HispanicMagazineMonitor: 2002 Annual Survey of Advertising Activity.

This article presents topline results from HispanicMagazineMonitor’s “2002 Annual Survey of Advertising Activity.” This report is the first ever of its kind to present a comprehensive and detailed snapshot of advertising activity in the Hispanic Magazine sector. The advertising data contained in this report are derived from “HispanicMagazineMonitor” – an advertising competitive intelligence service launched by Media Economics Group in 2002 to meet the needs of publishers and agencies working in this rapidly growing media segment.

This 2002 survey presents detailed page counts and estimated dollars at the brand, advertiser, and category level for 35 Hispanic-targeted national magazines including leading titles such as People en Español, Latina, Vanidades, Selecciones, and others. Since launching the HispanicMagazineMonitor service in 2002, the number of monitored titles has expanded rapidly so that – as of the publication date of this article – the service is currently measuring over 50 nationally-distributed Hispanic magazine titles.

Let’s try to answer two basic questions about this market: First, who’s spending the money – by advertiser and brand – and, secondly, who’s getting the money?

Who’s spending the money?:

Procter & Gamble was by far the most dominant advertiser in Hispanic magazines in 2002. With 517.3 ad pages and $8.4 million in estimated spending, P&G accounted for just over 15% of the total estimated spending. Top P&G brands advertised in Hispanic magazines in 2002 were: Torengos Tortilla Chips, Pampers, Crest “Whitening Plus Scope”, Clairol “Hydrience”, and Pantene Pro-V.

Automotive advertisers were also very active with Ford ($4.7 million), GM ($2.6 million), and Toyota ($2.5 million) among the top ten advertisers. Ford spent heavily (25% of its total spending) to promote its minority dealer and supplier diversity programs ($1.1 million). In fact, Ford’s advertising for its minority dealer and supplier diversity programs made it the most heavily advertised brand/product among all brands in 2002 (see Table 2).

In terms of its car and truck models, Ford also had active print campaigns for the Ford Expedition ($620,772), Lincoln Navigator ($388,292), and Mustang GT ($353,205). Top brands advertised by GM were the Chevy Trailblazer EXT ($593,375), and Chevy Impala ($469,956). Toyota spent just over half of its total spending in Hispanic magazines on two brands: the Camry ($676,795) and the 4Runner ($591,585).

Who’s getting the money?:

Table 3 shows total advertising revenue by title for 2002. It is important to note that these represent estimates for the U.S. Hispanic market only. For titles with multiple country editions (for example, Vanidades, Vogue en Español, etc.), only the U.S. Hispanic edition is measured and U.S. Hispanic part-run rates (from publisher rate cards) are applied in order to estimate dollars. The purpose of this methodology is to provide a consistent measure across magazines of dollars spent by advertisers to target the U.S. Hispanic market via magazines.

Having said that, the top U.S. Hispanic magazine in 2002 in terms of ad revenue was People en Español, with 705.2 ad pages and $24.4 million in estimated ad revenue. While Latina – which ranked second – had nearly the same number of Ad pages, its estimated ad revenue was just under 50% of People en Español’s revenue in 2002. This is because People’s $35,000 open page rate in 2002 (up significantly from $27k in 2001) was almost twice that of Latina’s which charged $17,325. For 2003, People en Español has upped its open page rate slightly to $37k with a U.S. rate base of 400,000 and Latina’s has also increased slightly to $17,875 with a rate base of 250,000.

Other publishers on this top ten list include Editorial Televisa with Vanidades ($7.8m), Cristina, ($3.9m), and Cosmopolitan en Español ($2.1m). Reader’s Digest’s Selecciones ranked fourth in advertising dollars with nearly $7.5 million – a 40% increase from an estimated $5.4 million in ad revenue in 2001. Hispanic Business ranked fifth with $6.8 million in estimated ad revenue, while Hispanic Publishing Group’s two magazines – Hispanic Magazine ($5.2 million) and Vista ($5.3 million) were also in the top ten. Finally, G&J’s “Ser Padres” (which increased its frequency to bi-monthly in 2002) posted just under $4 million in ad revenue in 2002.

The year 2002 was an active one in the Hispanic magazine segment with new launches like Batanga, Catalina, Futbol Mundial, Hispanic Trends, Hispanic Beisbol, Loft, Maxim en Español, and Travel & Leisure en Español – a remarkable number given the weak state of the economy and the advertising market. Its interesting to note that many of the new launches like Loft, Maxim and even the sports titles like Futbol Mundial and Hispanic Beisbol seem to be targeting male readers who would seem to be underserved in the market by a glance at the top ten list above. From our conversations with publishers we expect 2003 to be just as active with more planned launches – many aimed specifically at male and teen readers.

To view charts CLICK above on ‘More Images’.

By Carlos Pelay
Media Economics Group

About Media Economics Group:

Media Economics Group provides competitive intelligence for the advertising and media industry. Current services include HispanicWebMonitor, LatinWebMonitor, and HispanicMagazineMonitor. Current clients include leading media companies such as American Media, America Online, AOL Latin America, G&J USA Publishing, Hispanic Business, Ideas Publishing Group, La Opinion, People en Español, Reader’s Digest, Starmedia.com, Univision.com, Yahoo! en Español, and YupiMSN among others. For further information about this report and/or Media Economics Group, please visit http://www.HispMagMonitor.com