No doubt, digital drek is common, but fear not! If brands avoid these seven deadly sins of digital — which are as annoying as 10 straight head-on ads and as passé as an Avril Lavigne concert — they’ll be well on their way to success.

Corporate tone on social media

Kudos to companies like Kraft and Lowe’s that engage consumers with two-way conversations and social media teams. Both understand social media is not about posting $2 off coupons for cheese or lawn chairs that you have to buy right this minute. They post items that engage consumers and humanize their brand by acting like normal people and less like a car sale at the end of the month. It’s less about “sell, sell, sell” and more about “hello, hello, hello.”

Hundreds of messages and calls-to-action on your website

Lawyers are the most egregious offenders of this. For some reason they believe www.bettercallsaul.com is the proper design of a website. Check out this poor soul’s — or probably really rich soul’s – website. I understand that you believe your fax number is as important as toilet paper in your bathroom or a pedometer app on your smartphone, but it can be housed in the contact section along with your @netscape.com email address. Be judicious with the content you place on your landing page, and stay organized so users can find it easily. Also, search bars are useless; they never work properly. Instead, make your site simple, straightforward, and easy to navigate, like a well-designed restaurant menu.

Making an app for the heck of it

Apps are expensive to build and take a lot of time. I have hundreds of apps on my phone and tablet but probably use 10 to 15 percent of them at most. If your CEO, CMO, or marketing manager is pushing to create an application, create one that adds to the consumer experience or creates a needed function. Great examples of this are Hyundai’s owner’s manual or the USPS “If It Fits It Ships” augmented reality app.

Flash banners

I wish these atrocities died back in 2007 when they were already old. The average click-through-rate is .09 percent, according to a Nielsen study done in partnership with Ad Keeper and WPP. Consumers rarely click on them and pay little attention to them. In fact, they make brands look as passé as the form. The only form of banners companies need to consider is rich media. However, creating an amazing rich-media banner isn’t enough. Ads should work seamlessly with the site and lead browsers to a landing page with a consistent look and feel.

No mobile site

As marketers, we understand that consumers access websites outside of their homes. So why do some companies fail to invest in a mobile site? If I’m looking to buy a product while shopping for dog food, I don’t want to scroll through gigantic lettering. I need an experience that allows me to easily browse while buying whichever gigantic dog bone my dog desires.

QR codes in subway cars

I understand there are elevated transit lines in some cities, and people might have the opportunity to click through to your website; however, this is rare. Where I live in New York City, the majority of our trains run underground, thus making it impossible for anyone to use QR codes on the platforms. A scratch-and-sniff section of the poster in the subway station would serve a better purpose.

No Hispanic website

I know it costs money and time to create an entire Spanish language website on top of your English website, but we live in America, people. Hispanics account for a huge percentage of the U.S. population, and that trend is only growing. If nothing else, creating a Spanish language site is a very cost effective way to not only provide access to many Hispanics in our country, but also to show you have the cultural sensitivity and proactivity to create a Spanish site for them to peruse. It also shows that you can “put yourself in another’s shoes.” Obviously there are some brands, like Goya, that might benefit from a Spanish language site more than others (like Monsanto), but it nonetheless displays effort on the company’s part to reach out to a significant portion of the population.

But the fraying magazines and gurgling fish tank front an accelerating enterprise with numbers that would make any startup smile. Though Goya has been serving Latinos in the U.S. for 77 years, President and CEO Bob Unanue had the simple but powerful idea a couple years ago to market key products–adobo seasoning, low-sodium beans and yellow rice–directly to non-Hispanics.

The result? After nearing the $1 billion sales mark in 2010, Goya’s revenues hit $1.3 billion in 2012, sources say, making it one of the fastest-growing food companies in the U.S. “We like to say we don’t market to Latinos, we market as Latinos,” says Unanue, who acknowledges the success but won’t discuss the numbers. His billionaire family still fully controls the business, and 15 family members work at the 3,500-employee company today.

When Prudencio Unanue Ortiz, Bob Unanue’s grandfather, founded Goya in New York City in 1936, the world was not so open to Hispanic cuisine. Unanue, who came to New York by way of Puerto Rico after emigrating from Spain, bought the Goya name from a Moroccan sardine-importer for $1, in part because he liked the association with the artist Francisco Goya, and also because he figured it was a lot easier to pronounce than his own surname (Oooh-NAN-oooh-way). He started out selling olives and olive oil to Spanish immigrants, first in his storefront and then distributing to bodegas throughout New York and New Jersey.

After World War II brought waves of Puerto Rican immigrants to New York, he added yucca, plantains and pigeon peas to his product line. When the 1950s brought the Cubans and the 1960s the Dominicans, Unanue added black beans, guava paste and coconut–and distribution across the East.

By the early 1980s “Goya was just sitting pretty as the Hispanic market started growing,” says John Stanton, a professor of food marketing at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. “Then what happened in the U.S. was American consumers started wanting to eat slightly more traditional Hispanic foods.”

