BY GLENN GARVIN
ggarvin@MiamiHerald.com

Their advertising sales may be down nearly $100 million, but Spanish-language broadcasters say that ringing sound you hear from their industry isn’t an alarm bell. It’s a wake-up call — and a lot of companies have already answered.

“This time next year, if you’re not in Hispanic media, you’re going to want badly to get in,” says Don Browne, president of Telemundo. “And those who are already in it are going to feel pretty damn good about it.”

Once a cozy little Monopoly board with all the hotels stacked on two properties, Univisión and Telemundo, Spanish-language television has turned into a rambunctious free-for-all with new competitors getting into the game all the time.

The siren song that beckons them: explosive population growth among U.S. Hispanics that has already outstripped every demographic projection of the past decade and is expected to show an even more breathless pace when results of the 2010 census are in.

Some industry figures think tangible proof could come as soon as June, when the World Cup soccer tournament begins in South Africa. “All the matches are going to be televised in the United States in the afternoon and early evening,” says Jose Cancela, owner of the Hispanic USA marketing firm. “I think the ratings are going to be through the roof.”

Pounded by the same recessionary forces that have hammered all media the past couple of years, Spanish-language TV advertising billings dropped nearly 5 percent to $2.1 billion during the last three months of 2009. Nonetheless, the growing U.S. Spanish-language market, coupled with technological changes connected to last year’s nationwide switchover to digital TV signals, has new players swarming into the industry to challenge South Florida-based Univisión and Telemundo:

• Miami’s Spanish Broadcasting System, a radio company that first dipped a toe into television five years ago with the purchase of a scrawny Key West UHF station that’s now WSBS-22, is now a full-fledged network with 11 affiliates around the country and a channel on the Spanish-language DirecTV Mas satellite service. It reaches 30 percent of U.S. Hispanic households and aims to double that by the end of the year.

• Estrella TV, launched by veteran Spanish-language California radio company Liberman Broadcasting last year, has already acquired 28 affiliates reaching 73 percent of the Hispanic market. Earlier this month, Nielsen Media Research began listing Estrella in its national ratings alongside Univisión and Telemundo.

• Azteca América (owned by Mexico’s No. 2 network TV Azteca), founded in 2001 as a West Coast regional network, has steadily expanded its reach and now has 67 affiliates that reach 89 percent of the Hispanic audience across the country.

• LATV, launched in Los Angeles nine years ago, programs its 32 affiliates with mostly sports and music shows aimed at a youthful audience.

• América TeVé, which operates only three stations, hasn’t made much of a footprint nationally. But its aggressive programming of Miami’s WJAN-41 with live shows aimed specifically at Cuban Americans rather the general Latino audience targeted by the big Spanish-language nets had a noticeable impact on local Nielsens.

• Even public television has gotten into the act with V-me, a network created in 2007 by a partnership of Educational Broadcasting Corp. (the parent company of New York public station WNET), the investment firm the Baeza Group, Spanish media conglomerate PRISA and the venture capital firm Syncom Funds. V-me has 40 affiliates, all digital channels piggybacking on PBS stations.

Launching a new broadcast TV network used to be a rare, expensive and usually quixotic act. (English-language broadcasters have tried it just four times in the past half-century, and only two of them survived.) Luring stations away from their affiliations with existing networks was all but impossible.

But the signal switch last year that gave broadcast stations several new digital sub-channels has opened up signal space that the nascent Spanish-language networks have quickly latched onto: Estrella TV broke into the Miami market on WSVN’s 7.2 digital channel; LATV on WPLG’s 10.2; V-me on WPBT’s X2.2.

“It’s a very clever strategy,” says Miami Hispanic media consultant Adam Jacobson, “because once you get onto one of those digital channels, the FCC’s regulations say that local cable companies must carry you. Those cable spots are few and expensive, so it’s been a godsend for small networks.”

The technological strategy, however, would be little more than a footnote in a management textbook if the viewers weren’t there. In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau predicted that America’s Hispanic population would grow from 35 million to 38 million by the middle of the decade. Actual number in 2005: 41 million.

Now the official figure has hit 47 million and some demographers think it will be 50 million when the final census figures are in. An added sweet spot for broadcasters: About 60 percent (much larger than for non-Hispanics) are between the ages of 18 and 49, exactly the bracket that TV advertisers covet.

“That’s exactly what is bringing all these new companies to Spanish-language TV,” says César Conde, president of Univisión. “People have been waking up to what a great growth market it is. Over the last five years or so, the market has gotten incredibly competitive. That’s OK. It’s in everyone’s interest to see that [the] market keeps growing.”

Univisión and Telemundo have not been standing idly by while the new networks steal their lunches. Between them, they still have more than two-thirds of the Spanish-language audience. And TeleFutura, a sister network launched by Univisión in 2002, finally emerged as a Nielsen power last year. In February, it even edged out Telemundo for second place in the national Spanish-language ratings.

“Univisión has gotten so big over the years that our primary competition is the English-language networks,” says Conde. “We’re one of the top five networks in any language now in the 18-to-49 age group. And in 18-to-34, we’re usually the second- or third-largest, regardless of language . . . TeleFutura is really the part of our company that focuses day-to-day on the Spanish-language market.”

Who has the biggest share of the pie, however, may not be the most important element of a strategy in a growing industry. “Everybody thinks there’s just one pie, finite and static,” says Telemundo’s Browne. “But the beauty of the Hispanic media business is that the pie is going to grow. There’s plenty to go around.”

In fact, the pie is getting so large that the biggest challenge facing Spanish-language broadcasters is exactly where to slice it. Univisión and Tele-mundo still target the broadest-possible general Hispanic audience. But does a third-generation Cuban yuppie in Miami want to watch the same shows as a Mexican seamstress in Los Angeles who just arrived in the United States last year?

NUMEROUS CHANGES

“The market in Spanish-language media consumption is going to change dramatically in the next 10 to 15 years, and I don’t know if the old guard understands what is going to happen,” says Jacobson.

The biggest change: Hispanic population growth is being driven now by birth rates rather than immigration. A new Spanish-language TV viewer is more likely to have been born and raised in the United States than to have come here from somewhere else, bringing old viewing habits with him.

The shifting nature of the audience has already created a host of new demographics for Spanish-language broadcasting executives. In addition to targeting viewers by age, gender and income, as their English-language counterparts do, they split them into categories like Spanish-dominant, bilingual and acculturated.

“Viewing consumption can vary a lot depending where you came from and especially how long you’ve been here,” says South Florida media consultant Julio Rumbaut.

Some of the newer Spanish-language broadcasters have carved out a market niche by programming with an eye to national origins. TeVé America’s news-talk offerings are strongly oriented toward Cubans, and the target audience of LATV’s hit music show Mex 2 The Max is pretty obvious.

Others have experimented with ditching traditional Spanish-language broadcasting altogether. In 2008, SBS even slaughtered the industry’s most sacred cow of all, for three months building its schedule not around a nightly rags-to-riches-and-romance telenovela but a weekly drama about a Miami vampire, Gabriel.

It was the most ambitious and expensive programming ever produced for Spanish-language TV. SBS won’t disclose its budget, but the number kicked around the industry is $5 million, about 10 times the cost of the average novela. Gabriel delivered solid but not spectacular ratings.

NEW GAME PLAN

“The thinking was to provide alternative programming, more edgy and intelligent,” says Mauricio Gerson, senior vice president of programming and development at SBS. Gabriel, he adds, will be a moneymaker when sales of DVDs and foreign rights are completed. “We wanted to offer viewers something different than they’re used to seeing on the other channels. And we especially wanted to get the 18-to-49-year-olds.”

Not even SBS thinks the telenovela, the foundation of Spanish-language TV, is going to disappear. “We’re running two of them right now,” says Gerson. “That’s going to be a standard that people will always support. People like story lines.”

But the novela is getting a makeover to give it some cultural signposts for an audience that’s increasingly oriented to U.S. urban life and sensibilities. Telemundo is already spending an estimated $100 million a year to produce its own novelas rather than buying them abroad, and Univisión announced last year that it’s opening a studio in Miami for novela production.

