With up to 400 million Spanish speakers in the world, and the official language of more than 20 nations, the Latin market is global — and a hotbed for sex toys sales?
“Currently the U.S. has the third largest Spanish speaking population in the world, and is rapidly growing,” Kheper Games sales manager Roxana Forenza said.” Our Spanish line of products allows us to increase our growth here in the states as well as worldwide.”
While multi-language product packaging has long been a fundamental for marketing adult toys internationally, some manufacturers go a step further to cater to the Latin market specifically ..
Kheper Games, which has sold more than 1 million of its Sex! card game, also offers Sexo! — a version translated completely into Spanish that also comes in Sexo! Gay and Sexo! Lesbiano varieties.
“We are very excited about creating more innovative games with these growing markets in mind,” Forenza said.
The company also offers Spanish versions of its Deluxe Spin the Bottle and Sex Dominos, while offering multi-language translations to instructions on several of its games.
“We now understand that the rules of a game can get lost in translation, especially when you are trying to convey a message to different cultural dialects,” Forenza said. “This is why every aspect of a game needs to be taken into consideration. Our international line, which is multi-language, is designed in a simple way using pictorial images on the game board to make it easier to understand, while keeping it affordable for every market. We continue to customize our more elaborate games to cater to the markets that require a specific language.”
XGen facilitates the global marketing of its products with multilingual packaging that includes French, German, English and Spanish, XGen Products Vice President Andy Green said; but when it comes to the Latin market, the company relies on its fluent Spanish-speaking sales person, as well as Spanish language marketing materials and ordering documents.
“We have customers all over Central and South America — from Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala,” Green said. “That’s a growing part of our business. We have a salesperson that’s fluent in Spanish to handle all those clients.”
Among XGen’s bestsellers in the Latin America are the Bodywand, Pleasure Wigs and Seven ’Til Midnight costumes, hosiery and lingerie, Green said.
While multi-language product packaging has long been a fundamental for marketing adult toys internationally, some manufacturers go a step further to cater to the Latin market specifically — with new collections featuring Spanish as their primary language from the product name down to the copy used in the description.
At this year’s summer ANME Show, Doc Johnson unveiled the Noches Latinas (Latin Nights) collection.
“We include English on the package as well, but it is definitely the secondary language, smaller font and less prominent,” said Chad Braverman, Doc Johnson’s director of product development and licensing. “The packaging is very clean and sexy. It is a line marketed directly at the Latin culture, not at people who have Latin ‘fetish.’ That is a very important distinction.”
Noches Latinas was launched with eight products all made with Doc’s proprietary UR3 material. The collection includes realistic penis with balls dongs, mouth, ass and vagina masturbation sleeves, as well as larger ass and breasts replicas.
“We choose a collection of items that are bestsellers and proven winners, but that have never been sold before in packaging specifically targeted at the Latin market,” Braverman said.
To cater to the diverse range of Latin cultures, Braverman said the products were named with literal terms that are easily understood across the board among Spanish speakers.
“The packaging had to relate to many different cultures and parts of the world that all speak Spanish,” he said. “Therefore we could not use slang from one culture that a different one might not understand. Therefore we needed to use literal terms. [For example,] penis instead of cock; vagina instead of pussy, etc.”
The launch of Noches Latinas was in response to consumer requests, Braverman said.
“We had a line many years ago that was targeted at the Spanish speaking culture, and it sold just OK, but eventually got discontinued,” he said. “Maybe it was ahead of its time and ahead of certain markets that have started to flourish, specifically the Central and South American markets. Consumer feedback is very important to us and this line was born from our direct communication with them.”
CalExotics debuted bilingual packaging in 2010 with the release of Labios Sensuales, Conchita Mojada and Culo Caliente, three Pure Skin masturbators (lips, pussy and ass).
“These are selling like gangbusters, and to tell you the truth, we are not surprised,” said Al Bloom, CalExotics’ director of marketing. “The Spanish-speaking population across the U.S. was asking for products like these, so we obliged, and the results have been incredible … so much so that we have created two new items that is part of our summer collection.”
CalExotics’ summer releases for the Latin market included the Seductora Caliente – Concha (pussy) Ultra Real and Seductora Caliente — Culo (ass) Ultra Real, larger sized masturbators.
“The advance sales taken at the show prove that there is definitely a void out in the market, and we feel these new items will sell as well if not better than the three we released in 2010,” Bloom said.
