From High Street to Honduras: US Journals reach Powerful and Wealthy Readerships in Latin America

Believe it or not, high-brow political and economic publications like Foreign Affairs and The Harvard Business Review have considerable readerships in Latin America. Given the economic and political turmoil that has characterized the region in recent years, this may come as little surprise. Nonetheless, as these publications increasingly adapt their content to cater to Latin American audiences, major advertisers are following suit and reaching out to this same crowd.

Foreign Affairs en Español was launched in Mexico in 2000 to coincide with the election of Vicente Fox. The publication is a co-production of the Council on Foreign Relations in NYC, and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). Foreign Affairs en Español is essentially a journal of political opinion, giving prominent policy experts a pulpit from which to preach their political beliefs. The publication is non-partisan, and includes both conservative and liberal opinions.  

It is printed in Mexico, and has a combined circulation of 6,000 copies. The cover price is $8.99 USD. Approximately half of the content is original Spanish-language content commissioned by the publishers, while the other half is content adapted from the English-language Foreign Affairs. Its major advertisers include Telmex telecommunications company, and Banco Nacional de Mexico, which is affiliated with Citibank and Mastercard.

The Cato Institute, a right-leaning Washington D.C. based public policy research institute, does not publish its own Spanish-language publication, although it does have an extensive Spanish-language website -http://www.elcato.org- and it publishes many of its studies in Latin American and Spanish newspapers, such as El Mercurio (Chile) and El País (Spain). Although the institute does publish Spanish-language books in conjunction with academic institutions and other research centers, it does not sell advertising in these publications or on its website.

Newcomer

American Interest is a relative newcomer to the political journal scene, and describes itself as “a journal of ideas.” Rather than embrace one political viewpoint, it instead seeks to foster an elevated debate on how U.S. policies affect circumstances internationally.

The bi-monthly magazine has a distribution of 40,000 copies, and its current advertisers include book publishers such as Harper Collins, Random House and a few oil companies. Although the magazine does not currently have a Spanish-language edition, there are plans in the works: “Ideally, we would like to expand to Latin America by next year. Expansion efforts have been put on the back-burner for now, as we are moving from being a quarterly publication to a bi-monthly. It is something we are looking at, though,” says spokesperson Damir Marucic.

The Harvard Business Review America Latina is perhaps the best-known U.S. export in the financial/political publishing realm. It has a combined monthly distribution of 55,000 copies (with Brazil and Mexico accounting for 18,000 each, Argentina, Chile and Central America accounting for 5,000 each, and the remaining 4,000 copies going out to disparate corners of the globe). The cover price is fifteen dollars.

The magazine’s intended audience is “the men and women charting the future of business.” In line with that claim, the magazine boasts a powerful readership among the business elite, with CEOs, chairmen, general managers and partners accounting for 38% of its audience. Vice presidents, directors of finance, operations and marketing managers comprise another 25%, while managers, executives and consultants fill the remaining piece of the pie-chart.

The Harvard Business Review America Latina’s advertiser list is almost as exclusive, with Cartier, BMW, Apple, making up just a few of the approximately 125 companies advertising in the publication.

Approximately 20% of the editorial is written exclusively for the Latin American edition, while the rest is adapted from the English-language magazine.

The magazine began publication in 2002 and is audited by the Mexican Instituto Verificador de Medios.

Another seminal business magazine publisher, Crain’s, also has a Latin American presence with its Mexico City edition (Crain’s Mexico). The magazine has a distribution of 21,000, and is published on a bi-weekly basis. Like Foreign Affairs en Español, it is audited by IVM. Full-page ads cost US $6,183. In terms of its readership, 63% are men and 37% are women. Virtually all have college degrees (63% Graduate) while many have post-graduate degrees (36%).

Like Harvard Business Review America Latina, a majority of Crain’s Mexico readers hold leadership positions within their companies: 37% are managers, while 29% are CEOs. The rest are operations managers, directors of administration and general managers. Fifty-two percent of the Mexico edition’s readership has Internet access at home, while 88% have access from the office. Given the regional focus of the magazine, the Mexico edition features all original content.

The Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones) is widely considered to be the gold standard for financial information in the US, is published in 18 newspapers across 16 Latin American countries as a special section within the papers’ business sections. It has a combined circulation of over 1.7 million. Advertising for the WSJ Americas is sold exclusively by the WSJ, and full-page ads run anywhere between US $3,600 in Paraguay to almost US $61,000 in Brazil. In some cases, WSJ Americas is published Monday-Friday, while in others it is published just one or two times per week.

The Wall Street Journal also has a Spanish-language supplement that it publishes in the US Hispanic market. It is published in Reflejos, Su Guia, El Sentinel, and Washington Hispanic, as either a pull-out, or as a paginated section, depending on the publication.

Newsweek en Español is another publication covering political and economic affairs, and is widely distributed across Latin America by its regional publisher Editorial Via Satélite. Newsweek’s owner is the The Washington Post Co.  Due to its broad focus, Newsweek en Español is less esoteric than the aforementioned publications and thus enjoys a considerably larger readership. Its distribution is 91,000 weekly, and the publication is audited by CVC. A full-page ad runs $12,500. It is printed in Mexico. The magazine also offers advertisers translation services at cost, estimated to be approximately $250 per advertisement.

As is evident from the above-mentioned cases, the word is out that there is real demand for high-quality political and economic coverage in Latin America. With the current economic boom in many Latin American countries look for more U.S. based publishers to capitalize on these expansion opportunity.