Presidential Candidates Make Limited Use of the Web to Target Hispanic Voters

This is interesting, however to me it seems as if “targeting” Hispanics means using Spanish. Yet, I produce HispanicTips for a reason – many Hispanics are English dominant or consume news in English.  Take a look at these stats….

• 44.3 million Hispanics in the US
• 33.5 million (75%) speak only English or are bilingual
• Of 28.2 million Hispanic adults (18+)
  • 15.8 million (56%) use the internet.
  • 4.6 million (29%) get news from the internet
  • 3.5 million (75% of 4.6m) get all of their news on the internet in English
  • 64% of native-born Latinos get all their news in English.
  • 78% of English-dominant Latinos use the internet, compared with 32% of Spanish-dominant Latinos.
• Where do Hispanic voters get their news
  • 53% get all their news in English
  • 40% get their news from English and Spanish media
  • 6% get their all their news in Spanish
• Advertising on a national Spanish news TV program would reach only 39% of Hispanic voters
• 54% of eligible voters registered in November 2006
• 5.6 million (60%) of these registered voters actually voted representing 13% of the total Hispanic population

Sources for these numbers

At 46 million people, Hispanics account for 15 percent of the overall U.S. population and continue to be the nation’s largest and fastest growing ethnic group(1). As a result of this growth, Hispanics represent the largest segment of minority Internet users(2) in the United States with an estimated 18.8 million online in 2007. Despite the large number of Hispanic voters seeking information online, analysis from Lionbridge Technologies , the world’s largest translation services provider, shows that the presidential candidates are using the Web to communicate with Hispanic voters in a very limited way. Lionbridge research shows that Spanish language content represents less than 9 percent of the total available English content offered by the candidates’ bi- lingual web sites. According to political analysts, eligible Hispanic voters account for 9 percent of the total electorate, making them an important factor in the outcomes of key primaries up to and including Super Tuesday on February 5.

As the industry’s foremost experts in web site translation strategy and execution, Lionbridge native-speaking Spanish language specialists evaluated the sophistication of each of the candidates’ bi-lingual web sites.

Only four of the presidential candidates remaining in the race currently offer their campaign web sites in Spanish. This includes Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama, as well as Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Even though the Hispanic population has tended to vote more Democratic, with 57 percent of voters aligned with Democrats and 23 percent with Republicans,(3) the states with the largest Latino populations (i.e. Florida, Nevada, Texas, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico) voted Republican in the 2004(4) presidential election. Additionally, 35 percent(5) of eligible Hispanic voters are undecided on which 2008 candidate to support according to a recent survey by Avanze-ImpreMedia.

Lionbridge 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Bi-lingual Web Site Evaluation

Lionbridge used the following criteria to evaluate the candidates’ web sites: 1) amount of Spanish language content offered relative to English language content; 2) extent to which the Spanish web site addressed key Hispanic issues; 3) ease of finding the Spanish web site; and 4) accuracy of the Spanish language content.

Key findings of independent and objective analysis
– Spanish vs. English content: Clinton’s campaign had the most extensive
bi-lingual web site with 210 web pages offered in Spanish versus 2,482
English language web pages, or 8.46%. Other candidates evaluated had
the following language content percentage rates: Mitt Romney (4.32%, 81
Spanish/1,875 English), Barack Obama (.94%, 13 Spanish/1,385 English),
and John Edwards (.0011%, 1 Spanish/8,849 English). Obama’s web site
also contained a series of sub-titled videos targeted at the Hispanic
voter.

– Key Hispanic voter issues: The Spanish version of Clinton’s campaign
site addressed what Avanze-ImpreMedia identifies as the five key
issues(6) for Hispanic voters – the war in Iraq, immigration, economy,
healthcare and education. The three other candidates’ Spanish web sites
addressed four of the five issues. Obama’s Spanish web site excluded
economic issues, and the bi-lingual campaign web sites of Edwards and
Romney did not clearly articulate their positions on the war in Iraq.

– Navigation and search: Clinton, Obama, and Romney had easy to find
links to their Spanish language web sites located in the upper right-
hand corner of the home page. Edwards’s site does have a link, but it
is difficult to locate at the bottom of the page. Obama and Romney also
translated the navigational structure of the site.

– Content accuracy: While most of the Spanish language content across the
candidates’ web sites seemed to be authored by Spanish speakers
rather than translated from the English-language site, Lionbridge
experts noted several typographic errors and inaccuracies found among
all of the pages from all of the candidates.

The Internet has a strong influence over voter populations today. In fact, research conducted after the 2004 presidential elections showed that 75 million Americans went online to access news, discuss candidates, and participate in the political process. (7)

“Web sites are a critical communication tool for any organization,” said Paula Shannon, Senior Vice President, Lionbridge. “As a trusted translation services partner, we understand that non-English speaking populations prefer to be addressed in their native languages, and we help our clients effectively reach these audiences through our high quality translation services. A major part of that strategy is to update content regularly to ensure it is current, and to translate all of the key materials that are most relevant for the target audience. These are vitally important steps to guarantee the success of a multi-lingual web site.”

In 2004 President Bush only marginally won the popular vote in New Mexico, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado – states with large Hispanic populations(8). It is likely that the Hispanic population in those states could play an important role in what is expected to be a closely contested general election this year, further elevating the importance of the candidates’ Hispanic web sites.

For media and bloggers interested in speaking with Lionbridge about the results of its analysis, please contact Lauren Whittenberg at (512) 638-5322.”

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