Over 174 online marketers and media outlets gathered Thursday afternoon to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, or rather Clicko-de-Mayo, at a half-day event organized by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB.) Attendance to the event was greater than expected, so organizers had to hold it at the KMPG offices in midtown Manhattan, and not at the IAB headquarters as planned originally.
Leading the initiative was Seneca Mudd, IAB’s Director for Industry Initiatives, who told Portada he hopes to make the Clicko de Mayo event an annual occurrence. The IAB is the trade association for digital communications, a sector estimated at over $25 billion.
IAB’s Clicko de Mayo event was sponsored by Telemundo, Terra, ImpreMedia and Univision, and -not surprisingly- all of those outlets had a chance to present their insights and findings on the growing U.S. Hispanic online opportunity. Presenters included Borja Pérez, vp of digital media at Telemundo; Mary Zerafa, corporate director of marketing at ImpreMedia; Liz Sarachek Blacker, the recently appointed Chief Revenue Officer at Terra and Charlie Echeverry, evp of interactive media sales at Univision.
The sessions focused on several topics from mobile to language choice and advertising, with most pointing at the latest U.S. Census results as the ultimate validation of the growing market. Still, towards the end of the session, Telemundo’s Pérez and Google Hispanic’s Mark López took questions from the audience and informally polled the room only to conclude most where already doing business in the U.S. Hispanic space: “See? We’re preaching to the choir,” said Pérez. “This is why we are going to go to ANA this year and make noise, a lot of noise,” he added.
The discussion included an interesting debate about the budgets actually spent against the Hispanic market. Upon a question by Portada, panelists concluded that out of the total estimated $25 billion spent on online advertising in 2010, barely $300 million was spent on Hispanic initiatives, a figure most agreed only show there is plenty of room to grow.
The conference concluded with a cocktail reception at the lavish Sea Grill, in the heart of Rockefeller Center, where guests were treated to specially mixed cocktails courtesy of sponsors: Telemundo Sunrise; Terra Firme, IMPRE-rita and UniTini.
