Regional Mexican music, which for years was dismissed by
marketers as uncool, is about to become as "it" as ever.
Starting Saturday, April 3, the best-selling musical genre --
and the people who make it possible -- will be at the center of Los Twiins, a new reality series on Mun2
featuring not only the fastest-growing producers of regional Mexican music, but
a series of blue-chip sponsors.
Los Twiins is a
half-hour weekly series that follows the lives and work of Adolfo and Omar
Valenzuela, the Mexican-American twin brothers who have helped make Los Angeles
the home base for Mexican regional music, and have produced such top artists as
Paulina Rubio, Calle 13, Jenny Rivera and La Banda del Recodo.
Pitched by Mun2 as a "multiplatform series," Los Twiins has secured complete product-integration
deals from Subway Restaurants, Kraft Foods, Ford Motor and T-Mobile.
Mun2's goal is to use the upcoming premiere of Los Twiins as a way to put Mexican regional
music front and center and take the experience beyond a half-hour Saturday
show.
"There are a few shows here and there, but not a 24/7 space
regarding this music," said senior vice president of programming and production
Flavio Morales.
But Morales acknolwledged that Mun2 will need to do some
tweaking, as associating a brand with a genre that is often times related to
drugs, violence and illegal immigration is no easy task. Some aspects of the
Valenzuela brothers' business -- including a controversial clothing line featuring
shirts with guns and names of drug lords -- have been eliminated, said Morales.
"As with everything, there are good things and bad things
[...] and we promised our partners -- and ourselves -- we were going to go on a
different direction," he said.
That different direction will send the producers and other
show protagonists, for example, driving around in a 2011 Ford Fiesta, using
their T-Mobile devices to make and receive calls and order Subway takeout meals
during business meetings.
"[Regional Mexican music] is an art form with a lot of
parallels with what advertisers want to buy into, just like it happened with
reggaeton," added Mun2 vice president of sales Joe Barnard, who has been
pitching the space for years. "The best-selling genre has become more popular
than ever and marketers and advertisers want to be there."
The stars of the new shows, the Valenzuela brothers, have
been described by the mainstream media as on their way to doing for Mexican
regional what Timbaland and Jermaine Dupri have done for rap music: Setting new
standards for production while using all the commercial formulas behind radio
and music clips.
The Mexican-born Valenzuela brothers are both music graduates
of the University of Southern California and ride
herd over a growing empire known as Twiins Enterprises.