Marketing in English captured some of this burgeoning group. Yet it wasn’t until 2005 that Bob Unanue and his brother Peter, the vice president of the company, hired Grey Group’s Wing agency in New York City to explicitly reach out to non-Latinos. New ads show an African-American mother stirring Goya yellow rice and a blonde, blue-eyed mom seasoning chicken with adobo. The result? “At the end of 2012 we gained an extra percentage point in the households where the campaign was,” says Alvaro Serrano, the Goya marketer overseeing the work.

They’ve done it without alienating their traditional consumers. Goya enjoys a 25% market share among authentic Hispanic food brands (the category excludes fakers like Taco Bell), according to Neilsen. By 2015 Latinos are expected to make up 17.8 percent of the American population and wield $1.5 trillion in buying power.

The advertising campaign will soon reach South to Florida, then slowly expand westward. While Goya is the strongest brand along the Eastern seaboard, it has challengers in American West, where Mexican companies have moved north of the border for a piece of the American market. Goya is currently building a distribution facility in Texas to more cheaply bring its American-made Latino products to a huge chunk of the Latino population: Mexicans and Mexican-Americans living in Texas and California.

As the ad campaign expands across the country, the company’s revenue numbers should grow nicely. “If Goya or any other Latin-American brand is able to penetrate into the non-Hispanic consumer market, it will be really easy for them to double in size,” says Nacho Hernandez of online specialty Latino retailer MexGrocer.com. “It’s just a much larger market, period.”

Lately I have been thinking about one particular strain of the bad stuff, one that I have heard referred to as “holding a mirror up to the consumer.” It’s found in both the general market and multicultural markets, and is predicated on the idea that if a brand can demonstrate that it knows enough about the consumer to reflect their lives, then consumers will have more trust, interest, confidence, or something, in the brand.

One of the hallmarks of this approach is that the key question consumers are asked in testing executions is “do you see yourself in it?” or “is this ad for you?” If the agency has done its job, it’s not hard to get a “yes” on that. “Seeing yourself” in an ad simply means that it does a decent job of looking like regular life, the way it is today, right now. Which is fine, if regular life happens to be the setting for a brilliant creative idea.

But what has me thinking lately are those cases in which brands expect that simply reflecting a version of daily life will make audiences respond. What concerns me even more is when those audiences are minorities. My sense is that the expectation that a loosely “accurate” snapshot of the life of a minority underrepresented by most media should go a long way in creating goodwill, by mere virtue of the recognition itself. Apparently, in the early years of advertising to minorities, that idea seemed to make sense. It doesn’t any more.

I don’t think anyone, especially minorities, whose very definition in our culture is evolving at a pace and in ways never seen before, are likely to find a mirror terribly interesting today. As minorities, we no longer need validation in the form of recognition from brands, large or small. And I don’t think many brands do a very good job of thinking beyond the mirror of today to imagine, with us, what our future in this country will look like.

The Wing/Experian Latino Influence Project, by looking at how Latinos are influencing the non-Latinos around them, starts to connect what life looks like today to what it might look like in the future. What we found is that when the general market holds a mirror up to Latino culture, in particular, they already see quite a bit of themselves in it. Because the future, and frankly, the presence of Latino culture is not only to be the passive recipient of “American” culture; more and more every day, Latino culture is influencing the broader culture. And Latinos are growing more and more aware of this influence. Which makes the future a pretty interesting place to imagine, for Latinos and everyone else. We don’t know exactly what it will look like, but I would much rather be party to challenging brands to help envision it than to just keep recreating a version of today that is already dated. Physics dictates that a mirror does not allow you to see forward, which is what Latinos, African-Americans and other minorities do more than anyone.

So let’s put the mirrors away.

A Special Report on Hispanic Music and Radio

March 23, 2013

Ever since the internet became mainstream, every media type has been in flux. Newspapers and magazines have struggled to stay alive in the digital era, and television has attempted to balance the likes of video-on-demand and online options such as Netflix and Hulu.

The music industry was one of the first affected by the digital era with the rise of Napster and the copycats that followed, but for years radio endured – just a year and a half ago advertisers were comfortable investing in the medium because they maintained that it simply worked.

But now music has hit a tipping point. On one hand the recording industry has matured – sure pirated music can be found online, but in recent years labels have had more success selling their product online through channels such as iTunes or Amazon.

Radio, however, hasn’t been so quick to adapt.

The medium still reaches wide audiences that advertisers can target at a relatively affordable price, so there may be no inclination to change. There are of course newer digital options such as iHeartRadio and Pandora, but advertisers still aren’t able to monetize these channels as effectively as they can traditional radio.

It only seems to be a matter of implementing and properly using the available technology, but that hasn’t happened yet.

The Great Age Divide.- Advertisers have started to learn to target Hispanics by cultural heritage, but when it comes to music it’s essential to think about age.

Older Hispanic audiences generally tend to remain very loyal to radio, and younger tweens (9-14) crowds use radio as well to discover new popular songs. But that middle segment between older and younger audiences prefers the on-demand approach – the type of music they like, when they want it and where they want it.

Language also plays a factor. Some listeners prefer Spanish and some prefer English, so the safest play may be somewhere in between.

