That's one copy for every two Hispanic households. Marketers have reworked the Spanish slogan for Cover Girl make-up and product developers are drumming up new Secret deodorant scent names that they hope will appeal to Hispanic consumers. In addition, P&G's new line of diapers Pampers with "cloth-like backside" come in boxes written in both English and Spanish.

The outburst of attention on Hispanics is the work of P&G's new "Multi-cultural Market Development Organisation," which was set up last year in Puerto Rico as part of a companywide reorganisation and charged with building P&G's brands in ethnic communities. P&G quickly learned that it couldn't afford separate projects for each group so it settled on Hispanics based on demographic growth projections.

Some of P&G's brands need building. The company leads in various categories of the Hispanic market, including detergents and shampoos, but some key brands are lagging. Studies shows Latin families choose Kimberly-Clark Corp.'s Huggies over Pampers - and, according to ACNielsen Corp., Latin families use proportionately twice as many diapers as the rest of the population. Studies also show that Hispanic women prefer L'Oreal USA Inc.'s Maybelline to P&G's Cover Girl. And while the majority of US consumers do their dishes with P&G's Dawn, Latins tend to like brands made by Colgate-Palmolive Co., such as Ajax and Palmolive.

P&G is concerned with more than just the battle for marketshare. Over the next 50 years, the Hispanic population will grow by 100 million, according to US census estimates, contributing more than half the country's population increase. What's more, Hispanics are getting wealthier and they tend to spend big on products such as diapers and shampoos. "In certain product categories it is insanity not to target Hispanics," says Mr Carlos Garcia of market-research firm Garcia Research Associates.

P&G isn't new to the Hispanic market. In fact, P&G has been the top spender for Spanish advertising for many years. But the current push is much more focused and intense. Ms Graciela Eleta, a general manager who heads P&G's multi-cultural marketing group and is the only Hispanic woman among P&G's top executives, won't say how much P&G spending on Hispanic marketing has grown. But according to Competitive Media Reporting, a New York research firm, P&G's ad spending on US Spanish-language TV through July topped $64 million - 8.2 per cent of all P&G's ad spending and a whopping 27 per cent increase over the same period last year. Colgate, by comparison, spent nearly $9.5 million for Spanish-TV advertising in the same period, CMR figures show.

Some of Ms Eleta's efforts are aimed at changing longstanding habits. To sell Bounty paper towels, for instance, P&G is running ads to convince Hispanic women to "throw away the rag," an uphill battle against a totemic item in Hispanic kitchens. With Secret deodorant, P&G is trying to woo Hispanic consumers away from roll-ons, which P&G stopped making years ago.

To buttress its push, P&G is buying more Hispanic market research than ever before. It bought a customised system from Information Resources Inc., a Chicago-based market-research firm, to track sales in stores in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods. P&G then devised marketing programmes to pitch different sets of products to mainly female teens and mothers. For Latino teens, for example, P&G is running "Explosion Musical," a programme that organises concerts and offers discounted tickets and tie-in CDs to P&G buyers.

Cover Girl is trying to win over teen Latinas by co-sponsoring a beauty contest with magazine People en Espanol, and placing bilingual displays inside stores in Hispanic neighborhoods. To lure moms, P&G's "Avanzando con tu Familia" programme has sponsored mobile health clinics offering free immunisations and medical tests. Besides offering health care to uninsured Hispanics in L.A., P&G sponsors a nursing scholarship and has contributed to Hispanic educational programmes. It also has a tie-in programme with Gateway Computers to offer discounted PCs to the buyers of P&G brands.

Rivals aren't standing still, either. Colgate is spending $20 million to market just toothpaste, deodorant, fabric softener and dishwashing liquid, says Mr Ricardo Martinez, director of Colgate's Hispanic Market Development Group. It's also doing a lot of community outreach, often stationing its giveaway van right next to P&G's at street fairs and other events. But Ms Eleta's team stresses that the effort has barely begun. Wait and see the reaction to those new Pampers, says team spokeswoman Ms Ingrid Rivera. With the cloth-like backside and Spanish labelling, she predicts, they will grab a bigger share of bottoms in the barrios.

-- The Wall Street Journal