Mundial Sports Network, a leading Latino sports network with magazines like Futbol and Beisbol as well as digital properties like VidaLatina.com, FutbolMundial.com, BeisbolMundial.com and BoxeoMundial.com, and YipTV, a live Internet TV platform that specializes in providing affordable, real-time content for Latinos, have a common goal: connecting underserved Hispanic audiences with the content they want. Out of this objective emerged a unique partnership grounded in a marketing strategy based on both digital campaigns and grass-roots efforts. We talk to Michael Tribolet, CEO of YipTV, about how this collaboration “elevates” both of their marketing efforts.
Reaching Underserved Hispanic Audiences
Mundial and YipTV’s collaboration started out of a need to find innovative ways to reach and serve Hispanic audiences who have often been abused by service providers. Latinos who want to watch their favorite sports, entertainment and news programs from back home have limited options, as many of them do not have credit cards to subscribe to OTT services, but can’t afford to pay for cable, either. After investing in YipTV, Mundial took it a step further and came up with a plan to work together toward their shared objectives.
Mundial has developed content for the same Latino through its free magazines and website for Latino boxing fans. Beisbol and Futbol magazines are distributed at local Florida bodegas, small community grocery stores, for free, generating a powerful and attractive reach into Latino audiences.
And West Palm Beach-based YipTV has also found a place in local Florida bodegas. The platform wants Hispanics to be able to watch the content they want regardless of their status with a bank. To avoid the credit card issue, YipTV offers the option to pay for subscriptions in cash in over 16,000 Florida bodegas. New users can try 55 out of their 110 channels for free for the first week, and then the user has the option of paying $15 a month for the full programming or forgoing a subscription to access 15 free channels that cover sports, news and entertainment.
The deal is refreshing for Hispanic viewers who are used to being charged for links to see their favorite football tournaments or telenovelas, only to find that the links are broken or that the entire deal was a scam. They are understandably skeptical, and earning their trust and loyalty is no easy task.
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YipTV Attracted to Mundial’s Unique and Targeted Reach
Mundial has created a habit out of creating partnerships that put their assets to the service of new ventures or platforms whose objectives align with theirs. Over the recent years, the network has incorporated powerful targeting and data analysis and segmenting platforms into its toolbox and built an in-house creative team that they can leverage for platforms like YipTV in exchange for promotion and ad space on its platforms.
The deal with bodegas is also huge, since it affords them a way to “zoom into small ecosystems” like large cable companies cannot. “Mundial has a tremendous amount of experience in the Hispanic Market segment, not only here in the USA but on a global basis,” Tribolet asserts. The collaboration makes sense, because “the online and offline publications touched the very customers that we are targeting.”
Tribolet went on to explain that they are targeting Latinos that want a very specific mix of content. His wife, for example, was born in Cuba, and moved to the United States as an exclusively Spanish speaker. Now she’s fully acculturated, and in a sense, considers both English and Spanish her native languages. This is typical of today’s Latino: they want a mix of content that reminds them of home but speaks to their experiences as Hispanics in the United States, specifically.
The Bodega: A “Small Ecosystem” and Home Away from Home
Tribolet points to bodegas as “a big part of the un-bankable ecosystem” that they make use of as their bank, grocery store, and most importantly community updates.”
YipTV only began accepting payments at bodegas a month ago, but part of its strategy is to make these “great reference centers for what is going on in their community” central to marketing campaigns, sending actual staff to talk to people while conducting other standard marketing exercises like monitoring social media conversations about YipTV’s offerings. And knowing that their ads appear in Mundial’s free magazines, which fly off the shelves, they are sure to connect with the Hispanic sports fan.
In the end, Tribolet is certain that this type of collaboration is innovative and effective because YipTV and Mundial Network “both have the same customer base with complimentary services.”
“Their publications along with our advertisement and marketing efforts allow us to rise the tides together rather than separately. While Mundial helps inform the customers with information on what is going on, YipTV is providing the service to watch what they are talking about,” Tribolet asserts.
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