Portada is pleased to introduce our first monthly e-newsletter dedicated exclusively to panregional media and advertising issues. We do this in recognition of the increasing integration between the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American media and advertising markets. The trend is mostly due to cultural and technological factors, including the following:
- The Internet: U.S. Hispanics like to read content from their home countries and often visit websites of their countries of origin. Newspaper websites of Latin American countries get up to 20% of their visits from foreign countries (mostly the U.S.). Through geo-targeting technologies that allow companies to serve online advertising based on the I.P. the user is accessing from, Latin American online publishers sell advertising specifically oriented to U.S. Hispanics. For instance, a Colombian newspaper website will attract Colombians living in the U.S., a segment particularly interesting to airlines flying from Colombia to the U.S. or telecommunications companies serving both countries. Companies including AT&T, Cingular, Nissan,Western Union, Continental, Porsche, Mexicana and Disney have all made use of geo-targeted online advertising in Latin American websites to attract U.S. Hispanic audiences.
The appeal of these Latin American based websites to advertisers targeting U.S. Hispanics is also profound because the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of Latin American websites are often significantly lower than the ones of U.S. based Hispanic websites. - U.S.-based media buyers buy into Latin American media. With the current expansion of Latin American economies, there has been a substantial increase in media buying activity coming from U.S. based advertisers targeting Latin American customers. Portada estimates the size of the media buys in Latin American media originating in the U.S. to be well over $150 million, with the majority going into TV and cable, but a significant amount, approximately 40%, going into print and digital media. Digital media buys are increasing significantly.
- Expansion of Latin American media into the U.S. and of U.S. based media into Latin America. Due to the similarities between the Latin American, especially the Mexican, and the U.S. Hispanic market, many Latin American media groups have a strong advantage in the U.S. Hispanic market (including strong brand recognition). This has fostered an expansion of Mexican and Latin American companies in the U.S. In addition, U.S.-based media companies, including Time Inc, Entrepreneur Magazine and Forbes, have expanded into the Spanish-speaking world Latin America.
- Cost Factors. Latin American countries have workers with strong skills and talent. This is particularly good because the cost base to work at these countries is very low. Many U.S. corporations (media companies, call centers, etc…) are taking advantage of this situation. Cuatro Media, the publisher of Fox Sports en Espanol has its back-office operation in Latin America.