Encyclopaedia Britannica targets Latinos with specialty products

Posted by Elena del Valle on May 7, 2008

Hispanic Heritage CD cover

Photos: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Although 98 percent of Encyclopaedia Britannica products are in English, in 2004 the company began offering a limited selection of CD-ROM products for United States Latinos. The products, available online and through special promotions, are Hispanic Heritage in English; Britannica Junior Visual Dictionary in English, French and Spanish; Enciclopedia Compacta Britannica in Spanish; and Merriam-Webster’s Spanish English Dictionary.

Steve Gilberg, director of Promotions and Licensing, Encyclopaedia Britannica

“We offer highly-relevant CD-ROM premiums for Hispanic marketing campaigns. They’re affordable, flat and postal-friendly,” said Steve Gilberg, director of Promotions and Licensing, Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Hispanic Heritage, for example, outlines people, history, places, events, and traditions the company’s editors believe shape Hispanic culture in South, Central, and North America. The CD includes biographies of notable figures including Simón Bolívar, Fidel Castro, Roberto Clemente, Oscar de la Renta, Plácido Domingo, José Ferrer, Vicente Fox, Alberto Gonzales, Che Guevara, Frida Kahlo, Jennifer Lopez, Eva Perón, Juan Ponce de León, Saint Martín de Porres, Carlos Santana, and Sammy Sosa.

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There is information about individual countries and World Heritage sites like Cuzco in the Peruvian Andes, Quito, and Mexico City; as well as the history and culture of Hispanics and their impact on the world; the Aztec and Mayan civilizations; the Panama Canal; the Spanish-American War; the Bay of Pigs invasion; Latin American literature, and Latin music.

Britannica Junior Visual Dictionary cover

There are also speeches, writings, and historical documents such as a letter from the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes describing Mexico City to Emperor Charles V, king of Spain; the Nobel Prize lecture of writer Octavio Paz. There are multimedia items on Mayan ruins, the voyages of Christopher Columbus, and Argentine gauchos at work.

The retail price for each of these CDs is $19.95 (Jr. Visual Dictionary is $29.95). Promotional pricing depends on quantity ordered and the exact type of packaging. Annual sales average about 10,000 each of the Hispanic Heritage (English-language) and Enciclopedia Compacta Britannica (Spanish-language) CDs. The products are available at the Britannica eStore.

Enciclopedia Compacta Britannica cover

Some of the software is also sold in school fund-raising catalogs like Scholastic and Reader’s Digest/QSP. They can also be found as part of promotional give-aways, or premiums, to support the ethnic marketing or Back-to-School marketing campaigns of third parties like Kellogg and General Mills who distribute them as a premium in in-pack, near-pack, and mail-in formats.

Encyclopaedia Britannica also owns Merriam-Webster, Inc., the dictionary publisher. Those products, including a handful in Spanish, are also available for online purchase. Although Encyclopaedia Britannica representatives don’t know who exactly is buying them, according to Gilberg, they sell “pretty well.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is a leading provider of learning and knowledge products.