TelevisaUnivision said it is restructuring its local advertising sales unit to better align with client demands and streamline relationships with buyers.
The new setup features three units, one that deals with the big media agency holding companies; a multi-market unit with regional hubs in eight major cities and a local sales team.
“The industry has been evolving rather quickly,” Antonio Roman, executive, local media sales at TelevisaUnivision, told Broadcasting+Cable.
“We need to be more strategic from an alignment standpoint in order to better service our clients in order to produce more meaningful solutions,” Roman said.
Roman, a 27-year Univision sales veteran, became head of local ad sales earlier this year.
The more client-centric structure will help the company build a deeper knowledge base about its customers, provide better response times and more closely align to their needs, executives said.
Roman said the holding company unit will be headed by senior VP Mariana Ferro. It will share some resources with Univision’s network ad-sales unit, including research and marketing partnerships.
The holding company unit will give major advertisers that buy national and local Spanish-language ads a single point of contact at TelevisaUnivision.
“I am looking forward to continuing partnering with TelevisaUnivision in this new client-centric sales approach. It will be beneficial to our business, in alignment with the industry trends,” Joe Cerone, executive VP, local investment & media research at IPG Mediabrands’ Magna unit, said. “This new structure promises to solidify our relationship and will accelerate results.”
The multi-market unit will focus on eight regions, including the top six Hispanic DMAs. It will have hubs in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta.
“We have a very mature sales team in those markets, very knowledgeable, very sound,” Roman said. “We’re expanding their responsibilities. In addition to selling their market, they’re going to be selling all of our portfolio, all our 22 television markets plus the digital portfolio in the regions.”
Each region will have a chief revenue officer who will report to both Roman and their local general managers.
“This new client-centric collaborative structure aligns perfectly with us at Infusion and how we approach our client and partner relationships to develop strategic 360° plans that drive results. We’re excited about the more holistic focus, service and knowledge depth gained with this Multi-Market Unit framework under Antonio Roman’s formidable leadership,” said Liz Castells-Heard, CEO, chief strategy officer at Infusion by Castells and Castells & Asociados, which represents clients including the Toyota Dealership Associations and McDonald's Owner/Operators of Southern California and multiple other markets, and is the Charter Communications multicultural creative agency of record.
All of the TelevisaUnivision stations will continue to have their own heads of sales and national sales. Inventory traffic and pricing will be coordinated across the three teams.
“The benefit for stations in the smaller markets is that now they will have double the representations,” Roman said. “This should help them to expand their business on a national basis and develop more scale.”
Roman said that with the reorganization, head count for the sales team would be optimized with more resources going to regions where new business is being developed.
Similar to the national market, Spanish-language advertising is seeing stronger demand than the general market.
“Viewership is very strong and demand is very strong,” Roman said. “We have been constantly outperforming the market when it comes to local media.”