Univisión’s move is widely seen as a hedge against the possible end of its programming deal with the Mexican studio Televisa, which has produced almost all of the network’s novelas for the past two decades. The Televisa contract — at times the subject of rancorous litigation between the two — is set to expire in 2017. But Univisión’s Conde says he expects it to be extended and even expanded, and says setting up a studio is simply a wise investment in a booming market.

“Investing in this Hispanic market is investing in growth,” he says. “Investing in any other broadcasting is investing in a static or declining business.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/22/1539947/spanish-language-tv-networks-thriving.html#ixzz0ivemIp7k

By: - Mark Dolliver Adweek

Coming of age is a complicated matter in even the simplest of circumstances. It’s that much more complex, naturally, when the country in which you’re becoming an adult isn’t the one in which your parents (or you) were born.

That’s the theme of a report released last month by the Pew Hispanic Center, under the title “Between Two Worlds: How Young Latinos Come of Age in America.” The report’s findings have significant implications for the way marketers address Hispanic 16-25-year-olds in the U.S. — a cohort that numbers some 7.5 million and accounts for 18 percent of all U.S. residents in that age bracket.

NO LONGER IMMIGRANTS…

As the report says, this is a life stage at which Hispanics in the U.S. “navigate the intricate, often porous borders between the two cultures they inhabit — American and Latin American.” Based on polling conducted in August and September, the report goes on to say “it is clear that many of today’s Latino youths, be they first or second generation, are straddling two worlds as they adapt to the new homeland.” It finds the survey’s respondents exhibiting “attitudes and behaviors that, throughout history, have often been associated with the immigrant experience.” The twist in the story is that, as the report emphasizes, “most Latino youths are not immigrants. Two-thirds were born in the U.S., many of them descendants of the big, ongoing wave of Latin American immigrants who began coming to this country around 1965.”

The survey finds ethnicity outranking current country of residence in the way Hispanic 16-25-year-olds perceive themselves. One question in the polling gave respondents a choice of terms and asked them to cite the one they use first to identify themselves — by their family’s country of origin, as Hispanic or Latino, or as American. A majority (52 percent) said they describe themselves first by familial country of origin, while 20 percent said they first identify themselves as Hispanic/Latino. Twenty-four percent said “American” is the one of these terms they use first.

…BUT NOT QUICK TO SELF-IDENTIFY AS AMERICAN

Even among the poll’s second-generation respondents (i.e., those born in the U.S., but with at least one foreign-born parent), just 33 percent said they choose “American” over the other options as their primary self-identification. A plurality of the second-generation respondents (41 percent) first identify themselves by their family’s country of origin; 21 percent use “Hispanic/Latino” first. “Only in the third and higher generations do a majority of Hispanic youths (50 percent) use ‘American’ as their first term of self-description,” says the report.

None of this makes things simple for companies that aim to sell their wares to Hispanic teens and young adults. Do marketers need to be wary of sounding an “American” theme in speaking to this audience? “Not necessarily,” says Christopher Campos, vp and managing director in the New York office of Bravo, an agency that specializes in addressing the Hispanic market. “The ‘American’ theme is not a turn-off. Clearly, America has changed. Young Latinos are growing up, adapting and influencing the world around them — they are defining what America is today.”

THEY INFLUENCE AS THEY ASSIMILATE…

At home, says Campos, their “Latino personality” is defined. But they’re influenced by a range of social factors in the wider world. “It is in this outside environment that he/she is exposed to other influences and starts learning and growing from those experiences,” says Campos. “Eventually, the young Latino contributes to the culture around him, converges with the American culture, and new identities arise. Thus, the American theme is part of what they experience, what is shaping them and what they are helping create everyday.”

Then again, if ethnicity looms larger than current country of residence in the way young Hispanics in the U.S. see themselves, that doesn’t mean it trumps their sense of themselves as people. “Hispanics are people first and Hispanics second like Americans,” notes Sergio Alcocer, president and chief creative officer of Austin, Texas-based agency LatinWorks. “You don’t do ‘American advertising.’ The concept is too vague and does not personalize the communication.”

…BUT STILL RESPOND TO ACCURATELY TARGETED MESSAGES

Laura Sonderup, director of Denver-based ad agency Hispanidad, makes a similar point when asked whether marketers should steer clear of an explicitly American theme in addressing Hispanic 16-25-year-olds. “When we reflect on the development of a relevant, results-oriented campaign message targeting any young adults, I doubt that an ‘explicitly American theme’ would be effective, unless the client is a branch of the military or a related category,” she says. “Instead, it is far more effective to speak to these influential young consumers about the things that are important to them in their lives and the thinking that influences their buying behaviors.” And while their exposure to mainstream American culture means young Hispanics will be different from their parents’ generation, she says, “they still won’t act, or think, like their general-market counterparts. So it will be important to speak to their roots in a meaningful and relevant way.”

If there are pitfalls in using a generically “American” approach to this audience, the precedence of familial country of origin in their self-perception means a generically Hispanic/Latino approach might present its own challenges. The Pew report makes it plain that young Hispanics are skeptical of any notion of a monolithic “Hispanic culture” in this country. “By a ratio of about 2-to-1,” says the report, “young Hispanics say there are more cultural differences (64 percent) than commonalities (33 percent) within the Hispanic community in the U.S.”

NOT A MONOLITH

Does this mean Hispanic 16-25-year-olds will be left cold by advertising that addresses them broadly as Hispanic or Latino? Campos thinks not. “Advertising that addresses that broader Hispanic population will not alienate those that self-identify with a specific country of origin,” he says. “That is because an individual, in this case a young Latino, will naturally first self-identify with national character — that of their parents. Secondarily, the young Latino will then self-identify with ethnicity, which in this case is the broader Hispanic/Latino. Thus, when advertising addresses the broader group, the U.S. Latino population, the young Latino does in fact [for the most part] self-identify and will not feel excluded.”

In any case, advertisers may have little choice in the matter. “In a perfect world,” says Sonderup, “we would be able to develop campaigns and messaging based on very specific criteria like country of origin. However, most clients need to speak to a much broader audience in order to stretch their marketing budgets. And although Hispanic young adults are attitudinally and linguistically different, they still tend to set trends, particularly within many urban centers, and I think that speaking to this influence can be just as effective. Likewise, it is essential to remember that many factors contribute to the consumer’s perception of who they are — not just their country of origin — and if you can speak to these factors in a relevant way, you are more likely to see results.”

THE LANGUAGE ISSUE…

Language introduces another complication, though, into the ways marketers speak to this audience. Based on its polling, the Pew report classifies 36 percent of the Hispanic 16-25-year-olds as “English dominant,” 41 percent as “bilingual” and 23 percent as “Spanish dominant.” As you’d expect, the figures vary depending on whether the person is first generation or more rooted in the U.S. “Among foreign-born Latinos ages 16 to 25, just 48 percent say they can speak English very well or pretty well,” says the report. “Among their native-born counterparts, that figure doubles to 98 percent.”

But these disparities aren’t the whole story. “For both native-born and foreign-born young Hispanics, the boundaries between English and Spanish are permeable,” says Pew’s report. “Seven in 10 say that when speaking with family members and friends, they often or sometimes use a hybrid known as ‘Spanglish’ that mixes words from both languages.” Twenty-three percent of respondents reported using Spanglish “most of the time” when speaking with family and friends.

“Language usage, especially among young Latinos, is a matter of choice for self-identification,” notes Campos. “It is a way to self-proclaim their heritage. In their lives, language is a means to expression, and depending on how or what they want to express, they’ll either do it in Spanish or in English or a mix of both.” Of course, these factors have implications for marketers’ media choices in addressing this audience. “There are media that reach these young Latinos in both English and Spanish, and Spanglish — mun2, MTV3, SiTV and a myriad of local radio stations throughout the nation, like La Mega here in New York City,” says Campos. “Therefore, relevance is not so much in the language but in the context of the advertising and whether they see themselves and their lifestyles reflected in the advertising.”

…IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS MIGHT BE ASSUMED

Indeed, marketers should bear in mind that the simple fact of addressing consumers in Spanish (or Spanglish) would not suffice to create a rapport with them. “One of the main opportunities we have as Hispanic marketers is that of breaking the myth of language as the only way to effectively reach the Hispanic population,” says Alcocer. “The growth of the population projected to come from U.S. births rather than immigration, and the explosion of Hispanic youth as a source of business, will force the industry to understand that language should be a tactic and never a strategy.”

Sonderup points to a consideration that may be overlooked by a company eager to address young Hispanics in Spanish: Will the company be able to sustain the conversation beyond a Spanish-language ad? “Because many companies in this country are still relatively new to Hispanic marketing, I would suggest that it is more important to ensure that a company has the internal capability to serve a Hispanic consumer in Spanish before tackling this question,” she says. “If my client cannot serve a consumer in the consumer’s language of choice, then it is my responsibility as their agency to support their efforts to reach the consumer in a relevant, meaningful and results-oriented way in English first — understanding, of course, that many consumers will be unable or unwilling to respond to English advertising. Moreover, it is also my responsibility as a marketing partner to help the client identify opportunities for partnering with bilingual call centers, etc., to ensure that they can fully and effectively communicate with Hispanic consumers in future campaigns.”

THE GROUP HAS HIGH ASPIRATIONS…

Amid all the differences among Hispanic 16-25-year-olds, a youthful optimism and satisfaction with life are widely shared characteristics. When asked how satisfied they are “with your life overall,” 50 percent of the Pew survey’s respondents said they’re “very satisfied” and another 45 percent “mostly satisfied.” Seventy-two percent expect to be better off financially than their parents, vs. just 4 percent expecting to be worse off.

And this provides a comparatively unambiguous opening for marketers in addressing Hispanic young people in the U.S. “Aside from country of origin and language preference, there is a trait for the immigrant experience,” says Alcocer. “In the case of Latino youth, I’m interested in exploring themes around the rise of the underdog, meaning the surprise factor of coming from behind and winning against all odds. I reject advertising that relies on connecting via nostalgia to the home country. Latinos came to look for a brighter future, and brands that help them get there will triumph.”

…WHICH MARKETERS SHOULD ADDRESS CAREFULLY

Campos concurs in this view. “Aspiration, success and upward mobility are key trigger points for this group,” he says. “Especially in immigrant-parent households, one needs to recognize that the parents left the motherland to seek opportunities for their children. Thus, young Latinos born in the U.S. have firsthand experience on what it takes to succeed.”

And, he adds, they’re better positioned to do so than their parents were, which means they “carry with them a sense of responsibility to succeed. From a cultural standpoint, young Latinos have more long-term orientation than their parents did or ever will have, and planning for the future is something that is certainly top of mind. Creating advertising that taps into this sense of empowerment and success is very powerful and well received.” Sonderup adds a note of caution, though, about pursuing this approach: “It must be done with a sense of respect and appreciation for the hardships that have been endured by parents and grandparents.”

If a sense of obligation to the older generation is a trait widely shared among young Hispanics, so is an element of the youthful rebelliousness that’s a near-universal part of coming of age. And this, too, can give marketers a point of connection with these consumers. But it must be used in the right way.

“Rebelliousness means different things to different categories of teens,” notes Sonderup. “And while I do not think that themes of disobedience, defiance and insubordination would be particularly effective with this demographic, I do believe that a lighter approach could be very successful, i.e., ‘This is not your father’s’ fill in the blank. Make it your own.”

New York Times
Tuesday, November 17, 2009

By MIGUEL HELFT

YouTube said Monday that it reached an agreement with Univision, the most-watched Spanish language television network in the United States, to make a wide range of its programs available on the video sharing site.

YouTube described the deal, the latest in a series of agreements with owners of professionally-produced programming, as one of its most comprehensive agreements for TV content. The agreement is nonexclusive and includes short clips as well as full-length TV shows from Univision’s three networks, Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision.

YouTube has been on a quest to acquire rights to more professionally-produced content, which is more attractive to advertisers than clips uploaded by users.

The agreement, however, does not include content from Televisa, a Mexican media company that owns rights to some of the most popular telenovelas and serialized dramas that are broadcast on Univision. (Univision and Televisa recently settled a lawsuit in which the Mexican company accused Univision of breaching the companies’ revenue-sharing contract.)

Chris Maxcy, the head of content partnerships at YouTube, said the deal would appeal to one of YouTube’s fastest growing audiences, Latinos in the United States. YouTube already has content from some TV networks and producers in Latin America and Spain.

Kevin Conroy, president of Univision Interactive Media, said the network would upload to YouTube a combination of catalog content and new programming, including popular shows like Nuestra Belleza Latina, El Show de Cristina, Don Francsico Presenta and Escandalo TV.

YouTube and Univision refused to disclose financial details of the agreement. But YouTube said the two companies would share revenue generated through advertising.

By Andrés Martinez, Faith Smith

New America Foundation Poder 360 | November 4, 2009

The Hispanic population in the United States is slated to grow by 35 percent in this decade alone, and according to the Nielsen ratings service, the number of Hispanic television households has risen from 10.2 million to 12.7 million just in the time NBC has owned Telemundo. As a result, Telemundo has been able to comfortably grow its audience even without eating into Univision’s market share.

The Hispanic population in the United States is slated to grow by 35 percent in this decade alone, and according to the Nielsen ratings service, the number of Hispanic television households has risen from 10.2 million to 12.7 million just in the time NBC has owned Telemundo. As a result, Telemundo has been able to comfortably grow its audience even without eating into Univision’s market share.

The night of September 9 appeared to fulfill all the promise underlying NBC Universal’s ambitious $2.7 billion acquisition in 2001 of Telemundo, the second-largest Spanish language television network in the U.S. On that night, the NBC sibling carried President Obama’s important healthcare address to a joint session of Congress-on a slight delay to allow for dubbing into Spanish-followed by its highest-rated program ever, which reached more than 5 million viewers.

Then again, perhaps the network’s big night also reinforced some of NBC’s unrealized aspirations for its Spanish outlet. Its ratings blockbuster, after all, was a World Cup qualifying match between Mexico and Honduras. Seven years in, it’s the best the “Must-See TV” wizards of American broadcasting have done with their Spanish channel.

With epiphanies like these, it is hard to reach a verdict on whether NBC Universal’s Spanish immersion has been a success. In terms of ratings, Telemundo remains a distant second to the Univision powerhouse, the top U.S. Spanish network that has long relied on its exclusive access to Televisa programming. Televisa of Mexico is the world’s leading Spanish media company, and having a lock on its proven hits provides Univision with a tremendous leg-up in a country where two-thirds of the Hispanic audience hails from Mexico. Univision’s 3-to-1 lead over Telemundo has remained constant since the merger, and its sister network Telefutura is actually growing faster than Telemundo.

A rising tide, however, lifts all yachts. The Hispanic population in the United States is slated to grow by 35 percent in this decade alone, and according to the Nielsen ratings service, the number of Hispanic television households has risen from 10.2 million to 12.7 million just in the time NBC has owned Telemundo. As a result, Telemundo has been able to comfortably grow its audience even without eating into Univision’s market share.

Telemundo won’t comment on its bottom line, but SNL Kagan, an independent financial analyst firm, estimates the network earned $83 million last year on $315 million of revenue, giving it a far healthier profit margin than its English-language parent broadcaster. These figures may not justify the price NBC paid in 2001, but these are tough times for all advertising-driven media. And given how difficult it is to start a network from scratch, NBC’s 2001 move will likely seem even smarter after the 2010 census, which is expected to underscore the dramatic growth of Hispanic America.

Still, NBC hasn’t quite delivered on its revolutionary vision for Telemundo, and it is not certain that it will ever be able to cash in on its multi-billion-dollar bet-or that a growing demographic that is eager for sophisticated Spanish language programming more relevant to their lives in the U.S. truly exists. NBC made clear it wasn’t interested in merely maintaining a bridge to the old country, but there remains a disconnect between the expectations the network established and its continued reliance on futbol and telenovelas, regardless of where they may be produced.

