What: Horizon Media has launched a dedicated multicultural social solution led by Karina Dobarro and Pedro L. Rodriguez.
Why it matters: This new multicultural social practice will maximize brand influence for agency’s clients across multicultural audiences through organic engagements, influencer relationships and strategic paid media.
Horizon Media, the privately held media services agency, announced that it is launching a dedicated multicultural social solution to help the agency’s clients maximize brand influence through organic engagements, influencer relationships and strategic paid media within the multicultural space. The newly formed practice will be led by 
Karina Dobarro, VP, Managing Director, and Pedro L. Rodriguez, Director, Social Strategy and Influence, at Horizon Media.
Horizon Media, currently the 7th largest U.S. Hispanic Media Agency according to Advertising Age, will marry its multicultural capabilities with those of its robust social practice to activate across six key areas within the multicultural segment: social intelligence, authentic conversation, influencer marketing, paid amplification, reputation management and compelling content.
“The multicultural market, which currently accounts for 40% of the U.S. population and growing according to the Census, will continue to drive consumer growth,” said Pedro L. Rodriguez, Director, Social Strategy and Influence, Horizon Media. “Our goal is to enable our clients to connect with the array of multicultural communities through authentic conversations to increase awareness, consideration, advocacy and loyalty. This new capability is a way for us to expand the existing Spanish language paid social media work we have executed for clients for example, into a more robust portfolio of multicultural social services.”
“Young multiculturals are an empowered segment driving innovation and growth across a multitude of social platforms,” said Karina Dobarro, VP, Managing Director, Multicultural, Horizon Media. “Engaging this coveted segment requires authentic social content that is inclusive, in-culture and often in-language. We recognize the untapped potential of this multicultural audience of ‘super-users,’ and will launch our multicultural social practice to efficiently reach this group in impactful ways on behalf of our clients.”
Multicultural men and women represent a massive segment of the influencer space today– and as “Super Consumers,” multicultural audiences represent US$3.4 trillion in consumer spending today, according to Nielsen. The new offering will help align Horizon’s brands with both the growing cohort of multicultural influencers on social media and the multicultural consumer population by uncovering digital intelligence to build better brand stories, create a social media foundation to drive strategy, extend branch reach and reputation, and build experiences on behalf of Horizon’s clients.
“What’s great about social media is that we can swiftly test and learn through audience interactions and insights to develop strategies and ongoing optimization strategies based on performance,” continued Pedro L. Rodriguez, Director, Social Strategy and Influence, Horizon Media. “From there, we can provide recommendations to our clients which can even drive product and service innovation from the ground up.”
Horizon’s social practice is comprised of over 30 specialists (including six bilingual specialists), and is fully integrated within the agency’s larger planning teams to strategically leverage social media content and learnings for integrated media campaigns across all facets of the organization.