“I think more advertisers are starting to use radio to reach Hispanics because it’s a unique way to reach bicultural Hispanics, which is kind of the new ‘it’ target,” says Stephanie Da Costa, media director at multicultural agency Wing. “There are lots of stations coming up that are targeting bicultural, bilingual Hispanics, and they play crossover music. DJs are the same the way in that they speak both languages. And advertisers are paying attention.”

Television of course remains the best choice to reach mass audiences, but radio can be more effective in its own ways.

“Radio is a good media to incorporate into the mix because it provides a bit of an advantage over TV,” says Arturo López, national broadcast multicultural media buyer at Haworth Marketing + Media. “The reach may not be the same, but you can reach other consumers that you can’t get through TV.”

It’s well known that the younger Hispanic segment is among the most tech-friendly in the U.S., and there are some recent stats to support this – 43 percent of Hispanic teens own a smartphone, compared to 40 percent of African-American teens and 35 percent of non-Latino white teens, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Still, many younger Hispanics do turn to the radio to hear the latest songs, even if more stations are making their content available elsewhere.

“For me, as far as mainstream music, I still depend on the radio” Da Costa observes. “But if I like something, I’ll download it myself. Radio is kind of the first layer that comes to mind; it’s a vehicle for introducing music.”

On the other hand, older Hispanic crowds not only like radio, they depend on it. Almost all of us have a parent, aunt, uncle or grandparent that uses radio as background music, an accompaniment to their daily routine.

This crowd is going to listen to the radio no matter what–they aren’t necessarily seeking out new music, and in turn record labels and radio stations aren’t necessarily out to target them.

The Vast Middle Ground.- The young adult crowd is probably the most troublesome for marketers to target using music. Young adults tend to have established musical tastes, so they’re most likely to seek out and listen to their own favorites rather than tune to traditional radio stations.

But music is everywhere, and there are countless not-so obvious ways for brands to use it to their advantage with this segment.

Telemundo recently entered a unique agreement with Warner Music Latina, under which the two entities will seek to discover, develop and foster artists for mutual benefit.

“It’s so difficult these days to make new musical acts pop or get promotion behind an act, and it’s no secret record companies have had a hard couple of years,” notes Rudy Weissenberg, senior vice president production for Telemundo Studios. “Music is not what we do, so we thought why not partner with a company that does know what they’re doing?”

Under the deal Warner will handle things such as recording and distributing albums, while Telemundo will handle promotion. But promotion can mean much more than just a television spot pushing a CD. An artist may star in a series, or a song may play a key role in one of its hit telenovelas.

Music can also target the Generation Y crowd by taking the socially conscious route. One example of this is the abc* Foundation’s Healing Power of Music program, which aims to create awareness and offer a platform for social change through music.

While the power of music is essential to the group’s success, it understands that the recording industry is currently in a perpetual state of flux due to the rise of digital distribution, legal and otherwise.

“From the record label perspective, it has affected the industry because new generations don’t see music as something that has monetary value,” says Rodrigo Bravo, senior director of operations at the abc* Foundation. “It’s hard to create that culture of people buying music when people have grown up downloading it for free.”

But, he adds, the upside is that distribution is not a monopoly anymore.

“While it has affected the music industry and the record labels, it has served independent and up-and-coming artists by allowing them to put out their music to a wide audience.”

Tried And True.- The way Hispanics consume music is evolving, but the traditional method of targeting music fans can still be very effective.

Case in point is the radio remote, where stations enlist a DJ or a team of personalities for an on-location broadcast where they can help promote a business or product.

“Specifically for Hispanics, it’s usually more impactful than for non-Hispanics,” Da Costa says. “They like to go out in groups and attend events – it’s sort of a cultural thing. Advertisers can provide sampling or education, and it’s a launch pad to get one-on-one engagement.”

López agrees, noting that these on-site promotions can be effective in driving sales. “The advantage is that the client is provided with the specific time of when it will take place, and you can track sales or the response from radio listeners.”

New And Popular, But A Work In Progress.- These days most Hispanics are familiar with newer methods of music distribution such as Pandora and iHeartRadio, yet advertisers have been a bit slow to embrace them because it’s still not clear how well they actually work from an advertising standpoint.

“As far as what they talk about, they do see from a media numbers perspective that it does work,” says Sy Kraft, senior digital strategist at Wing. “I haven’t heard concrete evidence, but it’s a nice complement to radio.”

The capabilities of the newer digital platforms are there, but they’ve yet to be made fully available to advertisers. For example, someone located in New York listening to a Miami radio station via iHeartRadio might hear an ad for a local business in South Beach.

That’s not exactly helpful or relevant for the listener, who might be in Brooklyn.

Since digital online platforms like iHeartRadio, Pandora and others are internet-based, they definitely are capable of knowing where the listener is located geographically. Yet the platforms are rarely used in this manner to an advertiser’s advantage.

“There are different ways to target in terms of genre, but location is possible,” Da Costa says. “So when Clear Channel talks about iHeartRadio, it’s great that someone in New York can listen to a Miami station, but do they really care?  Listenership may not be enough to make it relevant.”

Nobody argues that music remains a passion point for Hispanic consumers, yet there are countless opinions on how to effectively use it to target and monetize that audience. There are no easy answers, and there may not be one anytime soon.

