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Feeding the Hispanic Video Appetite

Content

WALT WHITE, meet Walter Blanco. The meth cook/criminal mastermind/chemistry teacher will live again, as Sony and Teleset remake Breaking Bad in Spanish for audiences in Latin American and the United States. Mainstream producers are waking up to something multicultural media have known for quite a while: Hispanics love video. Advertisers are hungry for this audience, and content creators can barely keep up. If you produce premium video that appeals to Hispanics, life is good.

If you can reach Hispanics across multiple devices, life is even better. In October, Telemundo released Telemundo NOW, a digital portal and mobile app that let cable subscribers watch full episodes of Telemundo’s programs in HD on any device. Telemundo NOW is just the latest step in Telemundo’s bold move into digital. Last year, it broke new ground with Mia Mundo, its bilingual web series with brand integrations for Verizon and Chevy.

This year, it upped the digital ante by featuring Mia Mundo content of all kinds on nearly every medium. The novella – along with Chevy car brands – was featured in trailers on Telemundo, as well as on the station’s morning show; and alternative endings were put up for a vote on Telemundo.com and social media, with the winning ending revealed on TV.

In addition to the actual episodes, bonus scenes, actor interview and bios, photo galleries and music packages appeared online and on mobile via Telemundo.com and miamundo.com.

Because Telemundo produces its own programming, “We have a tremendous amount of content that can play out on TV, mobile or gaming devices,” says Peter Blacker, executive vice president of Telemundo Digital Media and Emerging Businesses Division, Telemundo. “It allows us a chance to get our audience even further connected with our content.” It also allows Telemundo to offer custom video content and deep integration across platforms for sponsors like Chevy.

Blacker says, “We are taking our video to market across multiple platforms. We will work with ad partners to sponsor the television show, website video, mobile, VOD, as well as our TelemundoMas video. Consumers can have one consistent relationship with that content.”

Another online video fan is Gabriel Sama, Managing Editor of CNET en Español, the recently launched Spanish-language sister site to CNET, the tech media website that publishes reviews, news and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. “Video has played a big role at CNET throughout the years and Español is going to leverage that experience, offering the best quality Spanish-language tech reviews and information,” Sama tells Portada®.

Filling the Breach
Content like Telemundo’s and CNET en español is gold for advertisers trying to reach Hispanic consumers. “When it comes to really relevant content, whether in Spanish or English, there definitely has been a lack,” says Marla Skiko, EVP and director of digital innovation for SMG Multicultural, a unit of StarcomMediaVest. “The biggest fact marketers need to realize is that there is such a strong overconsumption of video among these consumers. The indices are astounding – the propensity for not only viewing but also sharing.”

Those 50 million Hispanics living in the United States spend 68% more time watching video on the Internet and 20% more time watching video on their mobile phones than the general population, according to Nielsen. Even better, they are more likely to purchase everything from apparel to stocks using mobile devices, according to Experian.

“Match the dearth of content to the desirability of this audience, and you get premium prices for Hispanic video content,” says Jorg Nowak, head of Latin America and US Hispanic for YuMe. “CPMs are very strong, and I predict they will become even stronger. It’s a great problem to have.”

John Trainor, general manager and publisher at Hoy Chicago, agrees: “In very simple terms, CPM’s on video are going for double the price of traditional banner ads however the real business plan comes from building capabilities that enable traditional newsrooms to build engaged audiences through multiple formats with only marginal increments in cost structures by incorporating video into the production flow. It’s not about pre-rolls, its much more than that.”

Market analysis by one automotive company found that perception of three brands was lower among His- panic consumers than among the general population. That hurt, especially since sales of new vehicles grew 28% year-over-year from 2011 to 2012. In June, the auto maker launched pre-roll video campaigns on a custom Hispanic channel on YuMe’s Connected Audience Network, with impressive results. (YuMe isn’t authorized to name the brand.)

“When Hispanics buy a car, it’s a family decision. The entire family comes to the lot and experiences the car. We wanted to replicate that and transfer that to our ad business,” says Nowak. “[The advertiser’s] problem was that the public perceived the brand as being lower in quality, so the campaign objective was to use digital video to create an engaging experience to bring to life the virtues that the car had.”

The video advertising platform created three custom channels for the car maker. On selected sites, video ads for one brand targeted Hispanics aged 25 to 54 with children in the household; second targeted Hispanic consumers aged 18 to 49; the third targeted Hispanics aged 25 to 54. The campaigns garnered a 91% video completion rate, which is 20% higher than the category’s 76% norm, according to YuMe.

Reaching Hispanic consumers is complicated by several things, according to Skiko, including their use of both mainstream and targeted video content, as well as the increasing number of Hispanics for whom English is the preferred or only language. “Because how do I know you’re Hispanic? You know who the user is but how do you know their ethnicity. It’s a bit of a data quandary,” she says.

