November 09, 2005
Spanish TV Product Placement
Ad Age -
Product placement has come to scripted drama on U.S. Spanish-language TV. The new development is an offshoot of NBC-owned Telemundo's efforts to be more relevant to its U.S. audience by producing all four of its hour-long nightly 'La Prisionera' retains its dramatic mix of star-crossed lovers and wrongful imprisonment but now includes product placements by Verizon Wireless.
"novelas," as the dramas are called, here rather than relying on imported programs from Latin America. In the past, those imports were the staples of U.S. Spanish-language TV networks.
Now, the 20 hours of weekly novelas that air between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. are homegrown productions that offer content integration opportunities never before available.
Verizon cell phones
For instance, the popular Spanish-language soap opera La Prisionera is the usual dramatic mix of star-crossed lovers, betrayal and wrongful imprisonment it always was except the plotline now includes demonstrations of call waiting and picture taking using Verizon Wireless cell phones.
Two of three product placements for Verizon Wireless have already aired. And during the last four weeks of La Prisionera in November, six more marketers will appear in the novela in some form of product placement, said Steve Mandala, Telemundo's executive vice president of sales.
"We're still in a very developmental stage of understanding how to use it best," he said.
Verizon Wireless was integrated into the novela in two scenes that aired in August and September. In one, a character uses caller ID as she waits for a call about her kidnapped father. In another, a woman gives an impromptu English lesson to a young man she has a crush on by showing him how to photograph a flower with her phone. For Verizon Wireless, it was a chance to show how the products are used.
Not comfortable with technology
"Spanish-dominant Hispanics aren't really comfortable with technology," said Linda Lane Gonzalez, CEO of Viva Partnership, a Miami-based Hispanic agency that buys media for Verizon Wireless. "We went through 10 or 12 scenarios [with Telemundo]."
In meetings with the network's marketing executives, Viva discussed do's and don'ts, she said. For instance, the phone shouldn't be used during the novela's abduction scene, or while the caller is driving a car, or in a bar. And the camera feature should be used in a well-lit area %%PULLQUOTE_RIGHT%%so the picture shows up. Viva nixed using the phone to take pictures of someone's boyfriend out with another girl, she said.
Telemundo was first introduced to produce placement in novelas during a short-lived arrangement with Brazil's TV giant Globo several years ago. The deal involved the production of Spanish-language versions of Globo's Portuguese-language Brazilian novelas, which are usually packed with product placements. A product placement for Procter & Gamble Co.'s Crest toothpaste appeared in Vale Todo, Telemundo's version of TV Globo's Vale Tudo, Mr. Mandala said. And Telemundo's Amor Descarado, which ended earlier this year, included other P&G brands and Nissan Motor America Corp., he said.
Wendy's and Century 21
Telemundo has already used less integrated product placement in other kinds of programming. Wendy's sponsors "Dinner and a Movie With Wendy's, in which the hosts munch fast food as they introduce the late-night movie on weekends. And Century 21 did weekly segments called Camino a Casa ("The Path to a Home") in a branded mini-reality show on morning TV that followed a couple buying their first home with the help of a Century 21 representative. The Vidal Partnership negotiated both deals.
New genres also open up new opportunities. This month Telemundo began airing the first home improvement show on Spanish-language TV, called Asi Se Hace ("That's How You Do It") with product placement by Big Lots. Home Depot and Lowe's are believed to be negotiating with Telemundo to become part of home improvement shows.
"The biggest hurdle [with branded content] is being able to really guarantee the product will be incorporated, feel organic and get the guaranteed number of exposures," said Monica Gadsby, CEO of Tapestry, Publicis Groupe's multicultural media unit. "And it's a bit of a struggle to know how to price it. This is so new and ground breaking. We're so used to 30-second commercials." The high prices that branded content can command on popular English-language TV shows are way beyond the Hispanic market, she said. "I hope it works because I'd like to see more of it," she said.
Ms. Gonzalez said the Verizon Wireless product placement was "additional value" as part of a network buy on Telemundo.
Declines to detail pricing
Though he declined to be specific about prices for product placement, Mr. Mandala said, "We talk to the advertiser about the value." And the marketer must be a Telemundo advertiser, he added.
