Yahoo! announced the promotion of Javier Garcia (photo) to the newly created position of general manager of the U.S. Hispanic business, reporting into Armando Rodriguez, Yahoo¹s vice president and managing director for Latin America and US Hispanic. Prior to his current role, Javier was the market development director for Yahoo! Hispanic Americas, leading the organization responsible for producing leading-edge digital branded entertainment and advertising solutions in the region.
Portada conducted an interview with Garcia to learn about his plans for Yahoo USH.
Portada: From the 75% of the total number of Hispanics who turn to Yahoo sites on a monthly basis, how many (or %) go to Yahoo's English sites and how many to Yahoo En Español for USH and how many to Latam Yahoo sites?
Javier Garcia, general manager of U.S. Hispanic business Yahoo!: “According to comScore, the Yahoo! network reaches 25.5 million unique U.S. Hispanics per month, with more than two million unique Hispanics visiting Yahoo! en Español every month and other half-million plus unique U.S. Hispanics visiting our Yahoo! Mexico, Yahoo! Argentina, and other Spanish-language sites.”
Portada: What is your strategy to reach out to English dominant Latinos?
Javier Garcia,: “ We are producing a complete Hispanic offering in both Spanish and English by introducing nodes to our Hispanic users based on their Hispanic content preferences, attitudes and behaviors. Yahoo! provides a customized experience tailored to people’s interests. Yahoo!'s proprietary content optimization and Relevance Engine (CORE) creates a personalized experiences for users and it surfaces the stories the individuals are most likely to be interested in. On average, there are more than 45,000 variations of the Yahoo! homepage every five minutes, adding up to over 13 million variations each day. CORE processes more than 2.2 billion requests per day. Additionally, through our Latina and Ethnographic studies conducted here at Yahoo!, we know that references to language, food habits, family or anything that defines Hispanic ethnicity are a powerful level to engage and produce deep emotional connections with our Hispanic users.”
Portada: How many members does the Hispanic team have? Are you planning to expand the team? Javier Garcia: “I can’t t break out the specifics, but can tell you that in 2011, we continued to increase the size of US Hispanic team across the editorial, operational, marketing, sales, and market development fronts. In 2012, we will amplify our growth and are currently hiring more of the best and brightest Hispanic editorial voices and sales account leads. At Yahoo!, we also have the unique ability to leverage relevant content and synergies from our Latin American and U.S. operations. We leverage our experts, partnerships and talented people from across the organization to create and curate the most relevant and personalized content and services for the needs of our US Hispanic audience.”
