As I was sitting in the doctor’s office yesterday, I picked up a magazine and conducted a quick research study – I guess that’s what happens when you make me wait so long!

The magazine was Latina, and something interesting popped out at me right away. The magazine is written in English – which gives me an idea right away that they must be targeting Latinos born in the US, who often are more comfortable with English than Spanish. So why are so many of the ads in Spanish?

Since I had the time, I counted them. I counted 78 ads overall: 51% were in Spanish, 42% in English, and the rest basically didn’t have any ad copy. Over half of the ads are in Spanish in a magazine that is written in English.

My assessment: This is an issue that we’ve discussed here at VL, from various angles, most recently with La Mala’s post, Aqui We No Watch Espanish. I think these companies say, “Hey, a Latino publication – stick our Latino ads in there. Hmm, but our Latino ads are in Spanish, and Latina is a magazine written in English. Oh well, it’s all the same anyway, isn’t it?”

Maybe there is some strategy out there that I don’t know about. Some detailed market research that would explain this. But my guess is that there is not. What advertising & marketing people are probably beginning to figure out is that the term Latino is very broad, and depending on which market segment they are after, the strategy is going to have to change.