One in five people in the US are Hispanic, and that number is growing. Statista projects a 22% growth from 2022 to 81 million people by 2040.
And yet ad spend for this audience continues to lag. Which is why TV programmers used their upfront pitches to try to persuade advertisers to spend more money on reaching this rapidly growing audience.
NBCUniversal, for one, flaunted Telemundo, its Spanish-language media division, on its upfront stage as a competitive advantage to help brands resonate with Hispanic communities that might be in market for their products.
Specifically, Telemundo wants to score bigger ad budgets by proving it can target ads to a multicultural audience in ways that produce real results, said Federico Garza, SVP of research strategy and insights at Telemundo.
It also wants to reach more Gen Z. One in four Gen Zers in the US are Hispanic, and many of them are streaming. Yet, linear is still the majority of Telemundo’s business, he said.
To reach younger viewers, the company is investing more in streaming distribution. It rolled out a free ad-supported TV (FAST) channel for news earlier this month, after launching FAST channels for sports last year, available on Amazon’s Freevee and Samsung, among others.
AdExchanger spoke with Garza about why Hispanic audiences should matter to advertisers and how to reach them.
AdExchanger: Is buy-side demand for Hispanic audiences proportionate with population growth?
FEDERICO GARZA: Many brands recognize this population growth means purchase power, and they are investing in reaching this audience in a way that’s culturally relevant, including in Spanish.
But there are still plenty of brands that don’t recognize this opportunity or don’t know how to take advantage of it. A big chunk of my job is actually making more advertisers aware of the business opportunity of marketing to a customer base that’s growing quickly.
The Hispanic population is younger than the general population in the US, for example, so brands should know that their future customer base is becoming more Hispanic.
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How does Telemundo help brands target US Hispanic viewers?
We segment our audiences based on age and gender demographics, language preference, country of origin and other first-party data we get through NBCU’s first-party data platform.
We pair this data with Nielsen panels and first-party data from Adobe for information about where viewers are watching our content, such as whether they’re watching us on our own app, on Peacock or on third-party platforms like YouTube. We can also compare viewing patterns and preferences across different networks and streaming services.
All of this information helps us determine not just who to reach but where to reach them.
What’s an example?
Language preference helps us figure out which NBCU channels to include in an ad campaign, for example. Only 10% of our audience watches Telemundo in both English and Spanish, so we need different campaign strategies for people who primarily speak English versus Spanish. We can reach the former on Bravo and Peacock, while we would stick to our Telemundo app to reach the latter.
Advertisers that are trying to reach US Hispanic viewers with ads only in English or only in Spanish are going to be significantly limited in reach.
How do you determine whether ads are performing?
We do surveys and brand lift studies to measure awareness and brand perception and purchase consideration. TV advertisers are becoming much more concerned with indicators of performance that prove their media investments are paying off.
Can you share more details about Telemundo’s efforts to engage more of Gen Z?
The priority is increasing our presence on connected TV and social media.
Our audience is about 12 years younger than the average English-language TV viewer. They grew up with streaming and social media apps, including for news and sports.
In addition to creating and distributing more FAST channels, we’re also introducing more interactivity to certain reality shows popular among our younger viewers, such as opportunities to vote on the outcome.
Giving young people content they can actually engage with should encourage them to spend more time streaming our shows.
This interview was lightly edited and condensed.
