David Olajide (00:01):

Every brand has a story about the time they got it wrong. That campaign that was clever in one language, but confusing or offensive in another. And one of the most famous examples comes from the world's biggest beverage company. Take a listen.

Farzana Baduel (00:34):

In the 1920s, Coca-Cola was preparing to enter China, a market of hundreds of millions of potential customers. The company was confident they had the bottles, the billboards, and the bold ambition to sell happiness in a bottle. But when those bottles hit the shelves, people weren't smiling. Depending on the dialect, the carefully chosen characters were. Coca-Cola could be read as bite the wax tadpole, not exactly thirst quenching. Now Coca-Cola scrambled. They eventually landed on a new set of characters that translated closer to happiness in the mouth, a much better fit for the time, and it worked. Sales climbed the campaign moved forward, but it is worth pausing here. What passed as clever brand in the 1920s might not feel quite as tasteful today. Happiness in the mouth might sound a little suggestive to modern ears, and in the age of social media, the memes would practically write themselves.

(01:34):

That is the irony of cultural communication. What works for one language in one decade in one market may not survive the trip across borders or across generations. Translations never just words. It is values, beliefs, identity and timing. And ignore those pieces and your story risks being misunderstood or worse, ridiculed. Coca-Cola had the resources to recover, but many brands do not. Which brings us to the challenge facing communicators today. How do you speak clearly to audiences that are not only linguistically different but culturally distinct? Today on stories and strategies, we are talking about what it takes to reach the 65 million Hispanics in the United States. A community that is diverse, growing and powerful. And if you think all it takes is swapping English for Spanish, you might just find yourself biting the wax tadpole. My name is Farzana Baduel,

Doug Downs (02:43):

And my name is Doug Downs, and our guest this week is Susana Mendoza, joining today from Jersey City in New Jersey. Hey Susana.

Susana Mendoza (02:51):

Hi Doug. Hi, Farzana. Thank you so much. And yes, that's correct. I'm in Jersey City in New Jersey,

Doug Downs (02:57):

Jersey City. Now, is that the capital New Jersey? Is that what I consider

Susana Mendoza (03:01):

The main spot?

Doug Downs (03:02):

New Jersey?

Susana Mendoza (03:03):

Yes. It's not the capital of New Jersey, even though you would think that because it says Jersey City, literally,

Doug Downs (03:08):

Right?

Susana Mendoza (03:10):

It's not always that obvious with the capitals in the states.

Doug Downs (03:14):

Absolutely. Albany is the capital of New York. Who would've thought?

Susana Mendoza (03:17):

Yeah,

Doug Downs (03:18):

Susana, you're a former journalist turned PR and media outreach expert who leads Hispan wire helping brands, agencies and PR professionals secure visibility in top tier Spanish language media across the us. You blend your deep understanding of Hispanic media outlets with cultural insight, ensuring that campaigns go beyond translation and genuinely resonate with diverse Spanish speaking audiences.

Susana Mendoza (03:45):

Exactly. Doug, I couldn't have said it better. Thank you so much for that amazing intro.

Doug Downs (03:49):

Cut it off from your website,

Susana Mendoza (03:52):

But I was like, I may use you for my own pr.

Farzana Baduel (03:57):

Now, Susana, jumping straight in. I wanted to understand for PRs like myself, the Hispanic audience is hugely significant now. You have been working in with this audience for decades, and what insight can you show for prs like myself and those listening in who want to understand what are the most common strategic missteps that brands can make when they're adapting English language campaigns for Hispanic audiences? And how can we as PR professionals avoid cultural blind spots before it's too late and it just goes on social and we get the backlash?

Susana Mendoza (04:38):

That's true. It sometimes can happen, and definitely what I would say it's to actually hire people or have people on your team that know about this cultural differences and know about Hispanic communities especially we're talking about the us so when I talk about Hispanics, I definitely mean in the US because in Latin America or in Spain, it's different. I don't think you would use in general the same approach. But yes, I think a lot of companies and PR agencies may fall short of this by just thinking, oh, I can just translate whatever copy, marketing copy or whatever slogan from English to Spanish. And the problem with that, it's that sometimes it may resonate because it coincides with whatever it is in Spanish, but then sometimes it can just fall flat on Hispanic ears or eyes when they read that, when they see that because it doesn't connect with them and connection, it's so important when it comes to pr. It can make or break your campaign.