Indeed, analysts at the time of the merger gushed about the possibility of NBC using its new platform to double down on existing content, showing dubbed episodes of Friends and ER. Don Browne, the president of Telemundo who was an NBC executive involved in the decision to acquire the Spanish network, says this was never part of the plan. “A lot of people reduce it to language, but the real issue here is culture,” Browne says. According to Browne, NBC was eager to reach Latino audiences in the United States in new ways. This entailed investing heavily in the network’s production capacity to generate its own programming and create a homegrown American Spanish-language TV industry.

Telemundo now claims to be the second-largest producer of Spanish TV content in the world, exporting its telenovelas to dozens of countries, much like Latin American producers have done for years (Mexican telenovelas are hugely popular in Eastern Europe).

Browne concedes NBC/Telemundo’s strategy is predicated on a belief that second- and third- generation Latinos will seek out programming in Spanish well after previous waves of immigrants (including previous generations of Latino immigrants themselves) have cut ties with their mother-country tongue. “There has been a phenomenal change in the attitude toward being Hispanic in the United States. Even the second and third generations that are acculturated return to their ethnic identity and heritage, including their language,” he says. “There’s a swagger to it.” To capitalize on the ease with which young Latinos inhabit both languages, Telemundo has launched Mun2, a channel and website that is primarily in English, if not Spanglish.

There is nothing political about NBC’s avowed strategy, but it echoes some of the claims made in a very different context by opponents of comprehensive immigration reform-that the recent tsunami of Mexican immigrants isn’t like previous waves of immigrants into this country. They aren’t assimilating into American society the way Italians, Germans and the Irish once did, so goes the argument, but are instead forming a fifth column to advance Mexico’s reconquista of lost territories. They are reluctant to learn English.

They root for Mexico, and against the Americans, when the two countries play soccer. They send all their money to the old country. And so on. The view is heard daily on talk radio and the reputed political scientist Samuel Huntington provided a more polished version of the indictment in his 2002 book Who We Are.

Edward Schumacher, the director of Harvard University’s Immigration and Integration Studies Project and a former newspaper executive with experience in the U.S. Spanish-language market, is skeptical that there is a growing audience of second-generation immigrants yearning for more sophisticated Spanish content. “The children of Latino immigrants born in this country do hold on to their Spanish”, he says, “but it’s mostly conversational and eventually they lose it.” As for their media preferences, “It’s a universal fact that whichever language someone learns in school when they are young will be their preferred language in media.”

According to a 2002 study by the Pew Hispanic Center, 72 percent of foreign-born Latinos are “Spanish-dominant,” while the remainder is bilingual or even “English-dominant.” But move down the generational ladder and the numbers point to linguistic assimilation, as a mere 7 percent of second-generation and practically zero third-generation Latinos are Spanish-dominant.

Telemundo claims that by producing its own telenovelas, its programming is edgier, timelier and more relevant to a U.S. audience than Univision’s Mexican imports. “This is not your father’s Spanish TV,” Browne says.

It would be easier to laud Telemundo’s avowed strategy of creating more sophisticated programming for more assimilated young Latinos if the programs it aired reflected that ambition. The reality is that the company still falls short of this lofty objective; there is nothing coming out of Telemundo approximating an English-language network’s quality sitcoms or dramas, not to mention shows like Mad Men produced by smaller cable channels. There are plenty of gritty themes ripped from the headlines, but more topical overwrought telenovelas don’t cease being overwrought telenovelas. The network’s most successful show ever was Sin Senos No Hay Paraiso (Without Breasts There is No Paradise), which told the volatile tale of a young woman gripped by the drug trade (See Senos sidebar).

To be fair, Telemundo is injecting social messages in the shows it produces. In one innovative product placement, a current telenovela taking place in New York-Mas Sabe el Diablo-features a census worker as a character, which allows the network to partner up with Uncle Sam to spread the word on the importance of being counted in 2010. Another current telenovela, Ninos Ricos, Pobres Padres, shot at Telemundo’s Florida studios in collaboration with a Colombian network, is about the travails of a family deported back to Colombia, a theme resonant in both societies. The circularity of immigration is something Telemundo, which also airs now on cable in Mexico, can exploit in coming years as people in Latin America indulge their nostalgia for their immigrant experience in the United States.

Carlos Bardasano, a former head of entertainment at both Telemundo and Univision, says NBC made a virtue out of necessity by investing in Telemundo’s production capacity, given Univision’s lock on Televisa’s output. He believes that Telemundo’s control of its own programming will prove a big advantage going forward. But he notes there are no sweeping distinctions, as of yet, between telenovelas produced here and those filmed south of the border, especially as they often involve the same talent and crews. And while Anglo audiences might find three-hour blocs of nightly soap operas a dubious primetime strategy, Bardasano compares the telenovela genre to soccer-a global craze that most Americans just don’t get.

“Plus, they are not all alike,” he adds. “We go through cycles where viewers want novelas to be a gritty mirror on their lives, or escapist fun, though it’s true that all of them are essentially a variant on the plot lines from four literary works-Romeo and Juliet, The Count of Monte Cristo, Cinderella and The Man in the Iron Mask.”

Top-rated network Univision bristles at the suggestion that its programming is any less relevant to viewers north of Rio Grande. “Our viewers tell us every night what they want to watch,” says Alina Falcon, Univision’s executive vice president and operating manager, referring to the network’s commanding 3-to-1 advantage in ratings. “Just because a show is produced in the United States doesn’t make it more popular.” She is also quick to note that Univision’s strong stable of news, reality and variety shows are produced in the United States and better reflect the diversity of the nation’s Hispanic population than its Mexico-centric novelas.

Compare Telemundo shows to such recent Univision blockbusters as Manana es Para Siempre and you may question whether Telemundo has yet to live up to its aspiration to produce content that is dramatically different from the imports. Its shows may be edgier than traditional novelas, and some are set in the United States, but Mexico’s imports have also become a lot less straight-laced. Not to mention the obvious point that both networks are still relying heavily on the telenovela genre in primetime (Telemundo’s previous owners tried abandoning the format with disastrous results).

But can telenovelas or any other Spanish programming ever be hip enough for young, assimilated Latinos? Antonio Mejias, entertainment editor at Los Angeles’ La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the U.S., is skeptical. “Yes, there will always be an audience for Spanish-language TV for immigrants, but I am very doubtful that there is an audience for Spanish content among long-term immigrants and those born here. Young Hispanics are quick to make the move to higher-quality English language programming.”

The 2.7-billion-dollar question then becomes, should NBC/Telemundo create such programming or would it be wiser to abandon the conceit and continue providing its audience with Mexican soccer and hysterical telenovelas starring plenty of cleavage and bombshells of the tu-verdadero-padre-es variety?

A few years back a writer in Los Angeles teased the publisher of the Los Angeles Times that its sister Spanish-language publication, Hoy-with its focus on Mexican celebrity gossip and Mexican soccer-seemed written for people who’d been in this country for all of 10 minutes. It was a blunt but accurate critique, two centuries after the establishment in New Orleans of El Misisipi, the first Spanish-language newspaper in this country.

It’s a characterization that applies to almost all forms of Hispanic media in America. No one has proven that it is financially viable for a Spanish content provider in this country to set aside the “just arrived” Latinos and target instead the second- and third- generation Latinos. Telemundo claims it is doing just that, but its output suggests otherwise.

There is a reason that the owners of the Los Angeles Times target the city’s Latino audiences with Hoy, and not with a Spanish edition of the Los Angeles Times. Nevertheless, once people want to read the Los Angeles Times, they want to read it in English. And that’s the same reason NBC Universal doesn’t run dubbed episodes of 30 Rock or Law and Order on Telemundo and doesn’t create similar shows in Spanish. Once people want such shows, they want them in English.