The creative part of product placement is more of a challenge than the pricing, he added. The writers and director don't go along with all the suggestions. Ms. Gonzalez, for instance, hoped that a novela character would mention that Verizon Wireless has the best wireless service. That didn't happen, she said. Another agency executive said that talks about a beer marketer having a presence in a bar featured in a novela and a car company having its cars prominently displayed didn't work out.
"Viewers are so involved with their favorite novela," Ms. Gadsby said. "If the villain were interacting with your product, it could be a bad thing. If the villain drinks Coke, you might not want to."
Posted by Ahorre at 09:52 AM
May 18, 2005
Telemundo TV "Hecho para ti" Slogan
Mary Sutter, Variety.com - Telemundo TV network underlined its designed-for-U.S. strategy with new novellas and formats at the 2005-06 upfront.
The "Hecho para ti" slogan anchors a new consumer branding campaign, but Telemundo, owned by General Electric, still faces an uphill battle against Spanish-language behemoth Univision, which dominates the market, especially in prime time, where it programs novellas from Mexico's Televisa.
Telemundo has lost ground over the last year. During a conference call with reporters, executives said Telemundo has a 17% share of Spanish-language TV viewers aged 18 to 49, compared with a prime-time share of 24% to 26% in the first quarter of 2004.
Posted by Ahorre at 09:47 PM
May 06, 2005
Broadcasters Targeting the Hispanic Community now offer Diverse Programming
Los Angeles -- Veranda Distribution is proud to announce the distribution of an extraordinary catalog of television programs never before seen in the United States. In response to the lack of diverse programming currently available on Spanish television in the United States, the founders of Veranda secured US television distribution rights for the largest collection of programs and movies available to non affiliated Spanish language broadcast stations and cable networks in the United States.
With many of the programs shown exclusively on Televisa in Mexico, Veranda is proud to present the entire catalog to the US market for the first time.
Veranda’s content catalog targets the entire demographic spectrum - from Bulbo, an urban program made for Mexican youth by Mexican youth, to a prestigious collection of classical Mexican film features, a significant collection of Documentaries and Biographies produced by Clio, cartoons and an extensive sports series.
“We want to satisfy the call for programming that reflects the incredible diversity of Latino culture, identity and heritage,” says Pedro Alonzo, co-founder of Veranda Distribution. “Our mandate is to fill the need for variety in Spanish entertainment which is now in demand from the burgeoning numbers of Latino viewers.”
Prominent in Veranda’s line-up is the introduction of Clio, “Mexico Siglo XXI,” which marks the first and only distribution to U.S. television of first-rate documentaries well-known throughout Mexico and Latin America. The catalog spans entertainment, politics, history and sports and showcases popular biographies of iconic Hispanic figures from cinema, music, art and politics -- similar to A&E or The History Channel – and documentaries on pivotal events in Mexico’s history, such as the Mexican Revolution. Well-known and respected in Mexico, Clio is owned by distinguished historian/publisher Enrique Krauze, whom Slate called “one of the liveliest intellectuals in the Americas.” Krauze is an editor of the literary magazine Letras Libres, and recently inducted into the Colegio Nacional, the highest award for an academic in Mexico. Clio’s primary goal under Krauze is to use current broadcast technology to re-create and revive the past. TV Informa, a new Spanish television group and a division of Lotus Communications, has made the first commitment to broadcast the Clio programs in Houston, Phoenix and Tampa.
Another significant Veranda offering is an omnibus of over 225 important Mexican films, from classic to first-rate pop culture offerings, including selections from the superstar comedian Cantinflas, the beloved Sara Garcia “Mexico’s grandmother” and the influential Luis Bunel.
Veranda is also poised to distribute a slate of one-hour popular sports shows, “Hazana el Deporte Vive,” to U.S. Spanish audiences. The series emphasizes “color” highlights from soccer, boxing, wrestling, car racing, baseball and bullfighting.
Additionally, Veranda will be re-introducing animation produced by Hannah Barbera studios, “The Cantinflas Show.” The 106 classic cartoons feature the humor of iconic Mexican performer Cantinflas visiting historic figures and places which can aid in satisfying a station’s FCC kid friendly broadcast requirements.
Veranda Distribution is a recently formed syndication company whose goal is to bring diversity and intelligent programming to Spanish television broadcasters in the United States.
