Global Communicators, Opportunities In US Market

I am in the process of reworking materials that I wrote for a class on international or global public relations and have been thinking a lot about how to approach this subject with students who may never live abroad.

It appears I am not alone. This topic seems to be in the news often as one of the principal issues in PR. One side that is sometimes overlooked is that there are plenty of global communications opportunities right here in America. Spain’s Prisa group, their biggest media company and owner of El Pais, is “planning an assault on the US Hispanic media market,” according to an article in the Financial Times. Currently the market is dominated by Univision and Telemundo and is experiencing “double digit growth.”

I read a statistic yesterday that one in four voters in New York City is Hispanic. That means that the Spanish language newspapers can potentially speak to 1/4 of New York City’s population, a huge chunk of the market. Positioning your company for placement in these outlets is a challenge just as it would be if you were trying to do PR in Spain, Central or South America.

Your target audience has specific needs as well as a host of cultural traditions and issues that must be taken into consideration when making your pitch not to mention potential language barriers and cultural gaffes to avoid.

This is true in any of the global media outlets that one deals with. These outlets may have different deadlines as well. Perhaps they await news from Countries in different time zones before publishing the news or perhaps they have headquarters abroad.

This is just a small example of one global communications opportunity. While the Hispanic media market is a huge one there are many smaller communities which each have papers and websites that reach out to specific groups.

None of these outlets should be overlooked if you are working for a global company or if you are starting out and want to get experience in “global communications.” Global no longer means that you must travel. You can also spice up a local position and garner many new customers in untapped markets right here in New York City.