Learn More About:
Andrés Martinez, Faith Smith

U.S. Hispanics and Acculturation | Nielsen Wire

Doug Anderson, SVP, Research & Development, The Nielsen Company

SUMMARY: The U.S. added nearly 1.2 million persons of Hispanic origin to the population between 2007 and 2008, raising the Hispanic population from 15.1% to 15.4%. And new Hispanic immigrants are expected to continue to come in large numbers for the foreseeable future. Since a large share of the Hispanic population in the U.S. will continue to be new immigrants and their second generation children, the acculturation process may not happen has quickly or as thoroughly as with past immigrant groups. Marketers need to be acutely aware of both language and acculturation matters when crafting marketing strategies.

Marketers looking to tap into high-growth population segments should turn their attention to the U.S. Hispanic segment, which grew at a rate 3.4 times higher than the total population between 2007 and 2008 and nearly ten times higher than the non-Hispanic white population. Over half of all U.S. population growth during this time came from Hispanics, raising Hispanics to 15.4% of total U.S. population—a year-over-year growth rate of more than 2.6%.

The Hispanic population will reach nearly 20% by 2020 and over 30% by 2050…

Continued growth
In fact, that trend is expected to continue. Projections show the Hispanic population will reach nearly 20% by 2020 and over 30% by 2050—making Hispanics no longer a niche market, but a mainstream one. And unlike immigrant populations from the first part of the 20th century—when immigration laws stopped the inflow of people from countries such as Italy, Ireland and Poland—new Hispanic immigrants are expected to continue to come in large numbers for the foreseeable future, making the acculturation process much slower than it was for previous generations.

For marketers, careful attention around both language and acculturation are essential to success. While these concepts are closely related, they are quite different. Language may be necessary for acculturation, but even Hispanics with excellent English-language skills may still respond more favorably to advertising that is in the Spanish language or messaging that shows various aspects of Hispanic culture. Marketers must shift their focus from thinking about whether Hispanics can understand their advertising to creating campaigns that speak to the heart of the Hispanic consumer in the U.S.

Language and acculturation need to be analyzed separately…

Language and acculturation
To accurately understand acculturation matters, language and acculturation need to be analyzed separately in ways that can be applied across categories and geographies so the purchasing behavior of both Hispanics and non-Hispanics can be compared and contrasted. Nielsen has created a measure of behavioral acculturation that tracks purchase data across nearly 700 different categories to determine how similar the purchases of Hispanic households are to the purchases of non-Hispanic households with the same overall demographic characteristics. Hispanic households are considered “behaviorally acculturated” when purchasing patterns match the behavior of non-Hispanic households.

The chart below shows the index of the behavioral acculturation measure for U.S. Hispanics with varying language preferences. A low index shows high acculturation—purchasing behavior is similar for Hispanic and non-Hispanic households. The higher the index, the more dissimilar Hispanic behavior is as compared to non-Hispanic behavior and the more behaviorally unacculturated the segment is. Not surprisingly, households that only speak Spanish are the least behaviorally acculturated.

Additionally, when U.S. Hispanic members of the Nielsen Homescan Hispanic Panel were asked to rate their personal level of acculturation, those who defined themselves as following only Hispanic or Latino culture purchased products very differently from demographically similar non-Hispanics. In this survey, the word “American” refers specifically to United States culture.

Other predictors of behavioral acculturation include:

• Length of time in the U.S.—recent immigrants are the least behaviorally acculturated, while those who have been in the U.S. for more than 20 years are just as behaviorally acculturated as those born in the U.S.
• Language at home—those who speak Spanish at home are less behaviorally acculturated than those who commonly speak English, but even those who prefer to use Spanish at home are more behaviorally acculturated than those who only speak Spanish. For many Hispanic households who speak English well, but still use Spanish at home, Spanish-language advertising may resonate better.
• Relationships—those whose friends are also Hispanic are less behaviorally acculturated than those with mainly or solely non-Hispanic friends.
• Education—those with higher levels of education are more behaviorally acculturated than those with lower levels.

Closing the gap
The income distribution of Hispanics compared to the non-Hispanic population of the U.S. is marked by large gaps at the top end of the income spectrum. While Hispanics are more concentrated in the lower annual income ranges below $50k, there is parity between Hispanic and non-Hispanic households in the $50-75k annual income range.

The incidence of advanced college degrees for Hispanics is 60% below the national norm..

Levels of educational attainment also lag for Hispanics in the U.S., but there is evidence among younger Hispanics that these levels might change substantially in the future. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 86% of Hispanics between the ages of 16 and 25 are either in school or in the labor force—both skill-building activities that will pay dividends in income further down the road. Overall, Hispanics are nearly four times more likely to have no high school (9th grade or less), and over two times more likely than average to have dropped out of high school.

And while the incidence of advanced college degrees for Hispanics is 60% below the national norm, this level has been on the increase for decades—driven substantially by changes in the behaviors of young Hispanic women. In 1980, 35% of Hispanic women between the ages of 16 and 25 were in school (with 40% of those in school and working). By 2007, this level had increased to 50%. There has also been a marked decline in early pregnancy among young Hispanic women—24% were not in school or the labor force and were mothers in 1970. By 2007, only 9% had the same status. Young Hispanic men have also seen increases in the percentage in school, but not nearly to the degree as for women.

When it comes to education, the intent of Hispanic youths is often sidetracked by economic realities. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, nearly 90% of Hispanics between the ages of 16 and 25 believe that a college education is important to success in life—versus 74% of the general public. That sentiment is echoed by parents with more than three-quarters agreeing that college is the most important thing to do after high school. However, just under half of Hispanics plan to get a college degree versus 60% of the total population in the same age ranges.

Much of this gap can be explained by differences between U.S.-born Hispanics and the foreign-born young Hispanics who make up around one-third of this age cohort. Less than half of foreign-born Hispanics plan to go to college—often citing the need to work to support family either in the U.S. or in their native countries. Nearly two-thirds of foreign-born Hispanics sent money to family in their native countries versus 21% for those born in the U.S. And a much higher share of foreign-born young Hispanic women are mothers—29% versus 17% for U.S.-born Hispanic women.

Seize the moment now
The pace of Hispanic acculturation in the U.S. will depend on many factors. However, it will likely never mirror the same assimilation patterns of immigrants from past generations. The ready availability of Spanish media (television, radio, newspapers, websites, etc.) and the easy ability to communicate with friends and family who have not come to the U.S. slows the pace of acculturation, as does the continuing influx of new immigrants who reinforce the native cultural experience in Hispanic communities. Unlike immigrants from earlier in the history of the U.S., Hispanics today can participate in society while still retaining strong aspects of their Latino culture—including a preference for speaking Spanish at home or with their families and friends.

While Hispanics will become more acculturated over time and over generations—particularly in their purchasing behavior—they are not likely to leave their Latino culture behind. Marketers who wait around for Hispanics to acculturate rather than actively reaching out to this growing market now will be left waiting.

Sources:
The Nielsen Company, Homescan Hispanic Panel
Pew Hispanic Center—Latinos and Education: Explaining the Attainment Gap (October, 2009)
Pew Hispanic Center—The Changing Pathways of Hispanic Youths Into Adulthood (October, 2009)
U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement 2008 (released September 2009)

For more information: contact us Tags: demographics, Doug Anderson, Hispanic households

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The 2010 Census will radically alter the demographic map and the rules of engagement between Hispanic and general-market shops

Nov 2, 2009

By
- Noreen O’Leary

Hispanic Americans continue to grow in number at a rate four times that of the general population, with the 2010 Census expected to show their total rising to nearly 50 million, from 38 million in 2000. And second-generation Hispanics are fast becoming the driver of the group’s growth, with 88 percent of Hispanic children born in America, versus 61 percent of adults.

As a result, agencies that market to this segment are finding themselves in a strong position, armed with the skills and techniques to take on general assignments from big-name clients. Meanwhile, in a tight business environment, general agencies are starting to compete for work previously reserved for specialist shops.

Is an already competitive agency landscape set to become even more so?

“In the 2010 Census, we’ll see confirmation of a shift from Hispanic consumers who are first generation, where Spanish is the dominant language, to second-generation, bilingual, bicultural consumers. It totally transforms how we market,” says Cynthia McFarlane, chair of Publicis Groupe’s Conill, a Latino agency. “These are consumers who are as influenced by American culture as the country of origin of their families. There is a new American culture forming, and these consumers are having a tremendous impact on mainstream America.”