Doug Downs (05:42):

Susana, I have this lazy habit when I'm doing audience segmentation. I tend to look at ages. I'll look at gender, I'll look at any other large impacts of their interests. I could just see myself looking a Gen Z Hispanic audience and missing the fact that there's actually multiple cultures within that. And I would create messaging that I think applies to Gen Z Hispanic. And as I'm listening to you, I think that's a lazy approach. So how do you do this? And at the end of the day, if I have to create a million different messages for a million different little audience segments, how am I supposed to do that?

Susana Mendoza (06:24):

I know it's difficult, but it sometimes pays off, honestly. It's like saying I'll just send a mass email to everyone instead of I'll do targeted emailing, which I think sometimes really pays off much more than just mass emailing. So it depends how much you want to obviously segment your demographics. With Hispanics, you could say, I'm going to do maybe two or three different targeted emailing or targeted approach. So I would say that Hispanics in the us, there are some who are native Spanish speakers and who don't really speak. They may speak English, but their main language during their day-to-day, it's Spanish and they actually, they consume Spanish speaking news. They rarely, if ever read or watch English speaking news. And then you also have the people who are either fully bilingual or they're may be second or third generation, and this may include Gen Z Hispanics. So I don't think you would target Gen Z Hispanics the same way you would target this other group that I was talking about that basically only speak Spanish and they're first generation Hispanics in the US because they probably consume news or stories in a completely different way, to be honest.

Farzana Baduel (07:48):

You mentioned traditional media with Spanish language media still driven by powerful platforms like Univision, Telemundo, and Radio. Tell us a little bit about the Hispanic community in terms of is there a generational divide where perhaps the older generations they tune into the traditional media, younger generations more on social media? Is there any particular social media channels that they favor over others? And also how to approach the influencer partnerships just so that we get an idea about how to navigate between traditional media and different social media channels and also the influencer landscape.

Susana Mendoza (08:27):

Yeah, I would say that traditional media, it's usually the favorite media for older Hispanics who are first generation. And by older I don't mean like 60 or 70. I mean maybe people my age who are a little, just over 40, definitely a lot of Hispanics listen to Spanish speaking radio, even sometimes, even if English is their first language, it's just because they've heard their parents, they've heard their grandmas, their abuelas listening to a certain radio show or radio station, and it's something that's comforting to them. So even though they may be younger, there's a huge connection to radio. And this is something that a lot of companies of PR agencies don't understand. Hispanics consume a lot of radio. It's the main vessel for news songs, anything new that they want to listen to.

Doug Downs (09:28):

Okay, let me pull on that because what I think I'm hearing there is that audio itself, and you identified radio, but audio could be podcasts, could be any form of, it could be music on Spotify, right? But audio has resonance within the American Hispanic community.

Susana Mendoza (09:45):

Yeah, definitely.

Doug Downs (09:46):

Is that because in the country surrounded by English all the time, but there's such a strong prominence of the Spanish language, it's a reminder of the fabric into which Hispanics fit in the United States, that audio itself is a beautiful, as well as food as a beautiful reminder of the culture of Hispanic people.

Susana Mendoza (10:12):

Yes, also, absolutely. I think for first generation, it's a way to be closer to their community, to the country they grew up in, or just listening to Spanish, even if it's not your own accent can be, it feels nice to just be connected that way.

Doug Downs (10:31):

Even if it's from Madrid. Does it feel the same?

Susana Mendoza (10:35):

I mean, if it were me, I would feel right at home because I'm from Madrid, but even me listening to a show with Mexican accents or Cuban accents, it's still Spanish and it's very similar in culture, so I would still feel connected.

Farzana Baduel (10:56):

Susana, have you tried chat GPT in terms of translating from Spanish to English, and how accurate is it? Because some people used to use Google Translate and apparently everyone just thought that was the worst. And I've had some people who've actually said, chat GT is not bad compared to Google Translate. So I just want to know how effective have you tried it?

Susana Mendoza (11:17):

Is it any good? I have, I have, and I would say the opposite chat gt sometimes hallucinates, so you can use it for translation, but you need to watch a hawk, whatever it translates. It can be like, why did it go here? It has nothing to do with the text that I fed it. It just went crazy. It was like, oh, this story, it's very boring. I'll make my own story. And then I was reading like, what? So I had to stop using it. I don't know if they perfected it, but actually I prefer Google translate. Again, you just need to be very careful. Always watch everything that's being translated, because again, sometimes it's not that it hallucinates, but it doesn't know how to exactly translate something, so it will go to the nearest thing. It's that it thinks it's correct and it just may have nothing to do with the actual text.

