• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 22, 2020

Bilingual U.S. residents have quickly become a focus for advertisers across many market categories, including political, during the presidential election year. Agencies and publishers say brands can reach this market with far less budget and fewer bidding concerns.

Some of the top evergreen search phrases in Spanish across the U.S. last year ranged from recipes to health issues, according to Jose Villa, president at multicultural agency Sensis.

Villa said the phrases included Aprender ingles, Recetas, Donde voto, Reembloso del estado, Copa oro, Meningitis, Bajar la presion alta, El dolar hoy en Mexico, and rinones.

The Hispanic and Latino market is isolated, making up 18.3% of the U.S. national population in 2019, but accounting for half the population in larger cities like Los Angeles and Miami.

This year the focus on the Spanish-speaking market points to presidential campaigns. Joe Biden’s campaign last week announced it will spend $15 million to run English- and Spanish-language ads in print, online, and on radio and TV across half a dozen states. The English-language ads are already prevalent on Facebook.

The Miami Herald describes the campaign as a “five-week, bilingual ad blitz” and reports that this is the first time Spanish-language commercials are backing a Democratic nominee on television in Florida.

The 60-second television and video ad, uploaded to YouTube, runs as Spanish-language snippets of Biden speaking about the middle class and COVID-19.

Spanish-language TV network Univision has promoted its Hispanic audience for years, but Jorge Daboub, executive vice president, local media and head of pharma sales at Univision, told one media outlet the market remains underrepresented.

He points to Eli Lilly and its diabetes drug Trulicity, ViiV Healthcare’s HIV brand Dovato, and Amgen with bone drug Prolia and heart medicine Repatha, noting that “overall pharma spending is a small fraction of the amount spent on general market TV.”