McDonald’s, which sees higher brand loyalty among its Hispanic consumers, has added offerings like breakfast burritos to its national menu. In further evidence of the growing bilingual voice of Hispanic consumers, McDonald’s runs ads with Spanish taglines in general-market media, and earlier this year used “Spanglish” in general-market advertising for the Quarter Pounder.

“We know the general market has become increasingly multicultural, with Hispanic music, Hispanic tastes, the Hispanic palate influencing a lot of general-market initiatives,” says Cristina Vilella, director of marketing at McDonald’s USA. “We lead with Hispanic insights but make sure they appeal to the general market.”

That blurring of distinctions within the Hispanic marketplace hints at the changes ahead for agencies and media firms. Hispanics now have about $863 billion in discretionary annual income, more than any other minority group in the country. (As of the third quarter, Americans overall had disposable income of $10.8 trillion.) Agencies argue that spending power is still underestimated and that upcoming Census findings — expected to be released beginning in early 2011 — will deliver a wake-up call to marketers.

“It will be a huge eye-opener when we see the growing affluence of the Hispanic marketplace, not just in buying power but also in household wealth,” says Conill’s McFarlane.

“We have 15 percent of the market but only 5 percent of the marketing dollars,” says Ingrid Otero-Smart, CEO of Interpublic Group’s Casanova Pendrill. “You’re going to see more general-market agencies pursue Hispanic accounts. They didn’t care when our budgets were $10 million or less, but now that we are dealing with more robust budgets and theirs are being cut, it’s a different story.”

Already, Hispanic agencies are extending their reach beyond Spanish-language media. Casanova Pendrill’s recent California Lottery TV spots were used in the general market, while San Antonio-based independent Creative Civilization is lead agency for the San Antonio Express News and the San Antonio Spurs. Last year, Omnicom Group’s Alma DDB, which also handles urban and general assignments for McDonald’s, launched Clorox’s environmentally friendly Green Works line into the general market. In 2006, Toyota liked a Conill TV concept for the Camry so well, it turned it into a Super Bowl spot.

“There are certain categories, geographies, brands where the Hispanic market is now the general market and the Hispanic marketing strategy will be the overriding strategy,” says Alex Lopez Negrete, CCO at independent Lopez Negrete Communications in Houston. “The Census will confirm the cultural pervasiveness of Hispanics. When general-market assignments start going to Hispanic agencies, it will manifest itself regionally first and then move to categories.”

And Hispanic agencies have to catch up to their ever savvier consumers: Earlier this year, Forrester Research said Hispanic Gen Y consumers 18-28 are “outpacing” their non-Hispanic peers in the amount of mobile activity and use of features in which they engage. Those young Hispanics are also more interested in technology; Forrester found 72 percent of them said it is important, compared to 44 percent of non-Hispanics.

Mark Gibson, vp of advertising at State Farm, says the insurer’s Hispanic marketing is an area of innovation.

“We’re doing things in the Hispanic market that are driving things to other targets, platforms,” he says. “Our Hispanic efforts are becoming a best-practices center at the company.”

Given those new approaches to the marketplace and the threat of competition from general-market shops, many traditional Hispanic agencies will need to reinvent themselves to survive. Last year, after spending 29 years at Hispanic agencies, Simon El Hage joined IPG’s Draftfcb in Chicago as group management director of multicultural marketing. “The old ethnic multicultural approach is passé,” he warns. “We have to look at integration not just from a channel but from a segment point of view. The reality is that Hispanic agencies got used to working with less. We fell into our own trap, and the expectations marketers have for us, we set ourselves. We’ve underestimated the sophistication of our consumers.”

And that provides opportunities for upstarts like MDC Partners’ Adrenalina. The agency says it uses digital executions as a starting point and bases its strategies on a behavioral model. “We speak in culture, not language,” says Manuel Wernicky, Adrenalina’s president. “Old-school agencies just focus on Census numbers, which are used to divide the whole into granular pieces. We try to understand the complexity of that consumer and how they are changing, regardless of language, whether they’re male or female, Mexican or Colombian.”

Language does remain an important factor. Some 44 percent of Hispanic consumers say, at home, they speak Spanish only or more often than English; 25 percent say they are equally bilingual; and 31 percent use English only or more often than Spanish, according to research from Synovate and Nielsen. (That last number offers a glimpse of the future Hispanic marketplace: Among second-generation consumers, 93 percent say they are bilingual or English dominant.)

As general-market broadcasters continue to battle audience erosion, Univision, the country’s No. 1 Spanish-language media company, posted a 5 percent gain last season. The company owns the most-watched single American TV station among adults 18-49 regardless of language — KMEX-TV in Los Angeles. Univision also said last season it was consistently within the top five broadcast networks in the U.S., and on many nights it was within the top three.

“We’re seeing a tipping point in Spanish-language media,” says David Lawenda, Univision’s president. “In our recently completed upfront, we saw shares shifting [from the general market] as we brought in new brands. The implications of the 2010 Census are huge. Marketers don’t necessarily know the spending power of the U.S. Hispanic population. Their purchasing power makes them equivalent to the 15th-largest consumer marketplace in the world.”

General broadcast networks posted a 22 percent decline in the last upfront, while Univision posted a 3 percent gain to $1.24 billion. In categories like quick-service restaurants, Univision posted a 25 percent gain, while consumer packaged goods rose 20 percent, Lawenda says.

Unlike general-market shops, many Hispanic agencies still maintain full-service media departments. That business is also under assault. Media agencies at big industry holding companies have created operations dedicated to multicultural planning and buying. The industry is also seeing more media-only agency reviews, which is not typical in the Hispanic sector.

“The competitive landscape will shift as more people compete for the money,” says Danielle Gonzalez, managing director of Starcom MediaVest Group’s Tapestry multicultural unit. “The general market has very good [media] buyers, but they might be lacking in strategic insights. You’ll see traditional Spanish agencies positioning themselves as saying, ‘You might have the [volume benefit of] dollars, but if you don’t have the insights or are smart at buying, then what are you bringing to the process?’”

The stakes in those media plans have clearly changed over the past decade. While the 2010 survey is expected to show that two-thirds of Hispanics in the U.S. continue to live in four states — California, Texas, Florida and New York — there will be surprising new expansion of the population base.

“In the 2010 Census, we’ll see dramatic growth east of the Mississippi in the Southeast corridor. This is going to be a profound game changer,” says Don Browne, president of NBC Universal’s Telemundo Spanish-language broadcast operations.

Luis Miguel Messianu, president and CCO at Alma DDB, concurs: “This Census will change the perception of what a national Hispanic marketing plan will look like. Now, it’s the 15 top markets. The reality is that it has grown beyond that in recent years.”

Quoted from http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/e3i26911e62ce1ee0f7f41748d31d4e42a0:

By Jeff Zbar

IMAGE GALLERY

Stephen Ross had a vision. What if the new owner of the Miami Dolphins football team brought on limited partners—celebrities turned successful executives—who reflected the complexion of the South Florida community? In turn, they would energize the fan base, become part of a festival atmosphere, and raise game attendance and viewership for the team, its sponsors and the TV networks alike?

In short, what if he pulled off an event like that which occurred the night of Monday, October 12? 
That Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets ostensibly was just another football game. Yet by the time team investor Marc Anthony had finished the National Anthem and fellow team owner Gloria Estefan had sung her Spanish rendition of Are You Ready for Some Football with Hank Williams Jr., the Hispanic touch was undeniable. President Barack Obama rounded out the pre-game show with a videotaped proclamation in Spanish, “We are all Americans.”

It was Fútbol Americano—Miami style. 
The primetime showcasing of the Dolphins’ star-laden ownership is the first big step in the culmination of Ross’ vision. It’s how Ross—who grew up in Miami Beach and became a successful developer—intends to change the team’s moxie and turn it into a popular (and winning) franchise.

