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Foro Portada Mexico: Do Mexican media have an advantage in the U.S. Hispanic market?

There are more than 50.5 million U.S. Hispanics. Actually, mucho more if undocumented Hispanics are included. Approximately 70% of U.S. Hispanics are of Mexican origin. Do Mexican companies have an advantage when marketing to the U.S. Hispanic market as a result of this demographic reality? A panel organized during this week’s Foro Portada Mexico examined if and how Mexican companies, particularly Mexican media companies, can successfully enter the U.S. Hispanic market.

Content

There are more than 50.5 million U.S. Hispanics. Actually, the figure is much higher if undocumented Hispanics are included. Approximately 70% of U.S. Hispanics are of Mexican origin. Do Mexican companies have an advantage when marketing to the U.S. Hispanic market as a result of this demographic reality? A panel organized during this week’s Foro Portada Mexico examined if and how Mexican companies, particularly Mexican media companies, can successfully enter the U.S. Hispanic market.

Many media companies have tried. Many, too, have failed – take Editorial Armonia’s backed Megazines Publications, for instance. Other ventures, like Televisa’s “telenovela’ format have been regarded as very successful.  

Asked about his experience in exporting Diario de México, a domestic Mexican daily newspaper, to the U.S. Hispanic market, panelist Federico Bracamontes, publisher of said medium, told us: “Fue una locura” (“It was an insanity”). “We had to start from scratch. It’s a big mistake to expect that launching a newspaper in the U.S. Hispanic market will produce the same results as in Mexico. The Mexican community in the United States is not Mexico!” After many years of work, Diario de México USA was the only ABC audited newspaper that was able to grow its circulation in 2011 along with The Washington Post, according to Bracamontes,

Diario de Mexico USA has two editions: one in New York and one in Chicago.

The content of each of these issues reflects the very different communities of Mexican Americans that live in both U.S. cities. In New York, the Mexican community is mostly composed of first or second generation immigrants from Puebla, Oaxaca and Guerrero, while Mexican Americans living in Chicago have lived there 60 years on average and are fourth or fifth generations immigrants. Most  Mexican Americans living in Chicago come from the Michoacan and Zacatecas regions. “Many of them have their own house and manage their own business,” Bracamontes noted.

Hyperlocal Content

In the age of hyperlocal media, and the recent failure of several hyperlocal digital media ventures, Diario Mexico USA’s content strategy is noteworthy. Bracamontes explained that his company’s content approach to the U.S. Hispanic market is hyperlocal. In the light of the different composition of the Mexican American audience in New York and Chicago and its different content needs, Diario Mexico USA created a system Bracamontes calls “the information turbine”. Two different editions (Chicago and New York) are produced in the newsroom of Diario de Mexico in Mexico City. One edition contains news from the regions of origin of Mexicans in New York and, another one, is customized for Chicago. These editions are then sent to Diario Mexico USA’s offices in Chicago and New York. A team in each of the cities then adds local news about the Mexican community to the editions which are printed at local printing plants.  The result is that content is not only tailored to each specific audience but also produced at less expensive Mexican salaries.

Newspaper distribution in New York City and Chicago is outsourced. However, Diario de Mexico USA does have a local and national advertising sales force in the U.S.

 

 

 

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