Goldman Sachs recently published a report called "U.S. Hispanization." The report says spending by Hispanics will increase in four sectors, one of which is financial services. The others: housing, retail and health care. But as Harriet Johnson Brackey, a columnist at South Florida’s Sun-Sentinel, recently asked: “Will the financial services sector be there to welcome them?” Some institutions, such as Bank of America, are there now, but not many sophisticated, multicultural efforts now target the Hispanic community, whose wealth and income are growing.”
Terra Networks’ Advertising Director Michelle Azan says that there was a a surge in financial advertisers targeting Hispanics online a few years ago during the real estate boom, then it went quiet. “Now, what we are seeing are the financial advertisers coming back.” Azan cites banking, insurance, credit cards as growing categories. Terra’s channels of particular interest to financial advertisers are: “Casa” (Housing), “Empleo” (Employment) and “Mi Dinero” (My Money).
There is an increasing amount of media catering to Hispanics and Latin Americans with specific business and financial content. These properties include relatively large magazines, like Hispanic Enterprise, published by Televisa Publishing, and Hispanic Business, the latter magazine being the oldest large publication in the market as well as the largest in terms of advertising revenues. Hispanic Enterprise and Hispanic Business mostly publish how-to stories for the Hispanic business owner, somewhat modeled after the general market’s Inc.
Poder, also published by Televisa Publishing, targets the US Hispanic and Latin American business elite.
Content in Spanish
While English is the language of business, for many U.S. Hispanics and even for many Latin Americans, some media properties prefer to publish in Spanish.
The Wall Street Journal Americas—the branded pages of The Wall Street Journal that are published in 18 major Latin American newspapers with a total circulation of 1.7 million—recently expanded its partnership to include the websites of many of its partner newspapers in Latin America. “Financial advertisers are very important clients,” says Mauricio Pereira, ad sales director of The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal Americas was started by Dow Jones in 1994, and is currently published in 16 countries. In 2004, Dow Jones started a similar effort in the U.S. Hispanic market.
Hispanic Target (circ. 15,000, monthly) is another Spanish-language business publication, and is present mostly in the Florida market, although it has expansion plans into other parts of the U.S, including Washington, Chicago and New York. The publication got financing at the end of 2006 from former Tiempo Latino (Washington) owner, Armando Chapelli, who bought a 51% stake in the company. The publication currently has an Orlando edition and recently hired an ad-sales team, including an ad-sales person in Costa Rica who plans to capitalize on the increasing interest of Costa Ricans and Central Americans in Florida.
Eduardo Hapke, publisher of Hispanic Target, bets that national advertisers—and local and regional advertisers—will be enticed by the relatively low cost of a full-page ad in the publication. A full-page in te magazine runs $1,500, and is a great deal compared to the cost to run in other national Hispanic business publications (e.g. Hispanic Business or Televisa Publishing’s Poder), which can reach the several thousands.
Financial News
There are not that many U.S. Hispanic business publications in Spanish, and even less focused exclusively on the financial markets. One of the very few Spanish-language publications is Mercado de Dinero, which is published by the Spanish consumer group Ausbanc in five different countries: Spain, USA, Venezuela, Colombia and the United Kingdom. With this many international editions, it is truly a pan-regional publication.
The anchor publication is in Spain, where it is published biweekly. Outside Spain, different national editions are published on a monthly basis. Manouch Neme, executive director of Mercado de Dinero USA, tells Portada: “We are 100% focused on entrepreneurs and Hispanic business people. Some of our content is shared with the other editions but a large part of it is local content.”
The Pembroke Pines, FL-based edition of the publication has a circulation of 30,000 and is distributed for free to Florida financial institutions. Mercado de Dinero USA also works together with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to distribute the publication nationwide.
Panregional Buys
Neme adds that she is able to sell Mercado de Dinero USA advertising to many Spanish and Venezuelan companies. At the same time many Florida-based real estate companies are interested in reaching buyers in Venezuela, Spain and Colombia through Mercado de Dinero’s editions in those countries. Main advertising clients of Mercado de Dinero USA include New York Life, Coldwell Banker and AFLAC.
Related Article:
Financial News in Spanish for U.S. Hispanics, Venezuelans, Colombians and Spaniards (December, ’07)