Farzana Baduel (12:08):

I wanted to ask just a basic 1 0 1 for people like me in the uk, we don't have a big Hispanic community in the uk. Tell us a little bit about which parts of the US do they tend to be in with these large communities? What kind of size, what kind of cultural attributes do they have? Just for those who aren't familiar with the Hispanic community? People like myself?

Susana Mendoza (12:33):

Yeah. I would say that the biggest demographics, they're still from Mexico.

(12:39):

They're usually based in California, I think in Texas. I think that's where the two, I dunno, which I guess California is, has a bigger Hispanic community because in general it has the biggest Hispanic community in the entire country. I don't remember the millions, honestly, but the biggest one by a huge difference. And then I would say it's Texas. Texas. Also a lot of people from Mexico, maybe some other communities, maybe Peruvian equator, but definitely Mexicans win by a landslide. Also in Texas you have also New Mexico, a ton of Mexicans as well. I mean, it just makes sense because it's the country that has the borders. And then Washington state, because it's very rural as well, and there's a big Hispanic community there as well, which a lot of people don't know. It's not next to Seattle, but it's not that far away. So people don't understand, oh, there's Hispanic people in the state of Washington, which is near Oregon.

(13:45):

And yes, there is because there's rural lands there, so a lot of Hispanics go there to farm the area. So you also have a lot of Hispanic media there. Also, of course, Florida, like you said, Miami a lot, but you also have in Orlando and in Miami, it's mostly Cubans just because of the political situation. That's where a lot of them ended up, and a lot of them ended up in Miami, in also Hialeah, which is the biggest, I think, Cuban neighborhood in the entire country. And then also New York City and New Jersey, which both, I think the city of New York, the big apple, I think they have 2 million Hispanics. And there it's mostly, I know it's a lot there. It's mostly Puerto Ricans and I think a little bit of Dominicans also, but mostly Puerto Ricans. And in New Jersey, half and half, there's also a big Cuban population, Colombian, Peruvian, Ecuadorian, Spaniards, not so many, honestly, were not a huge presence in the US or at least not where it counts in terms of media and such.

Doug Downs (15:10):

Ultimately what you do is help build trust. So if you're working on political or health related campaigns, I mean those are the ultimate trust tests where people don't come in with a lot of trust at the beginning. Sensitive topics like immigration, healthcare, public safety, how do you address those with the decision makers? And I suppose when they come to you, they're already quite convinced they need to do things the way that you're saying.

Susana Mendoza (15:38):

Yeah, I mean, I always say, so you can try to build trust in a couple of months, but it's just harder

(15:47):

Than if you've already set the basis, the foundation since last year. And again, I do understand that not all the campaigns, not all the companies have the power to do that or the economic means to do that. But the longer you build trust, obviously the better the campaign is going to work because you're already known in the community. The community leaders know you, so they can vouch for you. So one of the things I usually tell the campaigns that I work with, whether it's political, health wise, education wise, it's partner with a grassroots organization or a well-known organization in the community, and there's so many here in the states, and there's some that are national level, regional or even just very local. And they're not only going to give you kind of a way in because the community already knows them, but they're going to explain what to do and what not to do in that specific community. They have so much information about the people who live there that they can tell you, oh, no, here, this approach doesn't work because of X, Y, Z. You should try this other approach. We should do the campaign on this day because mothers leave their kids in the kindergarten and they can come give you so much information that you wouldn't have access to if it weren't for them.

Farzana Baduel (17:15):

Very, very good advice. Susana, thank you for your time.

Susana Mendoza (17:18):

Yes, of course. I wish we could talk longer.

Doug Downs (17:21):

Yeah. Oh, well, why don't we do that? Hey, Susana, in our last episode, our guest, Jackson Wightman, he left a question for you

Jackson Wightman (17:28):

I'm going to leave a question that gets at a problem I'm having. So we work primarily with clients from cultures that are not our own. I like you, Doug. I'm Canadian. We have very specific ways of being. Many of our clients are coming from Asia, they're coming from the Middle East, they're coming from Europe. These are different business cultures, different contextual cultures. Some of them are higher context cultures, some of them are more direct. I'm just interested in understanding what steps other agency owners or other prs have taken when they are selling into cultures that are not their own. So is there a playbook? Is there best practices to inculcate cultural understanding across the team, but particularly with your sales team who are going to be the tip of this spear?

Susana Mendoza (18:16):

So I worked in different countries and not only doing PR, but doing journalism, trying to make business. So of course, I do know, especially if you just land it, it's hard to know what is going on. What I would say, and I know it may sound so obvious, but just be human in the sense I speak very clearly. I say what I mean,

Doug Downs (18:41):

You're direct.

