Captivating Connections.

univision launches (un petite) ad network.

"Univision is the latest major media company to launch its own mini ad network—though in this case the company is looking to replicate the ad network model in the much less cluttered Spanish-language market.

The company announced on Monday (Nov. 30) the formation of Univision Partner Group, a collection of Spanish-language Web sites from the U.S., Latin American and Spain which reach a significant U.S. Hispanic audience. Univision will be able to sell advertising across these partner sites, which include a range of content sites such as the entertainment-oriented Caracoltv.com, the news-focused Perfil.com, Tycsports.com and the business-centric Ambito.com.

Univision has tapped the technology company Adify to power the new network and Quattro Wireless to handle the mobile version of the network.

With the rollout of the Univision Partner Group, the company is borrowing a formula from companies like MTV Networks (Tribes) and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (Martha’s Circles)--which have scoured the Web for small to mid-sized content sites and blogs that reach a similar audience to the media company’s core property, but lack their own ad sales operations. The sell to advertisers is that these vertical networks offer more targeted, well-lit content environments compared to typical thousand-site long tail ad networks."

leveraging telenovelas.

Now here's a cool concept:

"Perla Beltrán, a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks in New York, has suffered a great deal lately — her husband, a thief, has been murdered and she has been associating with lowlifes. But she thinks she has found a way out: as a recruiter for the United States Census Bureau.

Ms. Beltrán, a character in the popular Spanish-language soap opera 'Más Sabe el Diablo,' 'The Devil Knows Best,' represents only one element of the government’s yearlong effort to garner trust among Hispanics, an ethnic group that has been historically wary of the decennial census process.

In addition to the typical public service announcements and advertisements, the Census Bureau is helping to compose a remarkable story line featuring the Perla Beltrán character on the telenovela, amid the genre’s usual tales of sex scandals, unspeakable illnesses and implausible villains. It may be the first plotline on a soap opera blessed by the United States government."

all about the consumidores.

And now for your whitepaper of the week:

	A Brave New World of Consumidores
	By Marta Insua

About: While we were sleeping, it happened. A whole new demographic of young, reasonably affluent Hispanics entered the world of marketing as incredibly important and valuable consumers, but just now quite the way mainstream America thought they would in the 1980s.

latina women go beyond expectations.

New research looking at

Latina

women have found Latinas to be technologically savvy, even more so than previously believed.

 

“According to the study, conducted by OTX Research, the Latina respondents were slightly more likely than the non-Hispanic respondents to take pictures with a digital camera (45% compared to 42%) and download music to an iPod (28% compared to 22%).”

 

Ruth Gaviria, VP of Meredith Hispanic Ventures, noted that "what most surprised advertisers was how technically savvy this woman is once [household income] reaches $50,000, and how much they've raised the bar in what they want from the American dream."

 

Even more important is her brand loyalty. “’She loves beauty and she's loyal, but she's loyal to just about every single brand,’ Ms. Hernandez said.

 

The ethnographies also revealed refrigerators and pantries packed with both Latin and mainstream products, as these women prepare some of the same foods they grew up with but add new ones.”

 

And, for the lady readers out there:

“Another difference between Latinas and non-Hispanic women: Latinas are more likely (75%) than non-Latinas (63%) to say they'd rather have sex with their husbands than a glass of good wine.”

 

HEYYO!

marketers focusing on hispanic consumers.

BusinessWeek has a great article out this week looking at Hispanic Consumers, and why some marketers are aggressively targeting them:

"What do Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, and General Mills have in common? All are pouring more advertising dollars into marketing aimed at Hispanics. Last year, General Mills tripled its spending on commercials on Spanish-language TV to more than $35 million, according to ad tracker TNS Media Intelligence. ‘We've gone aggressively into Hispanic marketing,’ explains the food company's Chief Marketing Officer Mark Addicks, ‘because we're getting double-digit sales gains.’

That may seem counterintuitive. After all,

America

's 45.5 million Hispanics have been particularly hard hit since the

U.S.

economy went off the rails. Unemployment among Hispanics shot up in March to 11.4%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, compared with 8.5% for the

U.S.

population as a whole. But Hispanic consumers are less likely to be hobbled by mortgage or credit-card debt, and tend to have two or more income earners in a household, according to market researcher Experian Simmons. What's more, Hispanic consumers typically like to buy products and services from brands advertised on TV, according to a consumer survey that Experian conducted last year for the Hispanic television and radio company Univision Communications.

