NEW YORK — The marketing specialists on the advertising roundtable at the B&C/Multichannel News Hispanic Television Summit had some ideas about rebranding the very event they were speaking at. For instance, Victor Parada, vice president of ad sales at Discovery U.S. Hispanic, suggested replacing “Television” with “Video” in the event name, and adding “for Hispanics” at the end to replace “Hispanic” at the beginning.
The phrase “Hispanic TV” may be trending toward the archaic, the panelists said, as they repeatedly mentioned breaking down the silos that separate Spanishlanguage from general-market audiences.
“I am a multicultural marketer,” Clint McClain, Walmart senior director of marketing communications platforms, said. “We made the decision that everyone is a multicultural marketer, and we think that’s the model to win.”
The “Give it to Juan” approach of passing Spanishlanguage business off to a lone multicultural marketing rep doesn’t fly anymore, Parada said. A total-market approach is the new paradigm.
Steven Wolfe Pereira, executive vice president, MediaVest, and managing director, MV42, MediaVest Multicultural, moderated the session. Topics included the challenges of reaching consumers on the go.
Peter Hopkins, Time Warner Cable’s director, business development, said the MSO uses “hyper-local targeting” across its hundreds of geographical zones, and McClain said locally tailored commercials were producing “amazing results.” Carol Hinnant, senior vice president, national television sales, Rentrak, noted the importance of having the tools to effectively measure engagement across platforms, including mobile.
Content is king, said Paul Laureano, vice president of integrated sales and marketing at Fox Hispanic Media; consumers watch the best programming, he said, not necessarily the best Spanish-language or generalaudience programming.
Parada agreed, noting, “Great content that can transcend language,” such as Discovery’s own “Shark Week” franchise, is key. “It’s content first and language second,” he said.
Michael Malone is deputy editor of Broadcasting & Cable.
