Right on time with airline industry's first all Spanish-language booking site.

On June 30th, Southwest Airlines launched a Spanish-language booking Web site  that targets the 39 million U.S. Hispanics.

iMedia Connection talked with Laura Nieto, advertising manager for Southwest Airlines, and Simon Mathews, senior strategist for Ion Global -- an agency that specializes in multilingual and multicultural Web sites -- about the Southwest site.

iMediaConnection: What was the thought process behind Southwest's decision to create this site catering to the Hispanic market?

Mathews: There are normally two core drivers that make our clients reach out to a new market such as this. First, the ability to better serve an existing customer base in their core or native language. And second, the need to grow a new customer segment or audience. With 13 million Hispanics online in the United States, Southwest and many other companies often focus on this segment for both purposes.

Nieto: Southwest’s goal is to be innovative when it comes to customer convenience in Spanish. We created the Spanish booking tool in order to provide an enhanced online booking experience and to provide an additional distribution channel. (we also have a dedicated Spanish reservations line) for our Spanish-speaking customers. With 13 million Hispanics online, Southwest Airlines is targeting a customer base that is hungry for more information online in their language of preference -- Spanish.

iMediaConnection: What were some challenges in building the site -- usability issues, translations, etc.?

Mathews: As the site was originally built only in English, for the U.S. market, one issue was to deal with formatting of data and other related issues to account for a different culture. For example, the date format on the U.S. site appears as July 26, while for the Hispanic audience it is 26 July. Although seemingly simple due to the dynamic nature of the information on the site, this had to be addressed from a programming point of view.

Another language-related issue is what is known as ‘text swell.’ Some Spanish words and phrases can be as much as 30 percent longer than English, and we had to ensure all the buttons, tables and other visual elements could handle the length. Finally, with a complex ecommerce site such as the one at Southwest, it is important to really dig into the code and ensure error messages and system type messages are all translated, to ensure a strong user experience in-language.

Nieto: Southwest Airlines Internet group develops all programming in-house. Southwest Airlines worked closely with Ion Global to ensure a smooth, efficient communication flow in order to reach our pre-set goals.  

iMediaConnection: What are some of the marketing trends and challenges for reaching U.S. ethnic and multicultural groups?

Mathews: The biggest trend we are seeing is an increasing level of interest, and money, being invested in U.S. ethnic markets. The census data has been important in validating the size and potential (and high growth rates) of U.S. Ethnic markets and this has translated into more strategic efforts being focused on these segments. Where before a major brand may have tactically implemented ethnic marketing on a local level, we are seeing more companies address this at a national level and invest in longer-term brand marketing as well as tactical campaigns.

The Internet is also becoming a focus of attention for reaching U.S. ethnic audiences and more of our clients are asking for both the creation of Web sites to reach these audiences, as well as online marketing sites that will be viewed by the target audiences.

Some of the challenges we see from a purely online marketing point of view relate to search engine marketing, which has proved itself to be an extremely effective way of gaining customers. For example, you want to type in “San Francisco Hotel” in Google and have your hotel come up in the top of the free listings, or on the right-hand column results (paid advertising). While there are a number of general market search engines like Yahoo!, MSN, and Google where advertisers can place sponsored links, there are not yet such broad opportunities in the U.S. ethnic markets since the portals themselves don’t have U.S.-ethnic targeted content and there are not many high-trafficked sites to target.

Nieto: The biggest trend we are seeing is the level of interest by many companies in targeting the ethnic markets. Since the release of the 2000 Census data, many companies have gotten the wake up call that the face of America is changing. In order to continue to grow their brands, sell their products and ultimately maintain profitability, they would be remiss not to invest in the emerging markets. 

Southwest Airlines has had a dedicated multicultural initiative since 1996. We are not looking at the short-term sell, rather a long-term relationship by embracing the ethnic communities and demonstrating our commitment to serve them.     

iMediaConnection: Aside from the Web site, what else can Hispanics expect from Southwest?

Nieto: By providing a dedicated Spanish reservations line, launching an all-Spanish online booking tool and outfitting our airport gates with bilingual directional signage, we are continually looking for ways to improve the Southwest Airlines experience for our Hispanic customers.

iMediaConnection: How did the ION Global and Southwest partnership develop?

Mathews: Over the past six years, Southwest Airlines has been working with an Ion Global division, Dae Advertising, for its Asian-American marketing communications needs. Via this connection, Southwest was aware of Ion Global's specialization in multilingual Web technology and online solutions. When this project need arose, it was a natural fit for the airline to engage Ion Global’s services.

Nieto: Ion Global was a great partner for this project. Ion Global has been building international and multilingual Web sites since 1995. They understand that creating a multilingual site requires much more than translating HTML. Ion Global helped us quickly and efficiently launch our Hispanic site. Their expertise in developing multicultural sites also helped us avoid the problems that can occur when creating a multilingual Web site.

Elizabeth M. Lloyd is the director of corporate marketing for Netblue, Inc., an online customer acquisition company based in Silicon Valley. Previously, Elizabeth was the director of marketing for opt-in email provider, NetCreations, in New York City. Prior to NetCreations, Elizabeth was responsible for the PR department of ValueClick, Inc.