As one might expect, Hispanic consumers spend heavily on the basics, including packaged goods and wireless phone services. ‘Their disposable income might be lower,’ says Kelly McDonald, a Dallas-based marketing consultant, ‘but Hispanic consumers spend a far greater percentage of what they have’ than the rest of the

U.S.

population.”

consumer insights for all.

So, the new Nielson Consumer Insights Magazine is out, and I wanted to share what they have going on this month:

Features include...

•          Honey, We Acculturated the Kids!

•          Trying to tap the Hispanic market? You'll need to take nativity (country of origin), linguistic ability and the influence of children into account to shape an effective marketing campaign and media strategy. Welcome Back to the Live Commercial.

•          As the struggle continues to increase the visibility of brands, advertisers are reaching deep into their playbooks back to product placement's roots-the live commercial.

•          Out With The Old-In With The New.

•          Retail shelf space is limited. A new item in will typically mean an old item out. But delisting items can lead to severe opportunity costs. Knowing which items to delist-and why-are just as important as knowing which new items to launch.

•          Private Label: What's Really Driving Growth?

•          Private label goods have enjoyed a sales juggernaut during these financially uncertain times. Turns out, growth is driven more by higher commodity prices than by consumers shifting away from traditional brands.

•          Brazil-A Happy Place to Live.

•         

Brazil

's optimistic consumers are looking to their huge array of retail choices to help them trade up, as the largest economy in

South America

expands its presence around the world.

•          "Below the Topline" - Multi-Cultural Marketing in the U.S

•          The future

U.S.

is much different from what we see today-a multi-cultural country without a dominant ethnic group, and one increasingly split between young, growing ethnic populations and an aging white population.

•          Top Tens and Trends

•          Our latest intelligence on Movies, TV, Books, Music, CPG Trends and more.

Enjoy!

Going Bilingual.

In the upcoming Vested Interest looking at e-commerce, you'll read about how Hispanics are often more comfortable using websites that use Spanish or Spanish and English text. Here's some more research to back it up:

"Marketers should speak to acculturated Hispanic consumers in English and Spanish in Web-based social media in order to more closely match such consumers' off-line experiences.

That is one of the conclusions Boston-based social media company Communispace reached in a study of how Hispanic consumers participate in Web-based forums.

The firm found that regardless of age, income, primary language, gender or generation, Hispanics are more willing to espouse ideas and commentary in a private, online forum than participants in English-language communities.

But second-generation Hispanics are less likely to participate in such forums than their first-generation counterparts. The firm says that is because they may feel less comfortable communicating in Spanish-only environments than in bilingual ones."

Whether you consider it a melting pot or a salald bowl, stay tuned for some major changes in the composition of America over the next few years...

"The nation's population will look dramatically different by mid-century, becoming more racially and ethnically diverse and a good deal older as it increases from about 302 million to 439 million by 2050, according to projections released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The findings are in line with recent analyses published by independent demographers, but they are the first such official Census Bureau projections in years.

Minorities, about one-third of the U.S. population, are expected to become a majority by 2042 and be 54 percent of U.S. residents by 2050.

The shift will happen sooner among children, 44 percent of whom are minority. By 2023, more than half are expected to be minority, and by 2050, the proportion will be 62 percent.

The largest share of children, 39 percent, is projected to be Hispanic, followed by non-Hispanic whites (38 percent), African Americans (11 percent) and Asians (6 percent)."

all about hispanic media spend.

Online ad spending targeted at Hispanic Internet users accounted for less than 5% of total Hispanic ad spending in 2007, according to data released in July 2008 by HispanTelligence and TNS Media Intelligence.

As with ad spending overall in the US, TV dominates US Hispanic advertising spending. Advertisers spent $2.5 billion on TV ads targeting Hispanics last year, accounting for more than six out of 10 Hispanic ad dollars spent.

The roughly 5% of US Hispanic ad spending that goes to the Web is even smaller than online's portion of overall US ad spending, which reached 7.4% in 2007.

hispanics online.

 The US Hispanic online population is growing.

In 2008, eMarketer estimates there are 23 million Hispanics online, and by 2012 there will be nearly 30 million.

"The paradox is that the larger this market grows," says Lisa E. Phillips, senior analyst at eMarketer and author of the new report, US Hispanics Online: Demographics, "the more fragmented it becomes."

Unfortunately, from a marketer's point of view, US Hispanics do not constitute a homogeneous market.

"Language and degrees of acculturation and assimilation vary by circumstances of age, nationality, education and income," says Ms. Phillips.

People with heritages and traditions throughout Latin America often do not share the same culture—or even the same language.

"Due to the fragmentation within the demographic, online marketers may have to create multiple executions and strategies," says Ms. Phillips.