On some level media people are at the mercy of the music distributors – they can only provide to clients the options that are available. In this quickly evolving world of technology those options change much more often than they did 10 or 15 years ago.

But there is one thing that everyone can agree on: music isn’t going anywhere. The issue is just using it most effectively for all involved.

“It’s evolving everyday and I think labels are having a hard time trying to monetize music, but that doesn’t imply that musicians will ever stop making music,” observes Bravo. “The reality is we now consume more music than ever before, so it’s a matter of finding those channels to monetize it.”

“Does the N.B.A. really think fans would be baffled by ‘Los Toros,’ ” asked one blogger. “It’s like saying, ‘Yeah, I speako Español.’ La N.B.A. can do better.”

Another complained,  “Why the league would go to such lengths to pander to a certain demographic, yet insult everyone’s intelligence during the process … Toros vs. Espuelas sounds intriguing … and also conveys a more committed stance to the Noche Latina theme.”

The N.B.A., of course, does not have the same level of participation from Latinos as baseball, but the growing Hispanic audience in the United States and abroad is vital to its future. Those “El” and “Los” jerseys actually reflect how committed the N.B.A. is, said the league’s vice president for multicultural marketing, Saskia Sorrosa. Noche Latina started in 2006-7 with players wearing flags from Latin American countries on their jerseys, but the fans did not respond — sales were poor — and players complained, saying it felt demeaning “to have a flag under their armpit,” she said.

The league did extensive market research to learn what fans wanted and said it got a much stronger response to the jersey names it chose than a true translation. (The league also expanded the event to include culturally relevant music and food.) “Fans didn’t relate when the name was in Spanish,” Sorrosa said. “This is what they were using in their own conversation.”

Latino marketing experts said they agreed.

Felipe Korzenny, director and founder of the Center for the Study of Hispanic Marketing at Florida State, said it would have been a tactical error to translate because Latinos do not see the team names as words — lowercase “heat” or “bull” — but as proper nouns, brand names that have equity. “They don’t translate Coca-Cola or Clorox into Spanish,” he said.

Imagine trying to translate iPad into Spanish, he said. (In fact, Korzenny said, he often hears Latinos who think Colgate is a Spanish word and do not understand why Americans do not pronounce it Col-gat-e, as if it were a Spanish word, with three syllables and an accent at the end.)

Beyond that, the use of an article in front is commonplace in the Latino community, especially in the United States. “It is natural for an audience that speaks two languages,” Korzenny said.

The term for switching between two languages in a conversation is “code-switching,” he said, and added that it is common in sports: in baseball, the word pitcher or catcher is not translated by Latino fans; the words simply become “el pitcher” and “el catcher.”

“I grew up in Mexico and I agree, that’s the way we spoke,” said Jorge Ortega, creative director at the Latino-focused marketing group Wing. While he said it would be cool to have uniforms that read “Toros” or “Espuelas” the N.B.A.’s approach is “where we are right now — the culture is assimilating and becoming more multilingual.”

broadcast networks

Even as it battles to maintain the love of the Hispanic community the

company dominates, Univision Communications is taking aim at a much

bigger target: the English-language broadcast networks.

Former NBC executive Keith Turner, who joined Univision as president of

advertising sales and marketing last summer, tellsB&C he understands the

passion that people have for the brand and the romantic telenovelas it airs

in primetime. The newly intensified competition in the Spanish-language TV

business, from Comcast’s Telemundo and Fox’s Mundo Fox, “validates

what we’ve been talking about all these years,” Turner says.

But Univision execs look at the network’s February sweeps ratings—which

eclipsed those of struggling NBC—as the start of a major shift, one they

have not been shy about touting. And Turner sees the network, which

turned 50 last year, evolving into a bigger fish in a deeper pool of

advertising revenue that now goes to the English-language broadcasters.

“I think we’ve gotten the share of the Hispanic dollars that’s available. I think

the block of dollars that we want to go after now is in the English-language

segment,” Turner says. Beating NBC is “a big story,” he adds. “We’ve got to

beat that drum.”

The volume on that drumbeat is rattling some buyers who specialize in Spanishlanguage media. “It was really kind of

surprising the way that they positioned themselves, because they don’t necessarily always default to the fact that they’re a

Spanish-language network,” says Stephanie Da Costa, media director at Wing, a $70 million agency owned by WPP with

clients including Procter & Gamble, Red Lobster and Radio Shack. “That’s secondary almost to the fact that they’re able

to compete with English-language networks as far as ratings.”

“They can’t say, ‘We’re just another network.’ They’re not,” Da Costa says. “They’re a network that has a very specific

niche. You’re reaching the Hispanic market. And if a brand is not interested in reaching Hispanics, they’re never going to

go for you, regardless of what your ratings are.”

Best of Both Worlds?

Da Costa thinks that rather than being concerned about maintaining its hold on a Spanish-language market that is

growing as the U.S. population evolves, Univision sees itself with a comfortable lead that gives them the leverage to

explore new horizons. While “that’s a fact, I think that a smart business person would look beyond that and that the trend

is going in a direction that’s kind of opposite of that. They’re losing share,” she says.

But Univision CEO Randy Falco, another former NBC executive, insists the company is paying very close attention to the

Hispanic market.

