Gadsby: Marketing Dollars Moving to Digital #HispanicTV

By: Kent Gibbons – Broadcasting & Cable / Multichannel News

Programmatic technology and precise digital metrics will change the way multicultural marketing dollars are spent, expert says.

Given their youth and willingness to embrace new social and mobile technologies, Hispanic consumers can expect to be receiving more marketing messages on digital platforms as dollars shift from more traditional TV buys, multicultural marketer Monica Gadsby said in opening the daylong Hispanic Television Summit in New York.

“We are migrating to the age where all media is digital,” Gadsby, the CEO of SMG Multicultural & Latin America, told Dade Hayes, executive editor at Broadcasting & Cable, in a keynote Q&A. Programmatic technology is starting to change the way multicultural ads are being placed, from buying schedules on the highest-rated networks to finding target audiences whatever and wherever they are consuming media, she said.

“The technology will enable us to be more precise,” she said, and it’s incumbent on marketers and programmers to adapt to the new conditions, which will take some time to really take hold.

She said that, after nearly 30 years in the media business, that change is to be expected and can be invigorating, even if it means learning and talking about algorithms instead of ratings. “Models break, new models need to be reinvented, and to me that’s what’s exciting about the job and has kept me so engaged for years.”

Under Gadsby, Starcom MediaVest Group’s multicultural units – Tapestry and MV42 – have placed millions of advertising in Hispanic TV. (To read more of her views, see this interview.) She said the market has risen to a size where the days of 30% growth are pretty much over. “But we still have growth in the high single digits,” she told Hayes. “To me, that’s still great news.”

Asked about advertising categories, Gadsby said the biggest growth will likely come from existing sectors, such as consumer packaged goods, personal computers and automotive. Pharmaceuticals and technology have emerged and are still growing, she said, while luxury goods and travel are still lagging.

She praised existing Hispanic-TV leaders Univision and Telemundo and other big media players investing in the space, such as Fox and Discovery, with adapting to the times and developing new networks, digital platforms and programming genres.

Bilingually targeted networks, such as Fusion, El Rey Network and MTV Tres, are still trying to find their space, she said.

Spanish language still resonates with bilingual consumers in terms of ad messaging comprehension and recall, she said. But she warned against overdoing the use of both English and Spanish in ads. Studies have shown the brain gets overtaxed going back and forth, she said, and recall suffers.