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English to Spanish Language Advertising

Common assumptions in English to Spanish language advertising are that an advertisement will be effective if the Spanish viewer or reader decodes the advertisement successfully, if there is a meaningful transfer of "properties." The creator of the Spanish advertisement selects the elements of the English advertisement according to his or her expectations about how the Spanish audience will respond, assuming shared English-Spanish cultural conventions. Receivers of the translated Engish message must use the same conventions to evaluate the stimulus in order to be able to formulate the response, thinking in Spanish. Thus, when developing one single idea for the Spanish speaking world, or one global English stimulus for different Spanish cultures, the assumption is that responses will be similar, too. This will only happen if sender and receiver share one culture.


If there is no shared culture, the response is likely to be different from what is intended and expected by the English to Spanish translator service. This does not result in effective advertising translation. For cost efficiency reasons, professional translation companies prefer to standardize products and advertising. However, products may be similar, but usage and buying motives vary for most products and among Spanish cultures. Levi's jeans may be the same all over the world, but for some they are the worker's outfit, for others, such as buyers in Mexico or Venezuela, they reflect an American lifestyle, whereas again for others they provide prestige.


If buying motives for standardized products vary by Spanish country or Latin American area, how can a standardized advertising campaign be equally effective in all Hispanic countries? Arguments for standardized advertising are all about standardizing the stimulus without taking into consideration the response to standardized stimuli. In this age of accountability, much is written about cost efficiency in the production of advertising, but little is written about the effectiveness of standardized advertising in the Spanish speaking world. The cost savings of a standardized Hispanic campaigns are easily offset by wasted media expenditures caused by less effective Spanish advertising messages. One of the reasons may well be that there is so little fundamental research on how Spanish advertising works.

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