All for fun: Media to relax to

While many Hispanic consumers buy magazines and visit websites to become informed and to catch up on current events, many are simply looking for entertainment; and a growing number of properties are sprouting up to meet their needs.

Some choose to cater to the sexes, with content tailored for men or women, and both types of publications highlight what is sexy, an arena dear to both groups. Other go for mass appeal, cutting across gender lines and providing content that is compelling to either sex. Meanwhile, there are those that choose to focus on a particular market and to serve as a one stop guide to that market. Whatever the method, this article seeks to parse out what is out there at present, and what approaches are striking success.

Fun for All:

In May of 2005, Emmis Communications launched Tu Ciudad Los Angeles, a bimonthly English-language publication targeted at the growing community of affluent Latinos in the area, which measures approximately three-and-a-half million.

Tu Ciudad is the result of a partnership between Emmis Communications, publisher of Los Angeles Magazine, and publisher Jaime Gamboa, formerly of Wired, and associate publisher Gabriel Grimalt, formerly of Los Angeles' Spanish Broadcasting System. “Tu Ciudad is a fun, energetic, and inspirational guide to the city,” says Gamboa. Although Tu Ciudad—translated “Your City”— is geared toward Latinos, the publishers do see some crossover readership. “Everything in LA is Latino-influenced—from the food and the culture, right down to the street names,” says Gamboa. “As a result, much of the content that is of interest to our Latino audience is also of interest to the wider LA community.”

Apart from serving as a city guide to nightlife and entertainment, Tu Ciudad also covers more serious issues facing the Latino community.

Local Focus:

In New York, the Daily News’ Hora Hispana has been branching out. The paper recently increased its distribution to 250,000 up from 200,000. Hora Hispana is audited by CAC as of September, 2005. With its current circulation, it stands among the largest weekly Hispanic newspapers in the USA.

The paper is delivered door-to-door in areas of high Hispanic concentration, such as northern Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. However the additional 50,000 copies will be allotted to New Jersey's Hudson County, an area with a robust Latino community. The weekly paper arrives bagged and wrapped around all NYC supermarket, drug-store chains, and major retailers' circulars.

The paper includes a monthly section called “Buen Provecho,” which is dedicated to gourmet food and good-living. According to Zaccagno, the section has been quite successful in attracting local advertiser interest from Pathmark, Key Foods and Cibao Meats, among others. Whereas Hora Hispana is a stand-alone, Spanish-language product geared toward first and second-generation Hispanics, Viva New York, the New York Daily News' other Hispanic product, is inserted into the Daily News one Sunday per month. Viva New York is directed towards more acculturated Hispanics: “The key word here is synergy,” explains Zaccagno. “The two magazines are complementary in that they both seek to reach the Hispanic community, but in reality they are two different audiences.”

Zaccagno describes Viva New York as a “Hip, vibrant, four-color magazine with a nice edge to it.” Unlike its Spanish-language counterpart, Viva NY is fully bilingual, with all of its articles appearing in both English and Spanish.

Meanwhile, The Houston Chronicle's Spanish-language entertainment guide La Vibra (Weekly, Spanish, 100,000), has announced that it is increasing its focus on local events and bulking up its event calendar.

La Vibra's National sales manager Loida Ruiz said the magazine is also stepping-up its focus on local advertising: “We are aiming at increasing local advertisers of all sizes, especially retailers, and we are looking to increase national business from brands marketing locally,” Ms. Ruiz told Portada.

The magazine, which recently hired entertainment writer Sindy Funk, now offers four pages of local coverage in its weekly issue. In addition, Ms. Funk is hosting a blog called La Ventana de Sindy on https://www.chron.com/espanol.

La Vibra distributes to predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods via home delivery and retail racks. The entertainment weekly is published in other six markets nationwide by Impremedia, including LA, New York, Chicago, the SF Bay Area, Orlando and Tampa. Impremedia licenses part of La Vibra Houston's content to The Houston Chronicle (La Vibra).

While maintaining a local focus is a good recipe for steady readership among Entertainment publications, others prefer to exploit the differing notions of entertainment that exist between the sexes.

For him:

Hombre is a magazine that—as its name implies— targets Latin men. Its mission is to serve as a forum for successful Latin men by both profiling them and appealing to their lifestyle interests. The magazine brands itself as being “For Men of Passion,” and accordingly tries to include elements that its readership is passionate about, such as “futbol,” travel, food and, of course, beautiful women. Hombre is bilingual, with the articles written in English and then summarized in Spanish. When asked from where the need for a magazine like Hombre comes, Robert Dominguez, editor at large, says, “Today, Hombre is the only magazine of its kind. 

There are publications in Spanish, but Hombre is the only bilingual publication in today's marketplace for Latin men.” Advertisers interested in reaching Hombre’s readers include Absolut, Fruit of the Loom, Harley Davidson, Jose Cuervo and Calvin Klein, among others. Hombre’s distribution relies on subscriptions, newsstand sales, and distribution of promotional copies at events. “Sponsorship and participation in major events is an important focus of the magazine,” adds Dominguez.

