Posts Tagged: Spanish language
Mapping radio’s reach with Hispanic consumers
In each of the past two years, the national weekly radio audience has reached all-time highs according to Nielsen's Audio Today report. In the second quarter of 2015, it found that 245 million Americans aged 12 and older are tuning to radio during an average week across more than 250 local markets large and small.
This growth trend is also evident when examining Black and Hispanic audiences—the weekly reach of radio among Blacks and Hispanics has been growing steadily over the past five years. Since 2011, the weekly national Black radio audience has grown 5% (from 29.8 million to 31.3 million) while the Hispanic audience has grown 11% (from 36.5 million to 40.4 million). Combined, these groups account for almost a third (29.3%) of the national audience, representing 71.7 million audio consumers.
And because radio reaches more than 90% of both of these audiences, the footprint of where that listening is highest mirrors the larger population trends taking place in the U.S. today. When looking at the markets and states with the highest penetration of listening to urban or Spanish language formats—the formats most popular with Black and Hispanic listeners, respectively—geography and market size play a large role in scoring which parts of the map index above or below the national average for audience share to those formats.
The states with the highest share of Black consumers listening to urban radio formats are centered in the East, specifically the mid-Atlantic and the South. There are only two states west of the Mississippi (Arkansas and Louisiana) that index above the national average.
Conversely, the Hispanic map looks a bit different, where western states and states with large urban areas (New York and Chicago) lead the way for listening to Spanish language radio.
Audio is everywhere these days in America - available on multiple platforms from our smart cars to our smartphones, reaching consumers from all walks of life in more than 250 local markets. This quarter we find that the national radio audience has hit an all-time high for the second year in a row: 245 million Americans, more than 91% of those 12 or older, are using radio in a given week.
The power of radio is evident not just as a whole, but also within the diverse communities of listeners stretching from coast to coast. In this quarter's report, we focus on the record 71.7 million blacks and Hispanics who combine to account for almost a third (29.3%) of the national average quarter hour (AQH) audience.
These black and Hispanic consumers spend more time with radio each week than any other group, and possess enormous buying power for advertisers looking to reach a qualified audience when they are away from home and in the marketplace ready to purchase.
Music is a key component of Hispanic life and Hispanics are among the most enthusiastic consumers of music across a variety of genres regardless of acculturation level. Having roots in Mexico and various countries across Central America, South America and the Caribbean, Hispanics are diverse, speak multiple languages, and straddle multiple cultures. There is no single narrative that applies to those who identify themselves as Hispanic. Some are recent immigrants who speak only Spanish, some are descendants of families who immigrated generations ago and speak only English, and some speak Spanish and English with equal ease.
One thing that binds Hispanics together is a passion for music.
A Love For Music
The average Hispanic spends $135 per year on music, considerably more than the average consumer, who spends $105 per year. Much of this difference is explained by Hispanics' love of live music and a cultural tradition that values communal celebration.
Source: Published originally on Nielsen.com as Mapping Radio's Reach with Black and Hispanic Consumers, August 4, 2015.
U.S. is the No. 2 Spanish-Speaking Country in the World
A Spanish-language institute says the U.S. is the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world.
Instituto Cervantes, based in Spain, reported there are 41 million native Spanish speakers in the U.S. and 11.6 million who are bilingual for a total of 52.6 million.
That puts the U.S. second to its neighbor to the south, Mexico and ahead of Colombia, where Spanish speakers total 121 million and 46 million respectively, the Guardian reported.
According to the report, Spanish was the native tongue of 470 million people worldwide this year and some 559 million have some usage of the language, either because they are native speakers, have some proficiency or are learning the language.
In May, Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends reported that English use was increasing among Latinos in the U.S. Meanwhile, the share of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home had been declining for the past 13 years. Despite the decline, a record 35.8 million Latinos speak Spanish at home. The record increases while there is a decline because of the growth in the Latino population.
Source: Originally published on CBS News as U.S. is the No. 2 Spanish-Speaking Country in the World, Jun 29 2015
English proficiency on the rise among Latinos
U.S. Born Driving Language Changes
A record 33.2 million Hispanics in the U.S. speak English proficiently, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. In 2013, this group made up 68% of all Hispanics ages 5 and older, up from 59% in 2000.
At the same time that the share of Latinos who speak English proficiently is growing, the share that speaks Spanish at home has been declining over the last 13 years. In 2013, 73% of Latinos ages 5 and older said they speak Spanish at home, down from 78% who said the same in 2000. Despite this decline, a record 35.8 million Hispanics speak Spanish at home, a number that has continued to increase as the nation's Hispanic population has grown.
These shifts coincide with the rise of U.S.-born Hispanics as a share of the nation's Hispanic population, and the slowdown in immigration to the U.S. from Latin America. In 2013, U.S.-born Hispanics outnumbered foreign-born Hispanics by nearly two-to-one—35 million to 19 million—and made up a growing share (65%) of the nation's Hispanic population. They are also much younger, with a median age of 19 years compared with 40 among immigrant Hispanics. At the same time, immigration from Latin America, primarily Mexico, has slowed, leading to fewer Spanish-speaking new immigrant arrivals and a more settled U.S. Hispanic immigrant population.
As a result, since 2000, U.S. Hispanic population growth has been driven primarily by U.S. births rather than the arrival of new immigrants.
Fully 89% of U.S.-born Latinos spoke English proficiently in 2013, up from 72% in 1980. This gain is due in part to the growing share of U.S.-born Latinos who live in households where only English is spoken. By contrast, the share of foreign-born Latinos who speak English proficiently is little changed since 1980, even though the number that is English-proficient has grown. In 2013, 34% of foreign-born Latinos spoke English proficiently, numbering 6.5 million. In 1980, that share was 31% and numbered 1.3 million.
