Steven Wolfe Pereira is executive VP and managing director of
MediaVest's multicultural marketing unit, Forty-Two Degrees (MV42°), where he
is responsible for strategy, cross-platform marketing initiatives and branded
entertainment for such brands as Avon, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Post Foods and
Wal-Mart.
With the Hispanic broadcast television network upfront
presentations just about a month away, MBPT spent some time with Pereira
getting his take on how client media spending might play out.
What is your overall impression of this year's Hispanic TV upfront?
It is an exciting time for the Hispanic marketplace, and I believe it will be
an extremely interesting upfront. Ratings for the two major Spanish-language
networks are showing increases while the ratings for the English-language
networks, for the most part, continue to go down. Univision still commands the
major share of ad dollars, but there is renewed interest in Telemundo by
advertisers. Their ratings are up. [Telemundo parent] NBC just started
NBCLatino.com. And mun2, Telemundo's cable network, is starting to leverage
some of its talent, like on-air host Yarel Ramos, outside of Hispanic TV. But
Univision has also started its TV sports network and novela network and there
is a lot of interest in those also.
The new RCN-News Corp. partnership will start up the new Hispanic
broadcast network MundoFox this fall. What impact will its entry into the
Spanish-language marketplace have on client ad spending?
This will not be some fly-by-night operation. This is News
Corporation-Fox-and RCN. They both have a large presence in Latin America. They
have lots of funding. This network will be a formidable player in the game to
get client dollars.
Going forward, how much room for advertising growth is there in the
Hispanic marketplace?
What you are going to start to see is more crossing over of Spanish
stars into English programming and more advertisers using Spanish stars in
their English language ads and commercials. Crossovers have been going on for
years in the music business with Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony,
Shakira and, more recently, Pitbull. And then you have Sofia Vergara make it
big on Modern Family, and that can
bring a whole new audience to English-language television for advertisers to
reach. She was acting in Univision novelas since she was 18 before crossing
over. And Procter & Gamble made her the face of CoverGirl, and she is doing
ads and commercials in both English and Spanish. You'll see more of this
happening as advertisers realize the benefits of taking this total-market approach.
What are some categories where advertisers are still dragging their
feet instead of jumping into buying commercial time on Spanish-language
networks?
One of the biggest areas is consumer packaged goods. Part of that is
because it's a large category and a lot of different brands are still trying to
figure out just how to make investments in Hispanic media. Wireless is another
area of opportunity for advertisers. Hispanics over-index heavily in usage in
this category. There are still not a lot of retailers spending in
Spanish-language TV. And there are a lot of pharmaceutical companies not where
they should be on Hispanic TV. Many of these advertisers concentrate on the
Boomer generation watching English-language television, who are older and
perceived to have a lot of medical problems. The Hispanic audiences may be
younger, but there is an opportunity for the pharmaceutical companies to reach
potential consumers there, too.
How is your agency approaching the upfront and what advice do you give
your clients?
Our pre-upfront meetings with our clients just ended. What we told them
was they must keep their eye on the big picture when allocating their ad
dollars. Many want to allocate money to the English-language market first and
use whatever is left for Hispanic. But what we tell them is Hispanic TV is
where the growth is. We recommend that they allocate between 10% and 15% of all
their upfront ad dollars into Spanish-language TV. And we tell them that every
dollar they don't spend now on Spanish-language TV advertising could come back
to haunt them down the road. And spending should not just be on TV, but also
across the Spanish-language networks' other platforms like digital, mobile and
social.