To some, Ross is among the vanguard of new NFL owners. There is no doubt he’s as much a part of a very exclusive fraternity of deep-pocketed, white, majority owners like Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys or Daniel Snyder of the Washington Redskins. But Ross’ warm embrace of minorities among his limited partners is changing the make-up of the league’s ownership ranks—and, he hopes, its fan base and viewership. “I’m not looking to be where everybody else is,” Ross tells USA Today of his NFL counterparts. “I want to write my own script.”

Within months of spending $1.5 billion to acquire the Miami Dolphins, the stadium and surrounding property from H. Wayne Huizenga late last year, Ross brought on as investors Gloria and Emilio Estefan, and Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez, along with Palm Beach County residents Venus and Serena Williams. As limited partners and high-profile celebrities, they could literally change the face of the team. Ross also signed Jimmy Buffett’s Land Shark Lager beer for the team’s stadium naming rights (Buffett’s casino holdings prevent him from taking an ownership stake in an NFL team). Fergie, the singer from the Black Eyed Peas, was reportedly approved by the NFL owners as another celebrity part-owner of the Dolphins, although no deal had been announced as of press time.

Few would argue against Ross’ maxim that the celebrity factor helps boost attention—especially for a team that suffered a 9 percent drop in attendance before last season’s 11-5 turn-around. Yet the Dolphins are committed to putting a winning team on the field, and to that end, Ross made sure to massage Dolphin’s General Manager Bill Parcells, who is largely credited with the Dolphins historic turnaround last season, and who in the past has shown disdain for meddling owners.

All the while, Ross reached out to the local community in Miami-Dade County, where more than half the population is Latino. Some believe his performances are game-changers. The marketing implications for the Dolphins in the Latino community are “enormous,” says Dr. Richard E. Lapchick, Chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida. Lapchick, also an ESPN.com commentator on diversity in sports, authored 100 Campeones: Latino Groundbreakers Who Paved the Way in Sport. Aside from Arturo Moreno (owner of the Anaheim Angels) and Linda Alvarado (part owner of the Colorado Rockies), Lapchick says this is the first significant Latino ownership group in U.S. sporting franchises; the Estefans are the first Cuban-Americans to hold an ownership stake in the NFL.

The South Florida spotlight is carrying the images far beyond the local community, he says (the Monday night game was televised nationally and USA Today ran a story on the team on its back cover page for Hispanic Heritage Month). “Even though this is minority ownership, it has such star power that it’s getting public attention,” he says. “The implications for the NFL are that it is helping to move their image as a sport that is dealing in a serious way with diversity issues.”

It didn’t hurt that high-profile Latinos were on the field, too. Mexican-American quarterback Mark Sanchez was the first-round draft pick for the New York Jets and Greg Camarillo is a wide receiver for the Dolphins. In all, the league has close to two dozen Hispanic players, including such stars as Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and San Diego Chargers defensive end Luis Castillo.

But unlike Dallas’ and San Diego’s role models, Miami’s new stars are owners with talents parallel to, if not distant from, the gridiron. The appeal is different, and the inspiration as well. “Here we’re talking about something much more important,” says Miami-based developer and Dolphins Vice Chairman Jorge Pérez, who facilitated the connection with the Estefans. “Here we’re talking about ownership. Events like this make a whole community feel that there is a huge pride in having one of theirs achieving something that hasn’t been achieved before.”

And while many sports columnists and business impresarios still challenge Ross’ notion that glitter and glamour, albeit Latino, can fill seats (one need only look at the empty stands at a Florida Marlins baseball game), on this Monday night in October, Marc Anthony—a native of East Harlem whose godfather is long-time New York Giants head coach Jim Fassel—literally became a launching pad for the team, and the National Football League. ESPN Deportes, the sports network’s Spanish-language channel, earned a 1.44 coverage rating, its highest pull ever for a game of Fútbol Americano, and well over its average 1.1 rating.

“As the changing demographic continues to take place, it’s important to found on developing that fan base,” says Lino Garcia, General Manager of ESPN Deportes.

To be fair, the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers played to a packed house at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca two years ago, and last year’s Hispanic Heritage Month Monday night game, where the Cowboys hosted the Philadelphia Eagles, was the highest watched MNF game on ESPN Deportes until the Dolphins-Jets game. But such a successful showing in a region known as the “Gateway to the Americas” can only help the NFL spread its influence throughout South America, says Jose Cancela, a long-time Hispanic media executive and principal with the Coral Gables-based Hispanic USA, which is working with the Dolphins to gauge their efforts. “The Dolphins sit at the epicenter of reaping the benefits of that crossroads,” he says. “Their mindset is to be very aggressive locally and to think southward as well.”

The success of the outreach is being felt by both the team and the league, Cancela says. Cancela likened the marketing strategy to an automotive campaign: The NFL handles the national branding, and the Miami Dolphins organization is the local dealer trying to steer people into seats. And since few before Ross tried to tap the Latino market in any significant way—except for the Dallas Cowboys, which are viewed as the most aggressive effort—the upside potential is enormous. “That’s where Stephen Ross saw the opportunity and addressed it,” Cancela says. “The team’s efforts at this stage have surpassed [the Cowboys].”

Savvy executives with other teams will use the Dolphins’ example as a blueprint for similar outreach, says Peter O’Reilly, NFL Vice President of fan strategy and marketing. That’s not to say Miami is unique. The Pittsburgh Steelers—who along with Seattle and Indianapolis broadcast games in Spanish—have one of the strongest U.S. Hispanic and Mexican fan bases among the league’s 32 teams, he says. “This is not a one-game, one-weekend approach for the league,” he says. “It’s really growing and coming to life in all our NFL markets.”

With the glitz and glamour of Miami and nearby South Beach, some liken this setting to a Los Angeles Lakers game. In L.A., fans like Jack Nicholson and Dyan Cannon can be found in courtside seats. But Miami is different. The celebrities are owners—whose involvement goes beyond merely watching the game and creates energy akin to a festival rather than a football game.

The Estefan’s Bongo’s restaurant—already a mainstay in the American Airlines Arena where the Miami Heat play basketball—serves up pork sandwiches during games. The Dolphins have also created Calle Dolphins—a mini-replica of the annual Calle Ocho music festival in Little Havanna. “We’re creating a little Calle Ocho Dolphins-style,” says George Torres, the Dolphins Senior Director of Marketing and Communications.

Off the field and away from most of the cameras, the partners also participate in Dolphins community events. Emilio Estefan works with area high school bands to perform fight songs at tailgating and pregame events. He’s also working with the Dolphins Voices singing group. Marc Anthony attends meetings with Amigos for Kids, a program that helps abused children.

“None of this is a requirement,” Torres says. “It’s just them being active participants, and understanding what the challenges and objectives are.” For the record, Marc Anthony and Ross commented at the time of the announcement this summer that this is very much a business deal. “This is a business transaction where Marc is writing a check to be an owner,” Ross said at the time, “and there isn’t any barter where he is getting paid to perform.”

For cynics who believe bringing on Marc Anthony, the Estefans and the Williams sisters was little more than lip service to diversity, Lipchick scoffs. He, too, questioned the potential depth of their involvement when the deals were first announced, but he has since hopped on board. “When I first saw the celebrities’ involvement, I questioned if it was an attempt to simply say, ‘We have minority ownership in a league that never has,’” he says. “I now believe this has been a very positive development and it is being treated with open arms in the national press.”

The equation seems simple enough for other teams to follow; combine celebrities with sport, and put it on display. Garcia says other team managers are closely watching the “connection between the team, the city and the entertainment.” But the nexus of the three might be hard to duplicate. “This is a unique market,” he says. “Miami has a unique flair, an energy to it.”

For his part, Marc Anthony believes reality has changed in the eyes of Hispanic youth. While at an Amigos For Kids meeting, a child who had just learned that Anthony was an owner of the Miami Dolphins commented, “So I can own a team too?”
“All of a sudden that’s not an issue anymore,” he told PODER. “Yes, you can be President. Yes, you can own an NFL team. Yes, you can be a Supreme Court justice.”

