Crisis Management with Latinos source: marketing y medios posted: Feb. 7, 2008 author: Mike Valdes-Fauli "... many organizations are still woefully underprepared to deal with the new issues we face in American society, such as the boom in the Hispanic population." read full article here

Commentary on Crisis Management with Latinos
by Ricardo González

Life happens. Mostly life is good. I am an optimist. I even think many, if not most, good things come to us through difficulty and challenges in life. As we say in Spanish, "No hay mal que por bien no venga." In English: There is nothing bad that doesn't bring good.

Sometimes bad things happen and in those times we must respond, not react. If we react, we make things worse. Sometimes organizations react, rather than respond. This article is a good reminder of some very important principles in crisis management, specifically as it relates to our message to the Latino community when something goes awry.

Mr. Valdes-Fauli makes five main points in his article and I would like to take each, quote him and them comment on each of his five points. Ready? Here we go. I am going to put his main point in bold and then comment from there. If you want to read his full comments his article is here.

Remember emotion resonates.

Yes it does but we must be very careful with emotion. Latinos are typically more emotionally driven than Anglos. If you have an already emotional situation and you add more emotion, you may just create an explosion, or implosion however you view it. Since the point of the article is crisis management I am not sure why he leads with this. My advice here is to make sure that you work hard to control emotion so it doesn't get out of control. Acknowledge pain, suffering, injustice whatever, but do not allow the emotion to get out of hand. Speak from the heart but do not spark a bigger fire in your attempt to "connect".

Adapt, don't translate.

This is absolutely the case. First of all, let's make sure we understand that translation is the written word and interpretation is the spoken word. Interpretation, by nature, must be exact. Translation has a bit more flexibility to insure a message is culturally relevant in both style and level of education.

The point, however, is correct. A message must be crafted out of a concept and not out of an existing message construct that works for another culture. We not only speak a different language, we think differently. We filter life differently. To reach people you must speak to them.

I would add here that whoever helps you with your message should have a very clear understanding of how both Latinos and Anglos think. This should be a professional who is completely bi-cultural and bi-lingual. This is the only type of person who will understand the intricacies and know when one line is being crossed or blurred.

Think new consumer, old-school tactics.

Basically, he is implying that Latinos are not technologically up-to-date. This is true of the labor class but not so true with professional Latinos. I cited a recent study on this report that shows Latinos use text messaging more than both Anglos and African-Americans in the United States. I also cited a study in December of 2007 showing that Hispanics are more open to e-mail marketing than other groups.

Latinos are embracing technology and I think it can be used properly in many instances.

Find the Hispanic angle.

Be careful here. There are two things that are uniting Latinos now in this country. One is language, the other is the immigrations issue. Always remember with Latinos that we are from 22 different countries with many cultural differences. The "Hispanic" moniker was created by the Nixon Administration in 1972. As we say, "only in America."

Respect cultural differences.

Basically, this cleans up his fourth point. There are many cultural differences between Latinos.

The bottom line is this. You must be prepared and very few people have the professional, language and cultural expertise to properly form a cohesive and compelling corporate message for you. Be very wary of using people on your staff who are not professionally trained, lack language skills in either English or Spanish, and do not have a complete understanding of both Anglo and Latino business issues. I have had to help some companies clean up their communications messages that were created by Spanish-language and Latino culture dominant PR firms. Balance is critical and a complete understanding of both Latino and Anglo business and social constructs is essential.

I do not normally use my articles as a fulcrum for consulting services but if you have this type of need I would be more than happy to speak with you about this. I frequently help companies and organizations properly form their communications messages with Latinos. I much prefer working on these communications before you get into a crisis situation but if you are in one, I can help you.

I appreciate Mr. Valdes-Fauli's article. He underscores and important point. I hope my additional comments are helpful to you.

Adelante,


Ricardo González