Essay 4742

A marketing puzzle in any language
Media companies use English, with a Spanish accent, to reach a growing bilingual audience.

By Lorenza Muñoz, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Eighteen-year-old Brian Morales represents a growing segment of America that baffles advertisers, broadcast networks and cable channels.

The Santa Monica College freshman listens to Metallica and Linkin Park on his iPod. He also likes rock en español such as La Ley and Mana. His favorite TV show is the sci-fi drama “Heroes” on NBC and he tunes in to Univision to watch news and soccer with his dad. He’s equally at ease in English and Spanish.

“My culture is not ordinary. It’s mixed,” Morales said. “I am Hispanic but I do have my American culture.”

This cultural fusion is becoming an increasingly typical demographic. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 1 in 5 U.S. adults ages 18 to 34 is Latino. Garcia and Rodriguez are now among the top 10 most common surnames in the nation. At least 50,000 Latinos in the U.S. turn 18 each month, UCLA demographer Leo Estrada estimates.

Despite the economic clout such figures represent, media companies and advertisers are grappling with whether to reach this growing audience in Spanish or English. Most efforts to date have been focused on Spanish. Six years ago, NBC Universal spent nearly $2 billion to buy Telemundo; Time Warner’s HBO created HBO Latino, where it airs Spanish-language movies; Walt Disney Co. created ESPN Deportes and Fox initiated Fox Sports en Español for Latino sports lovers. Comcast Corp. launched CableLatino, which offers a package of Spanish-language channels, on its local cable systems.

Traditionally, television advertisers and networks have believed that if they were not reaching Latinos through the two major Spanish-language networks, Telemundo and Univision, then they would connect with them through mainstream shows that have proved popular with young bilingual audiences such as “Ugly Betty,” World Wrestling Entertainment’s “Raw,” and “American Idol.”

Some believe that those strategies miss the sweet spot because they fail to recognize that the majority of Latinos living in the U.S. are bilingual and speak predominantly in English, while at the same time retaining their cultural roots.

“There is still a wide-open space for entertainment targeting Latinos who live in English and Spanish,” said Antoinette Alfonso Zel, former senior executive vice president of strategy for Telemundo. “That is the opportunity that may well be filled by the Internet unless the networks commit to this audience.”

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