Calderon Hispanic Marketing recently received a Silver Award for their brochure submission entitled “Fly Naked – Use Pens as Contraceptives”. The award was presented by the League of American Communications Professionals of San Diego, CA, for the 2003 Spotlight Awards Publicity Materials Competition. In addition, Calderon received media attention from the following publications for receiving this award: The Denver Post, Phoenix Business Journal, Hispanic News and El Hispano.

The award-winning brochure was created to increase awareness of the importance for in-culture communication in targeting the Hispanic market. The title was a play off of blunders experienced by former Braniff Airlines and the Parker Pen Company when selling points for their products or services were incorrectly translated.

Braniff Airlines tried to attract U.S. Hispanic passengers with the phrase “Sentado en Cuero.” It’s marketing message was aimed to emphasize the comfort of sitting on leather seats. Instead, the translation made reference to “sitting naked.”

The Parker Pen Company was trying to introduce its fountain pens in some parts of Latin America. The slogan used in the U.S. campaign was: “Avoid embarrassment – use Parker Pens,” but was translated into Spanish as: “Evite embarazos – use boligrafer Parker: or “avoid pregnancy – use Parker Pen.”

“Sometimes you cannot translate directly,” Janina Calderon-Ferguson, President of Calderon Hispanic Marketing said. “And you need experienced, bilingual, bicultural marketing people to convey the right message.” Ferguson further commented, “This award affirms our mission to master in-culture communication to successfully reach the Hispanic market. It is gratifying to be recognized as one of the best by the leaders of our industry. They understood that our message was two-fold: the wrong translation can cause embarrassment, and reaching the Hispanic market without the appropriate expertise is a lot like ‘flying naked’. We’re delighted to receive this honor.”

As these translation blunders point out, the Hispanic market is full of lucrative opportunities, but just as many pitfalls. Marketing must be carefully tailored to linguistic as well as national and cultural diversity. If not, the effort may prove to be ineffective, minimally successful, or even embarrassing. At Calderon Hispanic Marketing, we offer a full range of marketing, advertising, corporate identity, public relations and translation services for companies who want to successfully reach the Hispanic market.

For more information on the award or the services we offer, please visit our web site at:
> WWW.CALDERONHM.COM