Mitú, a digital media company for young Latinos, started out as a multichannel network on YouTube and has since expanded onto Facebook and OTT devices. On Tuesday, the four-year-old publisher will add Snapchat Discover to the mix.
“Snapchat recognized a significant portion of their audience, based on demo, is Latino, and wanted to find the right partner who could speak authentically to that,” said Chief Product Officer Mike Su.
Mitú’s articles are in English and are geared to a Latino audience that prefers Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber over Hispanic pop stars. But “they still looking at the higher mainstream culture through a Latino lens,” Su said.
Mitú, which has 120 employees, expects Snapchat Discover’s reach will help its content crossover beyond Latino audiences.
Su contrasted Mitú with Univision, which started in Spanish-language TV and has since bought English-language properties like Fusion and The Onion.
“We built our vertical as English only,” Su said. “We take an unapologetically Latino POV, but we see our content cutting across demographics.”
Mitú would not disclose the financial terms of its Snapchat Discover partnership, citing a nondisclosure agreement.
At launch, Snapchat Discover allowed publishers to sell their channels themselves, with Snapchat providing additional advertising help.
But since then, Snapchat has hired ad sales chief Jeff Lucas from Viacom and added hundreds of ad sales staff so publishers would hopefully accept a content licensing fee instead of a cut of ad sales.
Mitú advertises on its site and social channels, but not with banner ads. Brands like Verizon, Toyota, Spotify, Chevrolet, Captain Morgan and Toyota rely on Mitú’s writers to create sponsored content that resonates with an American-born, English-speaking Latino youth. Mitú distributes that content on its own social channels and site or brands use it on their own sites or outlets.
Mitú has a second revenue model: content licensing. It creates long-form content for Watchable, Comcast’s OTT app. The first show, “Cholos Try,” builds on video shorts Mitú created that went viral on Facebook.
Mitú expects to ride a demographic wave. In three years, most American youth will be multicultural, and Latinos will be the biggest segment of that multicultural demographic, according to Mitú Chief Marketing Officer Danny Johnson. Snapchat, with a relatively young audience, will be among the first platforms to reflect that shift.
Mitú claims to reach 17 million multicultural youth every day. It also raised $27 million in Series C funding last January, from strategic investors including AwesomenessTV, Verizon and WPP, for a total of $43 million.
