Were you perhaps under the impression that localization meant customizing your message (website, documentation, sales material, etc.) to a foreign language-speaking market abroad? Well, despite the fact that this assumption is generally applicable, it is not entirely true.
The reality is that in countries with high levels of diversity, localization may imply adapting your message for people that live in your base country and perhaps in your very same local community. For example, in the United States it is quite well known that the Hispanic demographic commands significant purchasing power, and that furthermore many Hispanics in the US are more likely to make purchases or request information when they are being targeted in their native language.
Hence, during the drafting of a localization strategy and plan, companies need to remember that they should keep their gaze close to home as well as further afield, identifying valuable targets not only in foreign markets but also in linguistically differentiated local demographics.
To help drive the point home a little more forcefully, it doesn’t hurt to keep 
the nearly $1 trillion in annual purchasing power that the burgeoning US Hispanic population enjoys in mind…just a thought.
Related posts
Tags: customizing, Hispanic demographic, levels of diversity, linguistically differentiated, local community, Localization, purchasing power
Hello,
To underline the importance of localization I want to give you an example of a conversation I overheard in a Mexican supermarket:
Woman 1: I’ve never bought XXX detergent. I don’t like it because of the obnoxious Argentinian ads on Sky. [the satellite TV service]
Woman 2: Exactly. Let’s better take this one. [Another]
While living on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border I watched on American TV commercials intended for the Hispanic population made by people speaking Puerto Rican or Cuban Spanish. I am sure that instead of doing their job, these commercials alienated most of the target population in California, where there are few Puerto Ricans or Cubans.
I do not mean to say that we or anybody else has anything against populations that speak a different variant of our language or that have different cultures, which for most Americans are the same. The language is simply not NATURAL.
If a company wants to be successful in a publicity campaign, it should spend a little money on really LOCALIZING!.
Indeed Arnoldo, these kinds of issues are (somewhat strangely for people like you and I perhaps) considered “nuances” and are largely misunderstood. I suppose we should be grateful that an effort to engage in marketing in Spanish was made; the next step, which will take some time for many such firms, lies in understanding that Spanish is a very diverse language (much more so than English in my opinion) and that addressing a Cuban is very different than addressing a Mexican, and so on and so forth. Baby steps, right?!