He says the unique place the Univision brand occupies in the Hispanic community, plus its growing array of broadcast,

cable and digital assets, makes it possible to maintain its approximately 73% share of the Spanish-language market in the

face of the intensified competition.

“If we take care of the community, empower the community, and show reverence, always reverence, to the brand, I think

we’ll be able to maintain that position that we have with the Hispanic community,” Falco says. At the same time, the new

platforms create additional shelf space that ensures that “we have a Univision-branded piece of content in front of our

audience whenever they choose to consume that content.”

In addition, Falco says, “we think we’re going to be very competitive in the overall broadcast arena regardless of

language.” He adds that over time, as the demographics of the country change and the current level of one in six

Americans being Hispanic becomes one in three by 2040, “I think there’s a very good case that Univision will become one

of the top three networks in the country.”

But even as ratings rise, will advertisers move money now going to the Big Four broadcast networks to Spanish-language

TV? “It’s not going to happen overnight, but it’s happening,” Falco says. “So you have little tipping points. I think the last

election was a tipping point. It certainly proved to candidates that they have to do business with Univision, which has

become the gateway to the Hispanic audience. So if you want to get elected, you should be talking to that community

through Univision.”

“I think the same can be said for advertisers,” Falco adds. “If they want to talk to the Hispanic community, the gateway to

that community continues to be Univision. More and more advertisers will see that.”

Last October, Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political spending, estimated that the Obama

and Romney campaigns combined spent eight times more money on Spanish-language ads than was spent in 2008. Half

that total spending came in three Florida markets—Orlando, Miami and Tampa—all of which boast Univision stations.

Great Expectations

Univision is starting to prepare for the upfront. On March 1, Turner had his first meeting about planning Univision’s May 14

upfront presentation, where next season’s programming will be announced. “We are in the process of putting these preupfront

meetings together where we go literally agency by agency to have conversations about what we’re doing, where

we’re going, what they’re doing, how we can help them,” he says.

It’s too early to make predictions about the upfront, but Turner says first quarter has been strong, with Univision writing

more scatter business than ever. Options to get out of first-quarter upfront buys were at an all-time low, he adds, “so all

the indicators are there.”

Univision will air its last World Cup soccer tournament in 2014, after which Telemundo’s broadcast rights kick in. “We’re

way ahead of this upfront in selling World Cup. We’ve already written 10 to 12 deals. We’re in very good shape,” Turner

says. After the World Cup leaves, the company will still be on solid footing, Turner says, because “we seem to have every

other soccer property.”

Univision’s upfront will also be about more than the broadcast network. There’s second broadcast network UniMás, local

TV and radio stations, a growing stable of new and old cable channels, plus digital and mobile platforms (see “At a

Glance,”). Turner plans to bring all of Univision’s assets to market at one time to make multiplatform deals. “There are a

lot of assets here,” he says. “I know that advertisers don’t want to just buy 30-second commercials anymore; they want a

connection and connectivity. Those are the things that we’re building here.”

Media buyers say they have heard that story from Univision before and they hope the new team can deliver. “I think we

are finally seeing that come to fruition a little bit more than we have in other years,” says Lisa Torres, president of Zenith’s

ZO Multicultural division. “We’re seeing all their properties move together, not only from a national perspective, but

activating local and digital and social.”

Making Digital Plays Pay

After launching the UVideos platforms and other digital businesses, Falco says Univision is thinking about getting involved

in the digital upfronts that take place next month. And with business spanning multiple screens, “we want to make sure

that Nielsen is there with us measuring,” he says. Univision, whose content is licensed to appear on more than 200 million

devices (including 30 million Xboxes) and Nielsen, which has been criticized for inadequate Hispanic samples, are

engaged in a cross-platform measurement test right now. Falco hopes to have results in time for the upfront.

“Much of the viewing is fragmenting across many different platforms and screens,” Falco says. “We’re going to be there

on every one of those screens. And we want to make sure that Nielsen is there with us measuring, so we can go back to

our advertising partners and provide evidences of the ROI and the engagement they’re looking for.”

A few months after Turner joined Univision, Comcast’s NBCU hired media buyer Mike Rosen to head up ad sales at

Telemundo, putting two execs with little Spanishlanguage market experience in charge of the two biggest networks in the

category.

“It’s a good sign that the Hispanic market is attracting these individuals that may not have worked in the space before, but

these individuals personally realize the importance of the Hispanic market and the growth opportunities that exist,” says

Da Costa of Wing.

Torres thinks the changes are more cyclical. “Things change, personnel change. It’s like an agency—the heads of the

agencies all change all of a sudden,” she says. “Maybe it just happens to be that Univision and NBC are moving a little bit

in the same time frame, but it kind of makes sense when you think that Univision has a completely new [management

team]. Telemundo is in the same vein. New ownership, Comcast, is also trying to grow ratings and also trying to grow

revenue.”

The Man With the Plan

While Falco worked with Turner at NBC, he says it’s not just about hiring someone he’s comfortable with. “It’s hiring

people I know have a proven track record. I think Keith is clearly one of the three best sales people I’ve ever seen in the

industry, along with [retired longtime Fox ad sales head] Jon Nesvig and Joe Abruzzese at Discovery,” Falco says. Among

Turner’s accomplishments is overseeing the first $3 billion upfront in TV history while at NBC. “And he did it twice,” Falco

says.

