THE BIG ADVERTISERS!

[blackgold]

For many years, before the growth of the Hispanic market in the USA, big marketers like Ford, McDonalds, Bayer, Coca Cola, Sears and many more would concentrate their Spanish language marketing in Puerto Rico. The U.S. Spanish market was mostly ignored, except for TV stations in New York and Los Angeles. When I first got cable in Boston in 1984, Spanish International Network were mostly airing canned novelas and entertainment specials. However, what really opened my eyes when I watched it was the amount of Procter & Gamble commercias that aired on their novelas, including Menudo for Crest and Scope, and mariachi music for Budweiser. They were trying to identify with the Latino market, and this laid the groundwork for future growth in this country. Today in Boston alone, there are 4 Spanish TV channels and just as many Spanish radio stations(operating either full time or part). Since we're in the Northeast, most of the music on the radio is Puerto Rican or Dominican salsa, merengue or cumbia, although we do listen to our share of international ballads. And during the local breaks on Univision and Telefutura, we're treated to ads for local "bodegas" or Spanish speaking efforts for Bob's Discount Furniture.
Wow!

 

[DavidEduardo]

For many years, before the growth of the Hispanic market in the USA, big marketers like Ford, McDonalds, Bayer, Coca Cola, Sears and many more would concentrate their Spanish language marketing in Puerto Rico. The U.S. Spanish market was mostly ignored, except for TV stations in New York and Los Angeles.

From the late 40's in the Southwest we had fulltime Spanish language radio stations, in by the 70's, Spanish language stations in LA were starting to place in the top 10 of all stations. Stations like KGBT, KUNO, KAMA and KCOR were #1 in their markets and Spanish language TV was billing like general market stations.

Markets with relatively few Hispanics, such as Boston or Hartford or Providence, did not get much attention as Hispanics, mostly Puerto Rican, had become increasingly assimilated by the second generation and did not use much Spanish language media.

The marketing and advertising in Puerto Rico was not done by mainland offices and mainland agencies. Puerto Rico was considered a separate market, much like a separate country, with local agencies or branches of international ones doing close to 100% of the creative, production and placement of advertising in the media.