The ad business has a Hispanic American blind spot

Research is lacking, and the talent gap is even a bigger problem

When you think of potential threats to Netflix, you might think of Disney+, or HBO Max, or maybe even Hulu. Do you think of Vix?

Do you even know what Vix is?

Well, the Spanish-language network Univision launched a stand alone streaming service called Prende in early 2021. When Univision became TelevisaUnivision in January, the company has rebranded and revamped Prende as Vix - a streaming platform which boasts of 50,000 hours of content. Soon to come of course is Vix+

Media analysts like to talk about a products TAM, or total addressable market. During their upfront last month, TelevisaUnivision executives said the TAM for Vix wasn’t limited to US Hispanics, but 600 million-plus Spanish-speakers across the globe. That is a Netflix-sized ambition if there ever was one.

To get there, Vix’s programming needs to work well in the US, in Mexico, in Spain, Argentina and anywhere else Spanish-speakers stream. Netflix in fact, offers some reason to believe this could work, as evidenced by the success of Spanish-language shows like Money Heist.

Should Netflix be nervous? I would not underestimate the appeal of culturally relevant programming in one’s native language. I also wouldn’t underestimate the power of spending. That’s where I’m not sure that TelevisaUnivsion, or really most others can compete with Netflix and the other tech titans.

But my bigger point is - it’s really hard for me to tell. Because I don’t speak Spanish. I have zero familiarity with any of the programming on the platform, or the stars attached. I can’t tell you whether TelevisaUnivision is putting its best stuff on streaming channels and the leftovers on regular TV. Is Vix ‘premium’ like HBO? Is it closer to a Paramount+, or a Pluto?

I have no frame of reference, and I can’t be the only one. There is serious blind spot in our industry when it comes to Hispanic media. You see it in the way that reporters cover events like the upfronts or the streaming or metrics wars…where the Telemundos or TelevisaUnivisions are often left out of the conversation, or relegated to ‘multicutlural stories.’

That thinking has long manifested itself in ad budget allocation. “Multicultural was always on the side,” said Donna Speciale, President Sales and Marketing at TelevisaUnivision. Speciale was my guest this week on the newly rebooted Next in Marketing podcast.

“We’re 62 million and growing,” she said. “That’s almost 20% of the population..that’s an audience that brands really can’t ignore anymore.”

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Maybe brands didn’t entirely ignore the Hispanic market- but they often kept it to the side, maintaining ‘ethic budgets’ or even working on occasion with speciality agencies such as the now defunct Tapestry.

I’m not saying any of this strategy was the result of bad intentions. It’s just that a predominantly white, English-speaking industry is going to naturally have an English media bias. Which means that Latino-aimed media companies often have to wait in line.

Maybe that’s changing?

For example, there was news earlier this week that a pair of entrepreneurs had raised $80 million to launch a new Hispanic media company called the Latino Media Network. The timing seems perfect, given the population growth ahead of this demographic. Is this just the right upstart that will speak to a new generation of consumers - like a BuzzFeed once did vs. the New York Times, or YouTube has for a generation of linear-nevers?

Or, do the incumbent Hispanic media companies have this well covered? Here’s where my judgements is off. Are TelevisionUnivision and Telemundo closer to CBS, as in, they’re not the place for Hispanic members of Gen Z? Or is this market fundamentally different and extremely hard to pin down with a single media brand?

After all, we’ve seen a plethora of digital-first Latino-aimed startups launch over the last decade-plus, from Mio.tv back in 2007 in the pre-social/mobile days, or MiTu as recently in 2016,  which was supposed to be of the Snapchat generation. And of course, there was the notorious Fusion.
Did  these vehicles struggle because of execution? Timing? Or brands and agencies keep them to the side, feeling as though they  are ‘covered’ when it comes to reaching Hispanics through general media? Is that thinking still prevalent? Is it wrong? What does the data tell us?

Speciale insists that media researchers are still struggling to keep up with the Hispanic population in the US., even with all the new metrics companies promising ‘census’ level audience measurement. “Is the representation of all these currencies representative of the whole country?” she asked. “The answer is no.”

If the research is currently lagging, human judgement would seen vital. We all know that this industry is scrambling to improve hiring when it comes to diversity and inclusion. For example, if you follow the music industry, you may know just how big Spanish-language artists have become both globally in the US. But if you’re a 40-something brand executive still stuck on Pearl Jam, are you tuned into the fact that artists like J Balvin and Os Barões da Pisadinha each generated upwards of 2 billion views of their music videos on Vevo (which reaches 13 million Hispanics on CTV alone).?

Certainly, every underrepresented group needs a seat at the ad buying table, but in this case the talent gap feels all the more dire when one group is about to exceed a fifth of the population and speaks a different language.

How valuable is it right now for a brand or agency to have a Hispanic American or two on staff who can speak to say, Telemundo’s place in the culture, or what YouTube talent Spanish-speakers or drawn to? How many Hispanic media buyers or brand managers are in positions of power where they can make decisions on spending strategy based on their unique knowledge of their culture and media habits?

Agencies and brands would appear to need to plug ramp up their Hispanic talent level asap, not because it’s the right thing to do, but they are going to be prone to making some really bad decisions with their dollars if they don’t.