 Jason Klein |
 Mike Cano |
Newspaper National Network LP (NNN), a marketing and sales partnership owned by the top 25 newspaper companies in America just announced a new Hispanic initiative: A Hispanic newspaper network. It has been quite some time since major general market newspaper companies have exclusively focused on the Hispanic demographic. During the early part of last decade general market newspaper giants launched and acquired several dailies and weeklies targeting. Hispanics. NNN provides major advertisers with planning and placement support across over 9,000 newspapers for print and online. Its NNN's shareholder companies own most all major market newspapers, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post.
We spoke to Jason Klein, President and CEO of NNN and Mike Cano, the new director of Hispanic Media at NNN. Klein tells us that during regular Board Meetings with NNN’s shareholder newspaper companies they established the Hispanic market and the mobile medium as the main areas of expansion for NNN during the next few years. Until now NNN had done business selling advertising against the Hispanic demographic, but had no dedicated resources in the Hispanic market. Now, after the hiring of Mike Cano as Hispanic Director, NNN’s goal is to increase newspaper market share (including newspapers digital and mobile properties) in the overall Hispanic media mix. According to Kantar Media data, Hispanic newspapers had advertising revenue of US$ 712 million last year. Mike Cano estimates that approximately 40% of that amount is national advertising. The total Hispanic advertising market is estimated by Kantar at $6.5 billion. Both Klein and Cano doubt that that newspapers get their fair share in overall Hispanic advertising.
The Network
Virtually any Hispanic newspaper associated with general market newspaper chains is included in NNN’s Hispanic network: including El Nuevo Herald (McClatchy) Hoy Los Angeles, Hoy Chicago (Tribune), Al Dia (Belo) and La Voz de Houston (Hearst). But the network buy is not only available to NNN’s member newspapers. “The network is open to everybody”, Cano says. He names ImpreMedia newspapers as an important partner, other examples include Chicago’s Extra and Mc Allen’s El Periodico USA.
“Its our job to drive market share. We provide a template free of charge to the advertising community in order to bring scale into the marketplace.” The new Hispanic newspaper network is also going to market Hispanic audiences of general market newspapers and websites. The main emphasis is going to be placed in targeting national and retail advertising accounts for both ROP and FSI advertising.
According to Cano, “the reception has been overwhelming” as both the advertising and newspaper community like NNN’s approach.
Mobile Future
Jason Klein notes that one of the areas the NNN is looking into is a Hispanic mobile network. According to Klein, mobile is a terrific medium to impact transaction and over time may get to be a bigger advertising vehicle than the web, particularly in the Hispanic market.