Targeting a similar audience as Hombre, and covering more or less the same editorial terrain, Bello is a quarterly magazine with a circulation of around 351,000 copies. Full page ads are available for $26,000. Bello is different in that it is an English-only magazine that attempts to capture some general market readership. Its tagline is simply “Power, Culture and Success,” indicating the market segment that it is going after. Each issue features editorial coverage of politics, art, fashion culture and international. Being a quarterly publication, the magazine tries to cover as much ground as possible, so it also reports on sports, real estate and technology. Last year, Bello partnered with Time Warner Cable to promote the magazine with banner advertising on Time Warner's website, as well as on some of TWC's radio and television properties. Bello currently has a distribution arrangement with HEB stores. The magazine's ad-sales representatives are PanAmerican Communications in the Southeast and HMPM on the West Coast. Its main ad-category is automotive, with Mercury, Honda, BMW and Lexus all advertising.

Maxim en Español, whose general market counterpart helped to redefine the modern men’s magazine, is also rather popular as a Spanish-language edition. Maxim en Español characterizes itself as “Irreverent, sensual, useful and spontaneous,” attributes which its readers would likely want to ascribe to themselves.” It deals with classic men’s interest topics like women, music, technology, sports, autos, etc. and tries to do so in a tongue-in-cheek manner. The monthly magazine is written completely in Spanish, is distributed through subscriptions and newsstands, and has a circulation of 80,000. Interestingly, when the magazine first launched in Spanish, it had a single editorial team for the U.S., Central American, and South American markets. However, they found that the magazine was not resonating the way they thought it should be with their Latino readership.

For one thing, the idioms used by many U.S. and Central American Hispanics are quite different from those used in South America. Today, Maxim en Español has three separate editorial teams: One in Miami, handling the U.S. edition, One in Mexico handling Central America and the Northern Andes region; and one in South America providing content for the Argentina and Chilean markets.

For her:

There is a wealth of entertainment properties catering to Latina women, and the market is highly competitive in both the print and online spaces.

Spanning both print and online, Cosmopolitan en Español and Terra Networks announced a partnership back in January of this year that involves Terra hosting Cosmopolitan en Español's online presence within its “Mujer” channel. “Our audiences are very well aligned demographically, particularly in terms of age and income,” said Terra’s Michele Azan, in an interview with Portada. “Cosmopolitan en Español was looking to enhance their digital strategy, and we were looking to enhance our women's channel, so this was a good fit.” While Cosmopolitan en Español has maintained its monthly print edition, its new website features regularly updated content, such as a web calendar and reader surveys, online. Both Terra and Cosmo offer advertisers integrated packages.

KENA, which launched in April of this year, seeks to become a trusted friend to today’s Hispanic women, offering guidance, support, and inspiration to help readers achieve balance across all areas of their lives.

With 600,000 audited copies per issue, KENA launched with the largest national circulation in its category, appearing on a bi-monthly basis via the Top 8 U.S. Hispanic newspapers: La Opinión in Los Angeles, El Diario la Prensa in New York, La Raza in Chicago, El Nuevo Herald in Miami, Al Día in Dallas, La Voz in Houston, Fronteras in the San Francisco Bay Area, and La Voz in Phoenix. 

KENA’s editorial sections include beauty and fashion, health and well-being, and cooking.  It also features articles on money management, home décor solutions, family and parenting, and lifestyle.

Online Hispanics: A social Group

Social networking among online Hispanics tripled between 2005 and 2006, according to a recent research report by Forrester Research. The report shows that half of online Hispanics partake in at least one of five social computing activities, including blogging, maintaining personal Web pages, and commenting on discussion boards.

At the top of the social networking site list (see below) is MySpace, with 31% of Hispanics visiting at least once a month. The report, written by Forrester’s Tamara Barbers, notes that “The message is clear for interactive marketers: Brands aimed at young Hispanics should tap into social computing activities and include blogs and social networking sites in their media plans.”

Hispanic specific sites, important players for Spanish-dominant Hispanics

When it comes to Spanish-dominant Hispanics, Hispanic specific sites play an important role. These sites include VoyMusic, Batanga, PlanetaTV.com and VoyTV.com.

According to Forrester’s Barber, “Hispanic-focused entertainment sites reach a valuable niche. Brands looking for young, entertainment-focused, Spanish-preferring online Hispanics should still look to the variety of smaller Hispanic-centric sites that cater to this crowd. For instance, McDonald’s, Sprint Nextel, and Chevrolet are all advertisers on Batanga.com.”

Most Visited Websites: Percentage of Hispanics that visit the following websites at least once a week.

Source: Forrester Research

En Fin…

Whether it’s for him, for her, or for everyone, one thing is for sure: Hispanic entertainment magazines and online properties are going strong. New products are launching all the time, and advertiser demand, particularly from the automotive and alcoholic beverage industries, is robust.