With statistics showing a continual increase in the Hispanic population, the media industry needs to take the next step and build on the data to better reflect the findings within its employment ranks, Lisa Torres, president of multicultural for Publicis Media, said at the Hispanic TV Summit Thursday (Oct. 19).
Torres, who was the opening keynote speaker at the summit, part of NYC Television Week, said she wants to see the industry’s workforce better reflect the multicultural population its serving.
“I need to see people like me in the hallways,” she said.
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She cautioned that data doesn’t always tell the whole story of what’s trending, and she called for more diversity among those who are interpreting the data to gain a better understanding of how to best identify a course of action.
“Whoever reads the research that’s coming out of the data matters,” she said. “If you don’t have anybody who understands what culture means in the numbers, it’s going to get lost.”
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Torres also took issue with the total market strategy of reaching and targeting multicultural viewers, adding that the concept has “gone too far” in its approach to dealing with an evolving marketplace.
“I think it was a short-term gain to make money, and I think it absolutely polarized the market," she said. “I think we were short-sighted in getting dollars and allowed people to do things that we knew in our gut were not correct.”
