Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

How big is it? • How high its income? Fact and fallacy a 13 o u t the FALLACY: "The Spanish-speaking U.S. market really isn't big enough to be worth an advertiser's time and trouble." FACT: Estimates vary concerning the number of Spanish-speaking people in this country, ranging from about 4.5 million (a very conservative figure, used by some agencies and based on the census check of Spanish-surname citizens in 1960) to as much as six million or more (an informed guess which includes many Mexicans in towns just over the border, such as Juarez or Nuevo Laredo, who shop or work in the United States). The market is concentrated in a crescent which swings from Florida to the mouth of the Rio Grande across Texas, New Mexico, Ariz ona and up into California. In the North, the concentration is in Chicago and large northeast cities, notably New York. As many people speak Spanish in New York as speak it in Barcelona, even though the accent is markedly different. FALLACY: "Most of the Spanishspeaking U.S. market is composed of Johnny-come-lately immigrants in a low economic and purchasing bracket." FACT: It's true that there's been heavy migration from Puerto Rico to the New York area since World War II, although half of the lucrative island tourist trade these days is from Puerto Ricans going back home for visits. It's also true that the official migration rate from Mexico to the United States is about 55.000 annually. But the Latin element in the United States is , hardly new. Many Spanish-speaking families in the Southwest are descendants of Spanish families which have lived there since the I 1750s. In much of Texas, Ameri i cans moved into what was an area i of Spanish heritage in the mid-1 9th century, with much the same happening in southern Florida. Puerto : Rico was a Spanish colony from the time of the conquistadores until it became U.S. soil. On an economic level, Spanishspeaking males. 14 and over, have a median income in the United States of some $2800, and women | score about $1100. This isn't high, ■ but at the same time families are ' large and often everybody old A market measured in billions i Advertisers and their agencies are being forced to recog ' nize the Spanish-speaking market in this country by the , i Strength of purchasing power and language difference What amounts to a quiet Latin invasion of the United States is changing many of the marketing habits of U.S. broadcast advertisers: • In Tampa, a pretty, natural blonde in stretch slacks finishes her shopping at a local supermarket, thanks the boy who carries her grocery packages in English, hops into a late-model convertible and turns to her mother, with whom she talks in Basque-accented Spanish. • In Laredo, a Mexican businessman and his family, on a shopping tour from over-the-bridge Nuevo Laredo, buy an electric toaster advertised on a border radio station, and pay for it in pesos. • In Los Angeles, a telecast on KMEX-TV of the annual Independence Day festivities in Mexico City draws a large and devoted audience even against the competition of seven VHF channels televising in English. • In New York, the brewing company which made "Miss Rheingold" a national personality is quietly easing up on this theme; it doesn't sit too well with New York's Puerto Ricans, who resent the well-scrubbed-Americangirl look of most contestants and who drink some 20 percent of all the beer in the city. Advertisers and agencymen who are willing to take the time, trouble i and effort to study the U.S. Spanish-speaking market — a market ; whose disposable income has been reckoned as high as eight billion i dollars annually — can find many : such examples of the growing strength of the Spanish-speaking market. Some, however, will content themselves with oft-repeated fallacies about the Spanish-language market, which at least will keep them in a state of marketing euphoria without making waves. Which route will be followed is an increasingly important question in American marketing. 3« SPONSOR