But media buyers say Turner has things to learn about the Hispanic market.

“I don’t think it’s an insurmountable learning curve,” says Torres. “[Turner] coming in and selling the market is probably a

little bit less impactful as someone who’s been in the market a long time, who knows the market a little bit better. He’s

selling programming. He knows how to do that well.”

Torres expects Turner to have time to learn the market and gain credibility. “He has instant credibility in the network that

he’s selling,” she says. “Will I fully believe in his complete assessment of the marketplace? Probably not. But there’s

plenty of infrastructure in that organization to give him the credibility that he needs. So while I may not believe what he’s

selling exactly, I believe in what he’s selling.”

Turner is confident about his ability to adapt to Spanish-language TV. “Randy uses this great line about speaking

television. It’s about sales, it’s about relationships, it’s about television, it’s about broadcasting, it’s about brand,” he says.

“The fact that it’s Spanish-language, I don’t worry about that. I’m sure [Mike Rosen] doesn’t worry about that either. We’ve

been doing this long enough that it’s about TV advertising, and that’s the same in any language.”

Turner says he didn’t know a lot of the members of the sales staff when he first arrived at Univision. “The ones that I have

met obviously I’ve been very impressed with,” he says. “We did make some changes in the business development group,

we’ve given more of an ownership to the network sales group, so we did make some changes. But we’ve got some really

hungry sales people here that are really passionate about this brand and about this company, so I feel good about where

we are as a division.”

Turner also hired Steve Mandala, who had run the Telemundo sales business for Turner at NBC, as executive VP of

network sales. “So between he and Randy and I, we’re putting the old team back together,” Turner says.

Falco and Turner departed NBC as it spiraled from dominance to disaster. Turner was head of sales at the NFL before

rejoining Falco because of what he saw being built at Univision. “Now, NBC’s in my rear-view mirror,” Turner says. “I

worked there for 20 years, I had a great career there. But that’s yesterday’s news. The new news is Univision and where

we’re going.”

Speaking The Language

Part of their job at Univision will be educating potential clients about the importance of communicating with the Hispanic

market. “There’s a large segment that believes in who we are and what we’re doing, and there’s still a big portion of it that

don’t get it yet. Our job is to convince them otherwise,” Turner says.

After 30 years in the business, Turner has relationships with many decision-makers. “If I don’t know the person behind the

door, I certainly know somebody that does. And between Steve Mandala, Trisha Pray [executive VP for network sales]

and Roberto Ruiz [senior VP of strategy and insights], there’s a team here that knows where to go.”

Turner says he has found out “how absolutely useless my two years of Spanish in college were.” He says he’s currently

working with a tutor to brush up on his language skills. “I think it’s important. A lot of the business we do is with people

who speak English, but I think to understand the product and what’s on the screen, I’m going to get my Spanish up to

speed.”

It isn’t quite there yet, especially when it comes to using his Spanish to order food in a restaurant. “I can’t eat spicy foods,

so that hasn’t been an issue yet,” he says, adding, “I do know how to say ‘cerveza.’”

Though plenty have already been revealed, what ads are you most excited about and/or looking forward to this Super Bowl?

I’m most looking forward to watching the Coke Chase follow up. I have seen the Coke Chase online, so I’m very curious about the follow-up spot that will run right after the game, showing who won the competition according to the Facebook fans’ choice.

Is the ever-increasing Super Bowl ad cost really worth what’s now $4 million a spot?

When it comes to a memorable opportunity as the Super Bowl break, there’s no expensive/not expensive discussion. It’s all about heart value, mind share and a recall that can last forever. The Super Bowl is such an important “catwalk” of the TV advertising business that’s it’s worth every cent.

How important are the digital tie-ins to the TV spots, i.e. mobile and social, is value increasing?

You can’t talk Super Bowl today without planning Social Media engagement. People already say “Have you seen on Facebook the Super Bowl ad that Coke will show in the actual Super Bowl?” It’s a weird sentence but a true and exciting reality. Super Bowl begins online now.
What do you think about the Pepsi/Beyoncé crowd-sourced halftime show promo?

I think the promo with Beyonce is great. It goes all around: social media, Times Square, the Super Bowl itself. It’s really a great initiative. I wish I had done it.

Is it an advantage or disadvantage to releasing ads to social media ahead of time?

No doubt there are only advantages. Getting people to promote your ads is the most beautiful thing a brand can expect. Before you air a commercial you already made it famous. It’s beautiful.

Your fave/least fave Super Bowl ads ever?

I would like to mention two. One is from a long time ago:  1984 for Apple. It’s unforgettable and still proves that you don’t need to say anything and can still say everything about a brand. The other one is from last year’s Super Bowl:   the E- trade baby. Simple and genius. It got everyone to talk about it right away. I like it so much that I hate it.

