Participants at last week’s 14th Annual Marketing to U.S. Hispanics and Latin Americans, organized by Strategic Research Institute (SRI) told Portada that an increasing—although still very low number of Hispanic advertising agencies—are putting more emphasis in understanding and buying digital media. Those agencies include Starcom Media Vest (SMG United), Lopez Negrete, Latinworks and The Vidal Partnership. Currently, Hispanics on average spend 18% of their time online at the expense of TV and radio.
Mike DeGennaro, National Sales Manager at MSN Latino, said that General Motors, Ford, Nissan, Toyota, Verizon, AT&T, Comida Kraft and McDonalds are companies that he sees as committed to using the online vehicle to target Hispanics.
Alejandro Rodriguez, VP of Sales of Starmedia added that he also sees more advertisers from the Entertainment/Movie category entering the market. And, interestingly, the the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy also is clearly present in the Hispanic Internet. Mary Zerafa, Vice President Strategy of Impremedia Digital, noted that she sees a lot of interest and online advertising in the Automotive, Finance and Travel categories. She added that Ford, through its agency Zubi Advertising, did an interesting program through which Impremedia developed micro-sites online and also advertised Ford in La Vibra, Impremedia’s national youth/entertainment magazine.
Adam Chandler, Executive Director Yahoo! Hispanic Americas, who moderated the panel, asked panelists which type of organization they do most business with: client, general market agency or multicultural agency. Mike deGennaro noted that in his case it is a 50% split between general market and hispanic advertising agencies.
Yahoo/Telemundo’s Chandler added that he is going to some companies directly, without agency mediation.
Successful campaigns he cited were: Astra Zeneca, sponsored Yahoo/Telemundo’s Tu Salud channel last year and GE Money (Tu Dinero channel).