Research Spanish-speaking consumers without a local partner
Spanish is the second-most spoken native language in the world and three of its markets — Spain, Mexico and Chile — behave nothing alike commercially. Most teams outside them find out the expensive way: they translate the campaign, run it, and learn afterwards. This is a way to find out first, in an afternoon, without a local agency or a local recruiter.
Why translation is the wrong mental model
The mistake is treating Spanish as one market with regional accents. It is not. The currency is different, the price habits are different, the retail is different, and what people are anxious about when they talk about money is different.
In Spain the conversation is rent in the big cities, the supermarket basket and the electricity bill, and the shops people name without thinking are Mercadona, El Corte Inglés and Wallapop. In Mexico it is the cost of the basic basket, transport in the capital, and months-without-interest instalments, with Oxxo, Soriana and Mercado Libre. In Chile it is arriendo, the mortgage payment quoted in UF, and Líder, Jumbo and Falabella.
A claim that works in one of the three can be inert in the next, and the reason is almost never the words.
What this gives an outside team
You get a panel of six profiles per market that reason with those specifics, answer in local register, and can be pushed on any answer.
- Check whether a positioning survives the move before it is briefed to a local agency.
- Read a price the way a local reads it: not as a number but as a comparison to something.
- Find out which of the three markets is the least hostile to your proposition, before you pick one.
- Pressure-test a translated claim and see what it accidentally says.
- Build a brief for the local partner you eventually hire, so the first meeting starts from evidence rather than assumptions.
How to work with it if you do not read Spanish
The interface is in English. The participants answer in their own language, because a profile that answers in English has already stopped being the thing you wanted to observe — the vocabulary is a large part of the finding.
Practically: run the session, read the executive report, and share the transcript with a local colleague or your agency for the nuance. The report gives you drivers, barriers and prioritised recommendations; the transcript is the evidence behind them.
The limits, said plainly
This is a directional signal, not a sample. It will not tell you market size, penetration or willingness to pay, and it is not a substitute for a local partner when you are actually launching.
Its honest job is to make the first conversation with that local partner cheaper and better — and occasionally to save you from having it at all, because the idea did not survive contact.
Three markets, three different arguments about money
| Spain | Mexico | Chile | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Currency | Euro, comma decimals | Peso | Peso, no cents in practice |
| The cost-of-living topic | Rent, basket, electricity | Basic basket, transport | Arriendo, mortgage in UF |
| Everyday retail | Mercadona, El Corte Inglés | Oxxo, Soriana | Líder, Jumbo, Falabella |
| Resale and marketplaces | Wallapop, Vinted | Mercado Libre | Falabella, marketplaces |
| Credit habit | Card, occasional instalments | Months without interest | Instalments, retail cards |
| Institutions cited | INE, CIS, Banco de España | INEGI, Banxico | INE, Banco Central, Cadem |
Frequently asked questions
No for the tool, yes for the nuance. The interface is in English and the executive report summarises the session, but the answers themselves are in the market's own Spanish because the vocabulary is part of the finding. Most teams read the report and hand the transcript to a local colleague.
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Last reviewed: 2026-08-21. Participants are AI-generated synthetic archetypes, not real people.