When clients, vendors, and/or partners come into the office, they sometimes see me and tend to be a little confused as to what I could possibly be doing here. Is he the IT guy? The Chinese food delivery guy?  I admit I see the comedic value in an Asian guy interning at a Hispanic ad agency, but I’m at Wing for a reason. I have a strong interest, if not an outright obsession, with Latin America. In the past 6 years I visited Peru, Brazil, and Mexico, and lived in Argentina for five months. I have very close Brazilian friends that I met in college, and Latin American food ranks in my top three favorite cuisines.  All of this has led me to throw a spin on the term “gringo” and coin a new one: “Kringo,” which takes into account my Korean heritage.
My time at Wing has done nothing to break up this relationship I have with Latino culture.  I am surrounded by Latinos all day, have calls with colleagues, vendors, and clients that are Latino, and our Associate Creative Director refuses to speak to me in English.  I think Renata (our Chief Creative Officer) sees my inner Latino and relayed the message to him.  Even my weekly consumption of Latin American food has substantially increased.  (Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy a warm plate of rice and beans, but can someone throw me a bone and get some General Tso’s Chicken with me? Anyone?)

The past four months at Wing have opened my eyes to the many dimensions and facets of the advertising industry that you won’t find in any textbook or magazine article.  From learning how to prepare and execute pitches, to scrambling to find a meeting room large enough to fit 10 people. I’ve learned much in the short amount of time I have been here.  Being a Business Development intern allows me to work and interact with every department of the agency, and given the nature of the Business Development team, I have the opportunity to spend a bit more time working with the executives in comparison to the other interns.

This gives me incredible access and insight into the agency’s strategy and operations – not to mention a front row view of some of the Wing management team’s quirks and idiosyncrasies: from our managing director’s compulsive consumption of pistachios and string cheese, to our VP of client services’ relentless consumption of candy, to our director of business development’s (my boss) strange need to twist and twirl the hair above his forehead when he thinks about something.

And though I may not be Latino, I think my Korean heritage and my family’s recent immigration history has helped out when it comes to connecting and relating to many of my fellow coworkers.  This may be, because many of my colleagues are themselves immigrants or have parents who are, so we tend to find much common ground, if not familiarity with each other. I (hopefully) bring a perspective to the table that is not quite Latino, not quite GM, but something else.  A something else that resulted from being raised by Korean parents in America, studying international relations, and eventually coming to greatly enjoy and appreciate Latin culture.

Wing’s progressive approach to finding value in its human capital regardless of whether or not they are Latino is something I commend and appreciate given my particular situation.  Because of the opportunity they have granted me, I have had the chance to experience, learn, and partake in so many facets of the advertising industry that are made even more novel and interesting because Wing is a Hispanic agency.

Furthermore, I recognize how lucky I am to work in the United States alongside foreign co-workers from a region of the world where I would love to live and work in one day.  Since working abroad has always been a long-term goal of mine, interning at Wing has turned out to be an introduction of sorts to what working in Latin America may be like.  And trust me, if the past four months are any indication, then count me in!

Kilger : One thing we found especially interesting is that non-Hispanics who are influenced by Hispanic culture also show signs of being more receptive to advertising – something that we normally see more incidence of in Hispanic populations.

This may be a consequence of the fact that we know from our data that people interested in other cultures are more advertising receptive than those that are not. So it might be the case that non-Hispanics who are more likely to be receptive to Hispanic culture might also by nature be more receptive to advertising.

It’s a really fascinating topic that is a bit more complex than it seems as the surface.
What’s the most important thing media buyers and planners can take from it?

Kilger: Cultural diffusion suggests that when living in close proximity, many non-Hispanics are likely to adopt certain elements of Hispanic culture and that this means that advertisers should perhaps rethink their traditional strategies of developing one type of campaign strategy and deployment for Hispanics and another for non-Hispanics.

So for example, an agency might build a more Hispanic-oriented campaign, but also buy advertising in media spaces where there are significant segments of non-Hispanics, especially where these non-Hispanics may be likely to live in high density Hispanic areas.
Are Hispanics influencing non-Hispanics more than in the past? Why?

McGavock: We don’t have data to support this, but our hypothesis is that yes, Hispanics are influencing non-Hispanics more than in the past.  This is probably partially due to the fact that Hispanics as a population are growing–one out of six people in the U.S. today is Hispanic–so non-Hispanics naturally have more contact with Hispanics than in the past, and a culture diffusion, as Max describes, is only natural.

Just as important, however, is the fact that Hispanic culture is much more prominent in mainstream media, and that really, through digital media, you have access to just about any culture anytime you want.
What implication does this have for advertisers?

Kilger: That they might want to rethink their traditional perspective towards non-Hispanics and encourage their agencies to insert Hispanic themes into some of their non-Hispanic campaign strategies.

McGavock: It also has implications for how general market and Hispanic agencies work together. By working together from the beginning to identify important insights and themes, we can create advertising that effectively reaches both markets, and leverages those areas of Hispanic influence.
Where in pop culture are you seeing the influence of Hispanics the most? Why?

Kilger: Entertainment is one area where we see strong Hispanic influence on non-Hispanics, for example with the gains in popularity of salsa and meringue music among non-Hispanics.

