Some stories the Hispanic advertising world is talking about this week.
» Forbes wants more Multicultural Agencies taking General Market assignments…
An article in Forbes claims that marketers are not willing enough to retain an ethnic shop for general market assignment. “Marketers are seemingly willing to accept the failure of their relationship with a general-market shop every 3 years on average, but are not willing enough to retain an ethnic shop for general-market assignment, even though work created by multicultural agencies targeting ethnic audiences often resonates equally well with general market consumers.” Forbes’ Avi Dan who in the article also reports about the recent 4A’s conference also argues that Multicultural Agencies are not allowed to compete on an even playing field: “While in a few categories you can see a multicultural agency landing an Agency Of Record, or lead agency, assignments, it is extremely rare for a multi-cultural shop to be retained as an AOR for general-market assignment.”
» but ESPN first Spanish language Ad in “regular” ESPN was created by a General Market Agency! Ha!
Robinson Cano stars in ESPN’s latest “This is Sports Center” Spanish-language ad, premiering this Wednesday, just in time for MLB’s opening day. According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, it is the first time a Spanish-language spot runs on the “regular” ESPN as opposed to ESPN Deportes. But Portada’s Senior Correspondent Laura Martinez writes in her blog Miblogestublog that “Hispanic creative people shouldn’t start jumping up and down in joy: The spot was not conceived by a so-called Hispanic agency, using Hispanic insights and the like. It was created by the New York office of Widen & Kennedy, because as everybody knows now, it is no longer necessary to be an ‘ethnic agency’ to do ‘ethnic work’.”
» Denver Post bets on Local First
Check out the front page of today’s Denver Post, Jim Romenesko says. “What they’ve done there is interesting for such a major metro paper. Starting today, the front page is actually the local section, what used to be called “Denver & the West” and the national stuff (the stuff we’ve already read online yesterday) is relegated to the second section, where the local news used to be.” There is a note to Readers: “To Our Readers: We’re making some changes to your Denver Post starting today. You’ll notice that we have reordered the sections. Every day except Sunday, the front page and the first part of section a generally will be devoted to our metro report, what we call Denver & the West. This change is an effort to reflect our continued emphasis on local new, including our business report.”
» Texterity acquired by Godengo
Digital magazine developer Texterity, a competitor to companies including Zinio and Nxtbook, has been acquired by Godengo, Folio has learned. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Godengo CEO Peter Stilson and Texterity president Carl Scholz declined to offer any further detail, but Godengo just secured a Series C round led by New Science Ventures that paid for the acquisition and will provide capital for further product and services growth. The combined company, which will undergo a rebranding in the next few months, says it now provides services to 1,200 titles owned by 500 publishers in the U.S., Canada and Australia. The deal also gives each company instant access into new publishing markets. Texterity has been strong in the b-to-b vertical while Godengo, which Stilson says has grown its customer base 500 percent in the last three years, has made inroads in the consumer market.
» MPA Maps out Voluntary Metric Guidelines for Tablet Editions Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) is trying to unify the different metrics on table usage.
MPA, along with a bevy of C-level consumer magazine executives, released a set of voluntary guidelines to help standardize advertising within tablet editions, Folio reports. Publisher reps from Bonnier, Conde Nast, Forbes, Hearst Magazines, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Meredith and Time Inc. are included in the MPA Tablet Metrics Task Force. With the help of MPA and input of seven advertising agencies, the Force solidified the following as the first five recommended metrics for quantifying the digital publishing field:
1. Total consumer paid digital issues
2. The total number of tablet readers per issue
3. The total number of sessions per issue
4. The total time spent per reader per issue
5. The average number of sessions per reader per issue
These metrics also come with a recommended reporting time: the release of metrics to advertisers 10 weeks from newsstand on-sale dates for monthlies; and a recommendation of seven weeks for weekly publications. These time frames allow for four weeks to collect data, and two weeks to analyze the results.