Susana Mendoza (18:42):

Exactly. Yeah, me too. I'm very direct. I'm not rude, but I am direct. And even though I understand that not everyone may be like that, some people in some cultures like to go around. I usually tell everyone that I interact with, whether they're clients, potential clients, or just people I'm doing business with, I let them know that I am direct, that this is the way I do business, this is the way I talk. And I may not say it exactly like that, but I definitely let them know that this is what I do and this is what you will get with me so that they understand that this is how I operate, and then whatever it is that they say, I always take it. If they're going to approach me or they're going to accept something or they may not want something, then I give them a little bit of time to understand how I do business. And then I think usually once they understand it, they try to adjust to it because yeah, like what I said, if I tell them I am direct and they understand what I say is what I mean,

Doug Downs (19:49):

So

Susana Mendoza (19:50):

I think it makes it easier.

Doug Downs (19:51):

Which are you direct or read between the lines?

Farzana Baduel (19:55):

I think it depends. I think it's warning, when my brain is on fire, I'll give lots of context and then towards the end of the day, and I'm tired, I'm just super direct. I think it depends. It can help. And on a Monday I'm like, oh, let me contextualize this ask. And then on a Friday I might just do it. Just do it. Yeah, get on with it. Exactly. Google it. ChatGPT it,

Susana Mendoza (20:20):

Don't ask me.

(20:22):

I can give you an example, A very recent example that I had with a potential client, the client was very vague because sometimes Americans are a little vague. Again, like I said, in Spain, we're very direct and I'm very direct. Yes, I will do it. No, I won't do it. I'm sorry, for whatever reason. So the client was very vague, so I just wrote back, oh, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to clarify. Do you mean these, is this what you want to say? And then they answered. So sometimes that works too. You may think it's a little embarrassing to have to ask for clarifications, but I think it makes your life so much easier in the end instead of having to, oh my God, what did they mean?

Farzana Baduel (21:05):

I must say, Susana, the question that Jackson Wightman left, he didn't know it was for you, but my God, was it made for you? Perfect. Maybe. So I'm really, really delighted Now, Susana, your turn. What question would you like to leave for our next guest?

Susana Mendoza (21:22):

I guess I was thinking about it today before the podcast, and I think one of my, it's not really a challenge, it's just what tools do other PR professionals or agencies, what do they use to make their lives easier on the day to day? We were talking about Chad, GPT and other AI tools that are similar. So what other things do they use aside like any AI software to help them with pitching maybe? So just how do they make their day-to-day lives easier through the tools that are available to them?

Doug Downs (22:01):

That's a great question,

Susana Mendoza (22:03):

And I really want to know. Also, for

Doug Downs (22:05):

Me, it's the internet. I woke up this morning at five o'clock and the lights weren't working, and I had a recording.

Susana Mendoza (22:12):

Oh, yes, that is true.

Doug Downs (22:14):

I'll just bluntly say the internet

Susana Mendoza (22:16):

Yes, makes you miss the telegram.

Doug Downs (22:20):

Yes, it does. And thank goodness the phone

Susana Mendoza (22:22):

Works. Absolutely true. Thank you so much.

Doug Downs (22:26):

Thanks, Susana. Thank you.

Susana Mendoza (22:27):

Thank you both. I had a lot of fun doing this podcast.

Doug Downs (22:30):

Likewise. Here are the top three things we've got today from Susana Mendoza. Number one, translation is not enough. Simply translating English campaigns into Spanish often fails. Brands need cultural understanding and native input to create real connection. Number two, different generations, different media, older and first generation Hispanics still rely heavily on radio and traditional Spanish language outlets while younger generations lean more towards social media and bilingual content. And number three, trust is built locally. Long-term trust comes from partnering with grassroots and community organizations who already have credibility and cultural insight.

Farzana Baduel (23:17):

I love it. And just so useful for someone like me, not familiar with the Hispanic community, but just, and I think what you learned from her is actually you could apply that to lots of different cultures, right?

Doug Downs (23:31):

I agree.

Farzana Baduel (23:31):

It starts with empathy. It starts with understanding that what works for one culture doesn't necessarily work for another, and it's not just about translation in terms of literal language. You've got to understand the cultural sub context. So absolutely loved it. Now, if you'd like to send a message to our guest, Susana Mendoza, we've got her contact information in the show notes, stories and strategies is a co-production of K and public relations, JDR, communications, and stories and strategies, podcasts. If you'd like this episode, please leave a rating and possibly a review. Thank you to our producers, Emily Page and David Olajide. And lastly, do us a favor forward this episode to one friend, and thank you so, so much for listening.