Media Planning: Spanish-Language TV vs. English-Language TV

By Monica Correa

The buzz in marketing circles over the last 10 years has been focused on the burgeoning U.S. Hispanic market. Despite the current craze of traditional vs. non-traditional media (e.g., mobile marketing, online, etc.), marketing to Hispanics is still quite profitable from an ROI standpoint, and continues to be an untapped source of revenue for many marketers. For direct response marketers, U.S. Hispanics remain a profitable target to reach. However, there are idiosyncrasies that one must consider when targeting Hispanics, as compared to targeting the overall population.

Regardless of who the advertiser is trying to reach, their advertising campaign usually has one of two main purposes: increasing product sales or building brand recognition and awareness among the consumers. Whether trying to reach the U.S. Hispanic or the U.S. non-Hispanic, buying agencies need to have the same elements in order to run a successful campaign for clients. There has to be a strategy, planning, careful negotiation and a means to track results and report to the advertiser how well the campaign did. Options on both sets of media (Spanish vs. English) are similar: Long-form and short-form platforms exist in both languages, as well as the ability to target with product integration, grass-root events, out-of-home and online.

COMPARING TWO MARKETS
One key difference between Spanish-language television and English-language television is the share of viewing of broadcast vs. cable; Hispanics in the U.S. spend the majority of their time watching broadcast television. This creates an environment for media buyers, whereby they can target this consumer within a concentrated number of media outlets. The amount of inventory available on Spanish-language outlets (compared to English-language outlets) is limited as noted by Kim Cohn, media director at Capital Media in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. The supply/demand scales within Spanish television create challenges for many advertisers looking to break into this market (i.e., high demand). However, this landscape is changing every day, as more independent stations and networks begin broadcasting their signals in more cities across the nation. English-language broadcast stations, networks and cable have saturated the marketplace and, at the present moment, are not growing as quickly.

Advertisers today have more opportunities to reach their consumers regardless of language. Multi-platform (i.e., 360-degree marketing), product integration, program sponsorships, VOD, online and mobile create multiple opportunities for advertisers marketing their products and/or services. Developing creative and a media plan that best leverages these platforms is the challenge of media planners, buyers and their agencies. Despite the growing number of media outlets, targeting Hispanics remains much simpler on Spanish-language television and will continue as such for years to come.

Monica Correa is account manager paid programming at NBC Universal/ Telemundo sales & marketing in Miramar, Fla. She can be reached via e-mail at monica.correa@nbcuni.com.