So it seems that Vehix.com, according to this Washington Post article, is finally waking up to a reality that most of us who are halfway interested in the topic and have some knowledge of the community are already well aware of.

While the Spanish-speaking, Spanish-consuming market (meaning both monolingual Spanish-speaking market and those who prefer to have their news served up in Spanish, watch telenovelas in Spanish, etc. while using English in day-to-day life while still fancying a Thalia Hershey’s candy) is a  highly lucrative market segment, many — millions of Latinos, bilingual or not, are watching English-language TV as well. Why? Some speak English fluently and can alternate back and forth, receiving entertainment in English while still welcoming messages from marketers in their native language.

And there are more channels in English. Spike TV’s typical lineup of wrestling and car chases doesn’t alienate anyone, since they cater to the universal language of "guy". A monolingual Spanish speaker can easily be found perusing the likes of Spike or ESPN, so Vehix.com’s decision to advertise on these networks was, in my opinion, a sound one. One interesting thing is that Vehix.com doesn’t have a site in Spanish (HELLO! Vehix’s business is an online business! Why waste advertising money on targeting Spanish-speakers when there is no information given in Spanish?), so the welcoming message of "en tu idioma" ends when you get to the site.

Here’s the intro to the story:

On a recent Monday night, during the back-to-back wrestling shows "WWE Raw" and "WWE Raw Zone" on the cable’s Spike TV, David Carcamo saw a commercial. The for-the-boys programming on Spike, it must be said, is in English. The 30-second commercial, touting the auto Web site Vehix.com, however, was in Spanish.

"I was like, ‘ What?!’ " says Carcamo, 18, a senior at Cardozo High School in Northwest Washington. He understood the commercial, no problem there. But a Spanish spot on an English-language channel? "Maybe the antenna was off. Or something. Maybe it was just a mistake," he wondered.

A TV commercial for Vehix.com, featuring a Hispanic couple and with Spanish dialogue, has been appearing on English-language cable channels in the area. (Morey Evans Advertising)

"I was confused when I first saw it," says his friend, Sergio Romero, 19, also a senior at Cardozo. Like Carcamo, he’s bilingual. "I thought I accidentally changed the channel to Telemundo."

They laugh.

Vehix.com., a one-stop shop for car buyers, is using the Washington area — home to an affluent, diverse, growing Latino community — to conduct an experiment: running a Spanish-speaking commercial on cable channels such as Spike, Nick at Nite, FX and Sci Fi, to name a few. The first ad, put on the air in February, features a bald, chubby actor and a Spanish voice-over. Three weeks ago, it began to be replaced by an ad featuring Latino actors speaking in Spanish. Either way, the result is more eye-catching than reading a flier in English on one side and Spanish on the other about a yard sale in Columbia Heights. Andrew Ward, a vice president at Comcast Spotlight, the advertising division of the nation’s largest cable provider, says these are the only Spanish ads on English channels of which he knows.

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From this Sunday’s Travel section of the NYT:

For
nine years, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation has
been working to make Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell/Benjamin Franklin
image appeal more specifically to African Americans, students, seniors,
families and, most recently, gays and lesbians. Now Philadelphia is
figuring out how best to say bienvenidos to Hispanics.

"Our
goal is to raise Philadelphia’s visibility as a new destination to one
of the fastest-growing populations in America," Meryl Levitz, president
of the tourism organization, said in an e-mail.

At stake for
cheese-steak central and its five-county region is a larger piece of
the $37.2 billion that Hispanics spend on domestic travel, according to
numbers determined in 2003 by the Travel Industry Association of
America.

Philadelphia’s tourism corporation expects to spend
some $900,000 in the next three years to attract Hispanics, according
to Ms. Levitz. Already there is a twice-yearly tour, called "Latin
Flavor, Latin Soul," of the neighborhood of El Centro de Oro (the next
tour is Sept. 10). By August, the corporation’s Web site, www.gophila.com, will have an area  addressing Hispanic travelers.

In
the meantime there are three 15-second commercials on Telemundo in
Philadelphia (part of local sponsorship of the Latin Music Awards ) and
print ads in both national and New York City Spanish-language
publications like Hispanic Magazine and El Diario/La Prensa, among
other efforts like research at local conventions of Hispanic
organizations.

Philadelphia is not alone. Tourism initiatives
have been developed nationwide in other cities and states, like
Illinois and Louisiana. Even the Royal Caribbean cruise line started a
Spanish-language Web site in 2004.
PAMELA NOEL