Looked at another way, just 5% of foreign-born Hispanics spoke only English at home in 2013, about the same share (4%) as in 1980. And 29% of foreign-born Hispanics speak Spanish (or another non-English language) at home, but say they speak English “very well,” a share also little changed from the 27% who said so in 1980.
One-third of Hispanics are not proficient in English
Even though English proficiency is on the rise among Hispanics, there are many who speak English less than very well—or not at all. According to the Pew Research analysis, 12.5 million Hispanics in 2013 said they speak English but rate their speaking ability as less than “very well.” And an additional 3.2 million say they do not speak English at all. Together, these groups of Hispanics make up one-third (32%) of all Hispanics ages 5 and older.
Three-in-four Hispanics who do not speak English have less than a high school education, compared with 52% of those who speak English but speak the language less than “very well” and 18% of Hispanics who are English-proficient.
One-in-four Latinos speak only English at home. And when it comes to consuming news media, among Latino adults, a growing share get their news in English, while a declining share do so in Spanish. Even so, for Hispanics overall, 95% say it is important that future generations of Hispanics living in the U.S. be able to speak Spanish. Nearly as many, 87%, say that Hispanic immigrants need to learn English to succeed in the U.S.
Spanish language use among U.S. Hispanics
As of 2013, 73% of Hispanics spoke Spanish at home, a share little changed since 1980 (75%), but down from its peak of 78% in 2000. Nonetheless, the number of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home continues to grow, as the Hispanic population continues to grow. In 2013, 35.8 million Hispanics ages 5 and older did so, up from 34.3 million in 2010, 24.6 million in 2000 and 9.8 million in 1980.
About 15.7 million Latinos ages 5 and older who speak Spanish at home speak English less than “very well” or not at all.
Among Hispanics ages 5 and older born in the U.S., there has been a sharp decline in the share that does not speak English proficiently.
In 1980, 28% spoke Spanish at home and said they did not speak English proficiently. This share had dropped to just 11% by 2013. By contrast, among foreign-born Hispanics over the same time period, there has been no decrease in the share that speaks Spanish at home and does not speak English proficiently. In 1980, 67% of foreign-born Latinos spoke Spanish at home but also did not speak English proficiently, compared with 66% in 2013.
Source: Pew Research Center, English Proficiency on the Rise Among Latinos by Jens Manuel Krogstad, Renee Stepler and Mark Hugo Lopez, May 12, 2015.
Spanish speakers express themselves more positively
Spanish-speakers tend to express themselves in a more positive way than do the speakers of other languages, according to a study published by the University of Vermont, and reported in Hispanically Speaking News.
The selection of positive words was higher among people who express themselves in Spanish than among people who speak the nine other languages examined in the study: English, Portuguese, German, French, Chinese, Russian, Indonesian, Arabic and Korean.
Communication among Spanish-speakers is not only very positive but also “the emotional content of the Spanish language is the highest” among the languages studied, University of Vermont scientist Peter Sheridan Dodds, one of the leaders of the study, told Efe.
He emphasized that in all the languages analyzed, the selection of positive words was greatest among Spanish-speakers, and they are learned more easily, used more frequently and are considered more meaningful.
The research team, headed by Dodds and Christopher Danforth, found after eight years of study that “the words of natural human language possess a universal positivity bias.”
Proof of that is the “very frequent” use of positive words in university literature classics such as “Moby Dick,” “Don Quixote,” “Ulysses,” “Oliver Twist,” “Crime and Punishment” and “The Count of Monte Cristo.”
In this sense, the report suggests that humans tend to remember gratifying information better than disagreeable experiences and that positivism plays an important role in human psychology.
The team analyzed 100,000 words in 24 different formats or media, including Twitter posts, song lyrics, subtitles on television programs, radio broadcasts and literature classics.
The study also catalogued about 50 evaluations per word analyzed - and the 10,000 most-frequently used words were the ones examined - with the evaluations made by native speakers, who were paid to assess how positive or negative they deemed the words to be.
Using a database containing about 5 million evaluations per person, Dodds and Danforth plotted results according to the words' favorable or unfavorable perception in each language analyzed.
Source: Hispanically Speaking News, Study: Spanish Speakers Express Themselves More Positively, Print Page September 2, 2014
The bilingual brain
Hispanics and Millennials are two of the fastest growing and increasingly important consumer groups in the U.S. So it's no surprise that marketers are eager to understand how to connect with these populations. But to engage with those who fall in both groups, Hispanic Millennials, it is imperative to understand the impact of language in order to optimize messaging for this demographic that increasingly identifies as bilingual.
Research done by Nielsen has demonstrated that bilingual speakers have a number of cognitive advantages over their monolingual peers; however, the neurological impact of bilingualism on advertising had not yet been explored. Utilizing Nielsen's proprietary consumer neuroscience technology, Nielsen, Univision and Starcom collaborated to research unarticulated language preferences and their impact on advertising, answering key questions, such as:
- Does the emerging population of bilingual Millennials respond differently to messaging when it is in Spanish than when it is in English?
- What are the best ways to reach and connect with Hispanic bilingual Millennials?
- How does the language of television programming influence how the advertisement is received by the consumer?
The results confirm that language influences how ads are received and introduces the idea that advertising in Spanish offers a unique advantage for brands striving to connect with bilingual Hispanic Millennials.
To Connect, Consider Spanish
Spanish-language advertising did a better job connecting with Bi-Llennials in a range of scenarios, particularly when the ads' content was emotional in nature. Ads featuring social interaction were generally more emotionally engaging and memorable for Bi-Llennials in Spanish than in English. Similarly, branding sequences were more effective in Spanish than in English.
Source: Nielsen, The bilingual brain, June 24, 2014.