reach a survey
• A “bilingual” research audience that will naturally (without prompting) select a mix of Spanish & English when choosing their survey language

Looking beyond language, there are countless factors that make every consumer unique, especially every Hispanic consumer, which we can’t delve into in short form.  Hopefully this provides marketers & researchers some food for thought and tactical help as we continue to improve what we know and how we learn more about this dynamic market.