For example, among the most popular YouTube channels among Hispanics, only one, Machinima, is overtly Hispanic-centric.

Content Targeting
Simply providing content Hispanics will like is one solution to finding them online. Hispanics’ favorite YouTube channel, VEVO, reaches them with a simple, targeted-content approach. It works.

“Music is important to the Hispanic community. Typically we are targeting according to the content itself,” says Jonathan Carson, chief revenue officer. VEVO has a content channel structure that lets brands focus ads on those that skew toward Hispanic audiences; they can also choose to sponsor specific artists.

VEVO also creates custom content tailored to a specific brand’s interests, notably in its Go Shows, which marry live events with digital video. GO Shows are unannounced concert performances in intimate venues; the music video site records the shows for replay on-demand. Its GO Show with Belinda at Los Angeles’ Skybar, sponsored by T-Mobile, drew more than 3 million views between April and June of this year. T-Mobile had a presence at the concert, and its video ads were delivered as pre-rolls when the more than 3 million viewers watch online.

Coors Light sponsored a two-part, behind-the-scenes video promoting Prince Royce’s “Darte un Beso,” while Chivas partnered on a live concert series featuring Café Tacvba. Each garnered more than 1 million views.

These are sold similarly to traditional media sponsorship packages that include a broader media buy across VEVO, according to Carson. “Brands often want to deeply associate themselves with content that means something to consumers. When they try to create that content on their own, it’s often difficult to generate a large audience,” he notes.

YuMe’s targeting is another approach to reaching Hispanics: Its ad network includes 1,500 different sites, including many Hispanic publishers, and its January 2013 acquisition of Crowd Science lets it combine survey, behavioral and contextual data to better understand consumers. YuMe says its Household Targeting solution lets advertisers reach all members of a house- hold across all of their connected screens.

Videology’s Addressable Audience Platform lets advertisers target consumer segments by demographics, psychographics and behavior. It uses contextual targeting technology to determine browser language and the content viewed, mixing that with demographic data from more than 25 data providers to identify users by ethnicity. “Some of them can get as granular as targeting bilingual users,” says Chad Schulte, VP of strategic sales for the Americas.

Most advertisers want to get even more granular, he adds, targeting according to consumers’ diverse interests and buying patterns – and this is another place all those data sources can help. For example, a consumer packaged-goods company might want to reach Hispanic moms with kids under five years old. “We might have one data provider identifying that user as Hispanic, and another that matches that same user as a mother,” he explains.

Crossing Platforms
U.S. Hispanics are 20% more likely to watch video on their mobile phone than non-Hispanics, according to Nielsen. But in search of reach, most advertisers want to be able to use the same creative across devices.

In fact, media planning and buying is increasingly video agnostic. Tapestry’s Lia Silkworth notes that there are substantial changes taking place in the broadcast advertising area. “Many agencies are looking at video agnostic planning and buying. Upfronts are no longer a TV team only affair.” Marla Skiko agreed: “The discussion changed. It starts from a totally different place. It used to be we are buying a 30-second TV spot. Now it’s much more about content and measurability.” The game changer has been the emergence of online video and mobile as well as the increased measurability of digital advertising.

Bob McNeill, CEO of IMAGES USA, says he uses online video in almost every online ad program. “We have found it to be three to four times more effective in unaided recall. I cannot think of a single occasion when the broadcast repurpose does not work for us.”

Companies including Adobe, Videology, Yume, Adap. TV and Tremor Video provide mathematically driven analyses and allocation of data that allows advertisers to target precise consumer segments – at scale – by demographics, psychographics and behavioral segments through video advertising on multiple screens (connected TV’s, mobile, tablets, PCs).

“If someone starts to engage with more digital properties, it continues to enrich the data set. Maybe they came to the website, filled out a form or visited a retailer with a point of sale card. We can capture all of that, connect it together and create a higher resolution view of any consumer,” says Nate Smith, product marketing manager, Adobe Analytics.

Telemundo is also working to expand its insights across platforms. To better understand Hispanics behavior consuming TV, online mobile and social media, Telemundo and Vision Critical have teamed up to create two “insight communities,” AKA panels. Mi Telemundo, for Spanish-dominant consumers, and Tu Pulso Latino, for bilingual Millennials, will use surveys and consumption tracking to give advertisers a handle on the influences, behaviors and desires of these groups.

More such efforts are needed. As video continues its march to dominance of digital content, the challenge, according to Telemundo’s Blacker, will be for content companies to keep pace with new connected devices and technologies. He says, “Today, it’s tablets and phablets and cell phones. What’s the next frontier? The audience will decide where they want to see our content.” And advertisers will have to follow them.

[ctalatinb]

 

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