Dex publisher targets Hispanic market

The company producing Dex Yellow Pages wants to capture part of the Valley’s 1.2 million Spanish-speaking market with a new telephone directory.

Valle Del Sol Dex En Español, or Valley Of The Sun Dex In Spanish, started circulating last week in areas of the Valley with large Hispanic populations.

Officials at R.H. Donnelley, the North Carolina-based company that owns the Dex brand, said the book is under an inch thick, but has 50 business categories including dentists, real estate, beauty salons and attorneys.

“It’s a very comfortable size to be using,” said Lisa Yanke, a company spokeswoman.

R.H. Donnelley has more than 600 directories and a nationwide circulation of about 80 million. Its products are marketed under AT&T Yellow Pages, Dex Yellow Pages and EMBARQ Yellow Pages.

Vivian Alonso Vanden Oever, R.H. Donnelley product manager, said the company is distributing 430,000 Spanish language directories in the Valley through October.

The company started producing a phone book with a Spanish section in 2005. But Vanden Oever said this is the first time the company has produced an all-Spanish version of the phone book.

Yanke said Dex En Español contains about 500 advertisers targeting the Valley’s Hispanics, which account for about $13 billion in purchasing power.

“We continue to receive a lot of positive feedback from both advertisers and consumers,” Vanden Oever said.

Officials declined to say how much it cost to produce the once-a-year directory.

Alberto Rodriquez, a spokesman for the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said the company will have to market the product heavily to the Spanish-speaking population if it wants to become the directory of choice. That’s because there are at least two existing Spanish language phone books already popular among Hispanics — Fritzler Hispanic Yellow Pages and Directorio En Español.

“I think the bottom line is that the (Spanish-speaking) market is being served,” he said.

Martin Trejo, communications manager for Directorio En Español, said his company launched its Spanish yellow pages directory in early 2005 and has 160,000 circulation.

Trejo said he’s not worried about new competition and said there is enough room in the local market for competing directories.

“There’s enough for everybody,” he said.