On my way to the office this morning, as I looked out the window on the train, I saw an OOH/Transit board for Continental Airlines targeting Hispanics. My first thought was “congratulations, Continental, for getting the word out among Hispanics!’ Then I read the ad and thought even more of it. The copy reads “Si te gusta ir expreso, te gustará viajar con nosotros. Más vuelos sin escalas a más destinos en Latinoamérica.” (If you like to go express, you’ll like flying with us. More non-strop flights to more destinations in Latin America.” is a rough translation).

As I read that while sitting on a local train (I had missed the express train by a few minutes, much to my chagrin), it struck me as clever copy and even placement (I think that Conill handles their creative while MV42 does their media). The creative ties in nicely to the placement and to the product benefit (although the more strict grammarians among us would have requested the copy read “ir en el expreso” as the correct way to phrase it). It works nicely, in any language. Here’s a bad picture of the ad.

Continental Airlines Hispanic OOH

What was more interesting to me, however, was the tagline. I had never read the Continental Airlines tagline in Spanish before. It’s “Trabajar con Empeño. Viajar con Pasión.” The English-language tagline for Continental is “Work Hard. Fly Right.” which supposedly came from their CEO during an speech to employees and it was adopted as the tagline for the company.

In English, the tagline never said much to me. It felt obvious that it was a non-consumer statement being slapped on ads. I don’t feel it communicates much to a consumer. However, in Spanish, the adaptation of the tagline works much better. It loosely translates to “(To) Work with Determination. (To) Fly with Passion.” First of all, the choice of words really resonates with me and I think with consumers in general.

The word “empeño” is particularly interesting here. It’s a great word in Spanish and it means so much. It encapsulates the concept of striving, working hard, determination, insistence, and making an effort. To me that is a much richer concept than plain “work hard.” Then there’s the word “pasión” that is so relevant to Hispanics, but also so much more human, warm, and emotional for consumers in general that the English-language “fly right” (what does that mean, anyway?), at least in my opinion.

So, kudos to Continental Airlines. If I was your target, you got me. And by the way, how about working on that English-language tagline a bit?

As I was getting closer to the office, I spotted another example of Hispanic-targeted OOH. This one was a Bud Light billboard for its Bud Light Lime flavor. What was interesting about it is that Lime was adapted to “limón” in Spanish. It’s not that “limón” is incorrect. Au contraire, it shows  deep undersanding of the target consumer.

In the countries from where most US Hispanics hail, the small green citrus fruit is called “limón” and the larger more-elongated yellow citrus fruit is called “lima.” Go figure. Still, kudos to Bud Light for picking up on that.