Adds Emilio Estefan: “It’s making history for a lot of Latinos. That’s what it’s all about. It’s definitely making a new era for Latinos in the United States.”

Mounting Consumer Interest Creates Significant Opportunity for Brands to Connect with Customers via Mobile Device | Reuters

HipCricket Consumer Survey Reveals Growing Demand for Brands to Leverage the Mobile Marketing Medium with 37 Percent of Consumers Showing Interest in Participating in Mobile Customer Loyalty Programs KIRKLAND, Wash.–(Business Wire)– Growing consumer interest in mobile marketing and customer loyalty programs has created a significant and largely untapped opportunity for brands to connect with customers on their mobile devices. The second annual HipCricket Mobile Marketing Survey shows that while 37 percent of consumers would be interested in participating in a mobile customer loyalty program from a brand they trust, 83 percent say their favorite brand has yet to market to them via their most personal device, their mobile phone. Mobile marketing campaigns are becoming significantly more influential and effective, according to the study.

HipCricket found that of those consumers who have received mobile marketing offers, 47 percent have brand recall and 94 percent of those remember the specific call to action. The survey highlights the continued influence of text messaging/SMS as both a communications and marketing tool. Specific findings include:

* Aside from phone calls, 73 percent of people said they use their mobile device most for texting friends * 34 percent have received a marketing offer on their cell phone via text message (up from 28 percent in 2008) The study revealed that the mobile Web continues its momentum as an increasingly important information resource for consumers. Specifically:

* 85 percent of respondents agree that the mobile Web is a valuable source for information that interests them * 21 percent of respondents access the mobile Web at least once per day and 37 percent access it at least once per week * 41 percent of respondents have visited a retailer`s website from their mobile phone. The most popular reasons include: * To find store locations – 70 percent * To find store hours – 51 percent * To get directions – 39 percent * To look for coupons/promotions – 29 percent "With consumer interest in mobile marketing continuing to steadily increase, it`s clear that now is the time for brands to launch and execute their mobile strategy and programs," said Scott Debson, HipCricket`s Vice President of Brand Solutions.

"Mobile initiatives are succeeding because they connect a demand from the consumer with high levels of recall. The study highlights that brands should be taking advantage of the mobile medium." About the 2009 Mobile Marketing Survey The 2009 HipCricket Mobile Marketing Survey is a national survey designed to provide insight into consumer attitudes towards mobile marketing and their mobile behavior. The survey was conducted in September 2009 via email and is based on 511 respondents. The survey is sponsored by Kirkland, Washington based HipCricket. To request a research brief with detailed information on the findings, please contact Nicole Cornwell at hipcricket@famapr.com. About HipCricket HipCricket, Inc. drives new revenue and customer loyalty for consumer brands, broadcast stations, and media companies through strategic, creative and measurable mobile marketing interactivity.

Recognized as a pioneer by CTIA, the preeminent wireless association, the mobile marketing software and solutions company has delivered more than 45,000 successful campaigns for customers including Coca Cola, Staples, Hershey`s, Jameson, Clear Channel Radio, Premiere Radio Networks, Sandusky Broadcasting and NBC. With its industry-leading technology and experienced, customer-focused team, HipCricket produces interactive campaigns through SMS, Mobile Web/WAP, and mobile advertising and now connects brands with audiences they desire to reach via the first comprehensive Hispanic Mobile Marketing Network. The company is based near Seattle with additional operations in New York and Mexico City. More information can be found at www.hipcricket.com.

Bernard Moon is Managing Director of the Lunsford Group, which is a private holding company consisting of entities in technology, media, research & consulting, health care, and real estate. He blogs at Silicon Moon.

There is a lot of hype surrounding the real-time web, and much of the feeding frenzy reminds me of the RSS space four years ago — though there is a lot of potential, there is also a lot of noise. How do you navigate through it all and which developments should you be paying attention to? What are the emerging trends for companies and entrepreneurs to watch for? Here are four real-time web trends that I’m tracking.

Please share in the comments any other real-time trends that you think will be big.

1. Real-Time Collaboration is Ripening

Real-time will play a major role in the future of online collaboration. We’ve seen all the hype around the new Google Wave () platform, as well as the growth of Twitter () and Twitter-like communications (such as Facebook () status). On the business side, SAP’s Gravity, a prototype of real-time collaborative business process modeling within Google Wave, is a good example. But I see this as the tip of the iceberg.

Companies that are more efficient have an advantage whether within their walls or with their customers. Imagine being able to make real-time changes with your colleague in another city and graphic designer at your local Kinko’s to finalize a presentation and print it hours before your meeting. Or working with your manufacturer in Nanjing, China on changes to your new BBQ grill design and seeing if it’s possible in real-time. Or game developers in Korea and Dallas story boarding a new video game concept in a new real-time game development application. There is massive potential for real-time collaboration across almost every discipline, and I believe there are an incredible amount of exciting possibilities here.

2. Real-Time Analytics Will Be Hot

The reality right now is that there isn’t enough critical mass of real-time data in most areas, but when those tipping points are met, watch this space. This is not just about Twitter feeds, but shopping information, individual health information, movie and show reviews, and many other treasure troves of data.

Waze, which is a crowdsourced mobile map and traffic information service, is effective in Israel where it initially launched and needed just 0.5% of the population to become a reliable service. It recently launched in the United States, and will be challenged to reach critical mass in its target markets for its product to be useful to end users, who provide the real-time data that is uses. While Waze is not necessarily an analytics application — it’s a real-time information app (though it does analyze the data it receives in real-time to expose traffic patterns, accidents, and speed traps to users), it is an example of necessary tipping points for analytics to be relevant.

Once you have these real-time data sets, so many fields will be able to become more accurate and relevant in their decision-making processes. What type of real-time data would you like access to?

3. Real-Time Search is Looking Up

With Microsoft’s and Google’s recent foray into real-time search, it would be easy to assume that real-time search startups are dead in the water. But I believe there are many opportunities for startups in the space, especially as public life streaming activities increase (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, IMs) and real-time search moves to vertical categories.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re wondering if you should you go see Depeche Mode in concert or if they are too old now to put on a good show. What are people saying about their concert from the evening before? If your search allows you to narrow your focus by date to make sure you’re getting info only from last night’s show, exclude all messages under 10 characters to filter out irrelevant information, and those from their home area of Basildon, Essex UK to rule out biases, you should be able to get a clear picture of what people think. Now that’s information I can really use.

For the larger players, it will be a golden opportunity to capitalize on more event-driven ad dollars. Imagine the euphoria during the World Cup or Superbowl and all the tweets and messages surrounding these events. Now imagine the highly targeted ads that could be displayed to these users selling them championship videos or t-shirts at the height of their emotions. I’m still amazed by the uncanny targeting of ads within Gmail (), so it should be a short step for Google () and other major advertising companies to be able to implement targeted ads across real-time streams.

4. Real-Time Ecommerce is Coming

German company Apnoti indexes real-time pricing for consumers in the U.S and Germany. The primary benefit of their service is to help consumers find dramatic price fluctuations and to take advantage of pricing errors on various ecommerce sites. But this is really quite elementary compared to what is possible. For true real-time pricing to occur, there needs to be real-time inventory management, which will depend on major infrastructure companies such as EDS or IBM to build out those systems. As retailers move closer to real-time inventory management, they’ll improve on their pricing and sales efforts since they will be able to create more efficient price equilibrium adjustments.

For consumer facing applications, real-time pricing can be a competitive advantage for perishable goods. For example, the grocer with fresher fruit can theoretically charge or sell more by providing real-time freshness data. With the growth of smart energy grids, real-time pricing of solar energy and electric power provides tremendous cost-savings for consumers. Generally within ecommerce, real-time inventory information that is accessible through the web is valuable for both the consumer and company. What are the other areas of high impact? Travel? Off-season luxury goods? Event tickets? Let us know in the comments below.

There are so many areas that will be impacted by real-time technologies and practices in the coming years. I’ve highlighted these four trend areas, but where else do you see the real-time web changing our companies and lives?