Also, the initial success of Hispanic television formats like telenovelas – “Betty La Fea” is a good example – among non-Hispanic audiences suggest that pop culture is a good transmission medium for cultural diffusion.
Do non-Hispanics have a greater understanding of Hispanic culture and habits than they did, say, 10 years ago?

Kilger: I am pretty sure that the answer to this is yes, there are a growing percentage of non-Hispanics that are living in high density Hispanic areas and thus non-Hispanics have exposure to Hispanic culture and the opportunity to adopt some of their cultural elements.

McGavock: I have a personal anecdotal example of this. My sister, who’s 10 years old and not at all Hispanic, lives in Atlanta, where my dad is a homebuilder and works with a lot of Hispanics. Through work, he’s developed friendships with a lot of these Hispanics, and he and my sister have been invited to a few quinceañeras. My sister now insists that she wants to have a quinceañera too.
Why is it important for media people to keep abreast of developments like this in the pop culture world?

Kilger: We expect this trend of non-Hispanics adopting elements of Hispanic culture to continue and even increase in the coming years as the proportion of the population that is Hispanic increases and the number of non-Hispanics who live in high density Hispanic areas begins to grow as well.

Also, as elements of Hispanic culture, especially in music and entertainment, continue to gain larger foothold on major media channels, this exposure to Hispanic culture is likely to encourage cultural diffusion and adoption of some cultural attitudes and elements of Hispanic culture by non-Hispanics.

With the fall season fast approaching, and media buyers deep in negotiations with networks, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on the very different upfront presentations made by the three major Spanish networks – Univision, Telemundo and Mundo Fox. All three seemed to have very different approaches to the content they are providing their audiences.

Univision’s upfront focused on persuading advertisers to shift 15% of their budget from English-language networks – NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX – to Univision. They presented some impactful data that supported Univision outperforming NBC against the 18-49 demographic on many nights this past year, the increase in overall reach with buying Univision vs. simply the Big Four, and their younger-skewing audience when compared to these networks. Are the Univision and English-language network’s audiences comparable?

How did the Univision presentation relate to those advertisers that consistently spend with Univision and recognize the unique value and differences of the Spanish-speaking Hispanic audience when compared to the general market? I don’t think that simply shifting dollars is the answer for all advertisers. But what really struck me is how few changes were apparent in its programming. Overall, in contrast to its Spanish-language network competitors, it seems to be taking the approach that, as the undisputed market leader, minimal changes to its content is justified by its history of dominance in the market.

Telemundo will launch a new brand image along with new tagline, “Brave New Telemundo,” this coming fall. The tagline will capture the duality of Hispanics who remain connected to their heritage while embracing America, said Jacqueline Hernandez, COO of Telemundo Media.

Aiming for a 40% increase in its original content, 2013 Telemundo’s line-up will offer six new telenovelas, two daytime shows and reality competitions popular not only on English-language networks, but around the world, such as, “Yo Me Llamo” and “La Voz: Ninos”, a kid’s version of NBC’s “The Voice,” and “La Boda de tus Suenos” (an adaptation from an international hit in Netherlands).It has also acquired the rights to the sequel of “La Reina del Sur,” the network’s highest-rated telenovela. As the second-place player among Spanish networks, it is evident that Telemundo has a lot of fight in itself, and seems to be increasing its game in order to compete not only with Univision, but also in anticipation of Mundo Fox’s launch. But will these changes be enough to keep its current audience as well as attract new consumers?

Despite being a new network, Mundo Fox is prepared to launch with a unique lineup of shows and genres which could end up setting the standard for all Hispanic networks. The network has an upbeat, fresh approach to targeting an assimilated American Hispanic target.  During the upfront, the common theme pulled Hispanics from all different backgrounds into one community using the slogan, “I am [country of origin], I am American.”  The melding of general market and Hispanic market programming will definitely appeal to the new generation of Hispanics.

Its presentation discussed the fact that Hispanics have been used to watching novelas for decades because that was the main programming available. The network is, therefore, aiming to create a demand for break-through programming much like Fox did among the English-language networks. If the quality that has been promised by Mundo Fox is accomplished, then ratings will likely begin to shift, especially among the younger demographic. This strategy could benefit it in that, instead of going head to head against the “giants” in Hispanic broadcast who have had a hold on the older demographic for decades, it is choosing to create something entirely new.

Steering in a completely different direction from the blocks of telenovela programming, Mundo Fox is offering all genres of programming that general mass-market networks offer.  This includes dramas, comedies, sports, news, and reality programming. The network will also repurpose some general market hit programming in Spanish to include “Bones,” “Minute to Win It,” and “American Dad” in the launch line-up. Mundo Fox will be a trailblazer in broadcast entertainment for the new generation of Hispanics in the U.S.

With the fastest-growing segment of the population being bicultural Latinos, which networks will prevail? What we do know is that Latinos have been stuck with what was available in Spanish, which was limited. Now they have more choices. As the population continues to become more diverse and skewing younger, it seems likely that MundoFox’s strategy of offering new Spanish-language genres of programming will excel. With the fast growth rate of the Hispanic population and its median age continuing to get younger, we know that language won’t be as important a factor in reaching them. Instead, competition among television networks is going to continue to get fierce, and networks will find that regardless of language, they will need to focus more on keeping content fresh and relevant.