How are media holding agencies’ plans for Increased minority media buys panning out so far? We asked several key players on the brand, media agency, and publisher side about how they see brand advertisers supporting media properties targeting minorities and how the plans toward increased investment by major media holdings have been working so far. Views from Jason Riveiro, Larissa Acosta, Gonzalo del Fa, Ivan Adaime and Federico Grinberg.
After the murder of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, a demand consumers have for 2022 and beyond, is that brands support media properties that target diverse and underserved audiences. Members of the brand marketing community agree: “Inclusivity in messaging should be substantial and authentic, but also should include investment in media targeting underserved communities”, says Jason Riveiro, VP Global Service, Realogy.
Larissa Acosta, until recently Segments Team Leader, Integrated Marketing, at Wells Fargo noted that “the change that I would like to see for 2021 and beyond is to move away from total market strategies that try to find places of commonalities and a move towards diverse segment lead strategies that are intentional and focused on the most authentic and relevant messages to build brand affinity and product usage with diverse segments as the designed target.”
“Effective Marketing is about people and relationships. The more we focus on the consumer, their needs, their wants, the greater are our opportunities to impact business outcomes. In key categories including financial services, diverse consumers represent the engine of growth. Multicultural audiences represent 3.2 trillion in spending power. Smart marketers who really understand the business opportunity will seek ways to lead with diverse insights,” Acosta concluded.
The demographic rationale for marketing toward the Hispanic and African American population, and for minority media buys, was strengthened even more with the recent publication of the 2020 Census Results. “The U.S. population is much more multiracial and much more racially and ethnically diverse than what we have measured in the past,” said Nicholas Jones, a Census Bureau official. In States like California, Hispanics became the largest racial or ethnic group, growing from 37.6% to 39.4% from 2010 to 2020, while the share of white people dropped from 40.1% to 34.7%.
Major media buying agencies have announced comprehensive initiatives to increase advertising expense in media owned and targeted to the African American and Hispanic population. GroupM made a 2% pledge, calling on its clients to invest at least that amount of their annual media spend in diverse and Black-owned media. The program includes a 2+% Pledge and “Diverse Voices Accelerator” positive impact fund that begins with an initial focus on Black-owned media. This pledge invites GroupM clients to invest at least two percent (2%) of their total annual media budgets in Black-owned media. Invitations and planning are active now, with activation projected in the next 12 months. In 2020, Black-owned media companies saw less than 2% of total ad spend, despite Black consumers representing 13% of the population,
IPG’s Mediabrands recently pledged to spend a minimum of 5% on Black-owned media across its client portfolio by 2023 and held its first upfront for Black-owned and targeted media companies in March. The goal is to help lift spending on Black-focused media, which last year was less than 2% of the total, according to Nielsen Ad Intel data cited by IPG. Black consumers make up at least 13% of the population, but available impressions for Black-owned media are equal to 3% of the total impressions available among all media types, according to data compiled by sister agency Magna.
While Dentsu hasn’t made a specific pledge to increase minority media buys, it has established a division to consult with and support minority-owned media businesses and “establish client benchmarks to reach diverse media audiences,” a company announcement said. Dentsu also announced that it will limit payment terms for minority-owned media to 30 days, a move that was more than welcomed by players in the multicultural media industry.
Dentsu said that it was inspired to shift from the industry-standard payment terms of 60 and up to 120 days by General Motors, which was the first to offer updated payment terms earlier this year.
Curated Marketplaces
Havas Media, Publicis and GroupM each launched curated media marketplaces representing black, Hispanic, LGBTQ+ and other minority-owned publishers, as well as publishers that create content specifically for underrepresented communities. Havas Media’s social equity private marketplace represents roughly 250 publishers with minority and LGBTQ+ owners, including Blavity, MadameNoire and Black Enterprise. Moen and Michelin have signed on as inaugural spenders.
Clients can access GroupM’s marketplace both programmatically and directly. It includes 300 publishers that are Black- and Hispanic-owned or focused, such as Essence, Oprah Magazine and Atlanta Black Star. GroupM declined to name clients using the marketplace.
GroupM’s Gonzalo del Fa, President GroupM Multicultural, tells Portada that one of the difficulties of knowing where the ratio between Hispanic-owned media digital media impressions and overall U.S. digital impressions lies is that there is no official data of many minority-owned media properties. The recent publication by the ANA, Nielsen and The Media Framework of a comprehensive and validated diverse-owned media list in the industry may help in this regard.
Regarding how GroupM’s commitment to increase ad expenditure in minority-owned (Black and Hispanic) media has panned out so far, del Fa says that it is too early to say as GroupM is currently undertaking its first analysis of the initiative.
Minority Media Buys: Doing the Talk but not the Walk (For Now)
What do Hispanic and African American media owners say? Are monies really being invested in minority media? Asked about whether he sees an increased investment coming from media buying agencies or their curated marketplaces, Ivan Adaime, CEO of Spanish-language publisher Impremedia, answers with two unequivocal “no’s”.
Earlier this year, ImpreMedia issued an open letter to advertisers and media agencies calling to an end of the discrimination in advertising towards U.S. Hispanic and ethnic media.
“We are not seeing a significant increase in expenditure towards Hispanic from top media agencies. We are seeing some direct advertisers increasing their expenditure towards Hispanics,” says Federico Grinberg, EVP of Playmaker, the owner of Hispanic targeted soccer fans sites Futbolsites.com.
Asked about whether he is getting more business from curated marketplaces Grinberg notes that there is “no significant shift.” He adds that he expects to “see an impact for Q4, and for 2022 with the FIFA World Cup.”
Looking at data provided by Statista which puts U.S. digital advertising spending at US $130 billion in 2020 and Hispanic digital advertising spending at US $ 1.5 billion, we arrive at a percentage of Hispanic spend vs. overall expenditures of 1.15%. Quite a low ratio, to say the least….
