Sergio Salinas, a Hispanic and General Market Newspaper veteran, just assumed his new position as publisher of El Paso Times and CEO of Media News' Texas New Mexico Newspaper Group. We conducted the following Interview with him.
Portada: What are your plans for El Paso Times?
Sergio Salinas: My plans are to work with the senior management team to help reinvigorate the brand, reconnect with our core values and re-establish relevance with the consumer and our advertisers as the pre-eminent voice of the border for the regional marketplace.
Portada: How will your experience in the Hispanic Newspaper Market affect your plans for El Pasto Times- Texas New Mexico Newspaper Group?
Sergio Salinas: My intent is to learn and understand the strategic approach the Texas New Mexico Newspaper Group has undertaken. It is important to me to explore how the current strategies were formulated and what the expected outcomes were supposed to be. After I discover what they are, then I will be in a better position to determine where my experience and talents can complement the team and drive the direction.
Portada: What Hispanic specific products are in the pipeline?
Sergio Salinas: We already have initiated several print and online Hispanic solutions such as El Paso y Mas. Again, our first option is to take them to the next level. We expect to leverage our current relationships with strategic partners and explore the multi-media bundled solutions model.
Portada: How do you plan to revive National Advertising for El Paso Times?
Sergio Salinas: We have a compelling story to tell about the Texas New Mexico region. Our mission is to be flexible and help the national advertiser see the possibilities of leveraging our robust and attractive audience to drive their business. We do this by offering regional multi-media bundled solutions for the El Paso Designated Market that includes print, on-line and digital. We are also exploring developing strategic relationships to sell our audiences as part of a larger network buy.
Portada: What is your view point on local search what are you doing in that realm?
Sergio Salinas: The local realm a critical and important key to our success. We desire to be the ultimate leader in providing local content in whatever platform the consumer desires. Our approach is to develop solutions that attract local and regional audiences that we can then sell to advertisers who desire to reach them.
Portada: Having worked at a Hispanic Advertising Agency what is your point of view about the current controversy of Hispanic advertising agencies vs. General Market agencies in the competition for clients?
Sergio Salinas: Creative Civilization is not a Hispanic ad agency. It is a hybrid agency that does both general market and Hispanic market advertising. I believe the battle is going in both directions. General market agencies are trying to play in the Hispanic market sandbox and Hispanic agencies are confident that they can play in the general market sandbox.
