Pizza Patrón is a Dallas-based chain that's generated a lot of media buzz over the years for advertising aimed at its core customer base, Mexican immigrants. Its newest promotion uses a popular Mexican slang word that to some means "super cool," while others find it super-offensive.
The chain is getting set to launch a limited time offer, later this month, for an extra-spicy pizza with jalapeño encrusted pepperoni, topped with even more jalapeño. They are calling it La Chingona....
Click here to listen to the radio ad.
In the radio ad, a customer walks in and asks for the "pizza chingona" and is told it's only for chingones. Said customer subsequently makes a case for his chingon-ness: he can clap with one hand, make music with the rattles of rattle snakes, and live with his mother-in-law for a whole month.
Now, chingona means different things to different people. (More on that in a moment.) And as more marketing efforts reach beyond English to speak to an increasingly multilingual America, we're going to be running into this more often — same word, multiple reactions.
