I was in attendance at the Houston Interpreters and Translators Association quarterly meeting this morning. Presentations were given on improving one’s memory and on the ethics of interpretation.

As the fastest growing minority group in the US, the Hispanic market is capturing the attention of marketers, advertisers and companies representing all sectors of the business community. Hispanic buying power is expected to explode to $926.1 billion by 2007, making it larger than Canada’s gross domestic product and representing 9.4% of America’s total buying power.

To help businesses understand the “Hispanic” market, Chain Store Guide presents the “Top 50 Hispanic Markets Report: Your Retail & Foodservice Guide to Hispanic Marketing.” This report establishes the link between the market demographics of the Top 50 Hispanic Markets and retailers serving those markets.

Findings of the report include:

— Average per capita income for Hispanics living in the profiled markets
is $11,949.

— Washington-Baltimore, with the majority of its Hispanic population
describing itself as Central American, has the highest per capita
income for Hispanics at $16,673. With a Cuban population at almost
45% of its total Hispanic population, Miami-Fort Lauderdale Hispanics
represents the second highest per capita income at $16,483.

— Among retailers, Wal-Mart and Walgreens are the leaders in serving the Hispanic community, having stores in 48 and 46 of the 50 markets,
respectively. Wal-Mart’s average market share is 37.3% among discount
stores in those markets while Walgreens’ average is 40.3% on the drug
side.

— Grocery market share is not quite so cut and dried. The H.E.B.
Grocery Company is number one in the eight markets in which it appears
with 55% average market share. Publix leads in the five profiled
markets in which it has stores with 44% average market share. Safeway
and Kroger serve approximately 20 markets each with an average market
share of 21.4% and 18.8%, respectively. Safeway takes the top spot
in eight markets, while Kroger leads in six. Albertsons never leads
in market share, but serves 32 of the profiled markets.

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Covina, CA–(HISPANIC PR WIRE – BUSINESS WIRE)–October 6, 2004–Today, IKEA, the world’s leading home furnishings retailer, officially launched a multi-media, U.S. Hispanic marketing initiative. The effort, which includes Spanish-language TV spots and the company’s first U.S. Spanish-language catalog, was kicked off at a series of home solutions workshops led by TV celebrity Lesley Ann Machado at the IKEA Covina store.

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The Hispanic population boom in the US has sent companies scrambling to win a piece of the lucrative pie.

According to the The Selig Center for Economic Growth, Hispanic buying power for 2002 totaled $580 billion, with a predicted compound annual growth rate of 8.7%. (The standard rate for non-Hispanics is 4.8%.)

The center’s study predicts that by 2007 the dollar power of Hispanics will rise to $926.1 billion. The Hispanic community clearly holds a great deal of economic clout, which certainly explains why marketers are vying for its attention.

Unfortunately, many marketing campaigns are ineffective. Here are the top three reasons.

1. Advertising for Service-Related Products, But Not Educating

2. Translating Accurately—but Not in a Culturally Appropriate Way

3. Marketing Without Bilingual or Bicultural Staff

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Legal mumbo jumbo is hard to grasp in any language. But when it’s in Japanese translated poorly into English, overseas business opportunities are lost, lawsuits are filed and justice is not served.

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Contrary to conventional wisdom, globalization is not ‘Americanizing’ the world

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Lookout

Our readers frequently ask why Adobe Reader 6 is so slow to load when they open a PFD file. The main reason is that the Reader doesn’t load alone – it comes with a crowd of plug-ins. If you watch the splash screen carefully you can see their names flip past. Most people need only a handful of these plug-ins. If you’d like to load PDF files faster, follow these simple instructions:

· Launch Windows Explorer

· Navigate to the Program Files folder, usually c:\Program Files

· Below this, navigate to Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader

· In the right-hand pane, find the folder named plug_ins

· Right-click it and choose Rename, changing it to plug_ins_NOT

· Create a new folder named plug_ins

· From the plug_ins_NOT folder, copy just three files to the new plug_ins folder: EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api

That’s all you need to do. The next time you load a PDF file, only those three plug_ins will come along, and you should notice a significant speed improvement. If you need to read encrypted PDFs or if for any other reason you want to undo this change, simply close Adobe Reader, delete the plug_ins folder and rename plug_ins_NOT back to plug_ins. – NJR

Neil J. Rubenking, “Solutions: User to User,” PC Magazine, 19 October, 2004, 86

Lost in Arabic translation

The federal government’s lack of Arabic translators and the insufficient understanding – and consequent poor translation – of the language by the translators it does have may mean more Arab-Americans, immigrants, and foreigners could find themselves caught up in the government’s dragnet.

Marketing en español dominates northeast according to HispanicBusiness.com.

Hispanic market lures equity firms according to HispanicBusiness.com.

Common Sense Advisory report reveals few web retailers target large Hispanic market. Hat tip: The Online Hispanic News.

A Curry County woman says misuse of Spanish grammar on the state absentee ballots’ inner envelope causes confusion as to whether the vote will be counted.

In English, directions printed on inner envelopes state, “This envelope shall remain sealed until counting of ballots begins.” Beneath the English version, the Spanish version states the envelope will stay closed until “El recuento de boletas de votacion” (The recount of the voting ballots).

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When Bill Gates goes to China, students hang from the rafters and scalp tickets to hear him speak. In China, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America, Britney Spears is Britney Spears… Throw out your kid’s idiotic video game, shut off the television and get Johnny and Suzy to work, because a storm is coming their way.

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The Localization Industry Standards Association Forum Europe will go beyond the usual discourse about multilingual content management challenges and solutions to address the practicality of international products delivery, applications, and costs as well as how a larger Europe and companies wanting access to its markets can best manage business practices like emerging collaborative systems, outsourcing management, and open standards deployment.

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