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Contact Randall Green (310) 820-7121
Posted by Ahorre at 12:16 PM
February 16, 2005
Today’s New Mainstream
Host Robert MacNeil of the PBS "Do You Speak American?" special, realized after interviewing Americans across the US, that the American language is always changing. Laura Urbani wrote for the Tribune-Review: “Spanglish, a combination of Spanish and American English; Black English, popularly known as Ebonics; [and] Chicano are dialects that have been confirmed as part of a cultural identity and recognized as a natural part of American society.”
However, millions of American consumers’ views and opinions are still being typically misunderstood or discounted. For instance, picture that chunk being 49% of a population larger than Canada’s. At least 20 million Spanish speaking Americans are been excluded from mainstream marketing and communication strategies, in spite of their everyday consumption of mainstream media and participation in mainstream consumerism.
Imagine the discrepancy: On one hand, presidential candidates believe there are enough Spanish speaking voters, enough to make a difference, to spend millions in Spanish language ads. On the other hand, pollsters poll in English…and claim the results to be representative of American voters?
The proliferation and further sophistication of Spanish TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and internet media validates and further feeds the growing co-existence of Spanish with English. This is the year, where Spanish was introduced into a Senatorial inaugural speech, and, while throwing off the stenographer, was understood by more Americans than the sum of the populations of several countries put together.
Sooner than later, Spanish will pass from being associated with a foreign language option at school and an immigrant language, into being just one of the two languages most widely used in the US. It is not for no reason that the USA is ranked number 5, in the world, among the countries where Spanish is spoken.
Spanish is slowly asserting its place in the USA as a native and all-American language. Spanish was the first European language spoken in the US, since the late 15th century. Particularly, in Southern and Western states, most of whose names are still in Spanish. It is the language many Americans are and have been learning “natively” from birth, and it is an official language, next to English, in New Mexico and Puerto Rico (Puerto Ricans born in Puerto Rico are US natives, as the US Census accurately defines).
It is time to re-evaluate “the way we do market research and polling in the US”. General market research = English language surveys versus Hispanic research = Spanish language surveys, is a thing of the past.
The traditional English only survey method no longer represents the US American general market opinion. Think of it, randomly selected samples do no good if interviewers can’t communicate with a significant segment of that sample. Furthermore, for the sake of good survey practice, it is unacceptable to have a large segment of American Spanish speaking respondents be rudely terminated because interviewers do not know how to politely hang up the phone, or put them on hold if transferring the call to a Spanish speaker, for lack of basic Spanish phone call vocabulary.
What happens when the interviewer only speaks English and the person on the other line only speaks Spanish? In most cases the call is terminated, labeled LB (language barrier) or put back in queue to be reassigned to a Spanish speaker. The problem with this data gathering method is that, statistically speaking, callers will not answer the phone the second time around thereby further reducing the Hispanic sample size for the poll. You can begin to see the weakness in referring to such survey as indicative of a 'national representative sample’.
Another typical situation is for English-only interviewers to force a Spanish dominant person to complete the survey in English. Imagine the likelihood for the interviewer to misunderstand what the respondent expressed and, likewise, for the respondent to misinterpret what the interviewer is asking.
What if the survey or poll is being conducted in a US region known for having a majority Hispanic population, such as Southern California (or Miami, Southern Texas, New York City, etc)? You would observe at least 30% of the sample being flagged as a non-response due to language barrier! Is that representative? How valid can the results be if the supposedly representative survey misses a third of the opinions!?
Utilizing bilingual interviewers who are native speakers of English and native speakers of Spanish, is a way to streamline costs and efforts and capture content more accurately, and in a more realistic language-segment proportion.
Needless to say, you get a much higher response rate when the respondent can converse in the language of choice, even if that is Spanglish, a natural by-product of cultural fusion. In a telephone survey situation, if the interviewers are fully fluent in both languages, a bilingual respondent has the opportunity of saying those things that have no exact translation into English, in Spanish, and vice versa. Therefore, allowing for more accurate responses and added cultural nuance depth that would otherwise be lost in English monolingual surveys.
Interviewers are not the only ones that need to be bilingual. The hiring staff must be fully bi-lingual. How else can the research company know their interviewers are performing and understanding truly fluently in both languages! Furthermore, it is crucial that Spanish interviews be monitored as stringently as are English interviews. Bilingual supervisors can monitor interviews and interviewers, as it falls, which one minute may be in English and the next minute in Spanish.
Bilingual telephone interviewing capabilities make it possible to integrate Hispanic research within General Market research, therefore not only saving time and money but helping to capture the opinions and insights of English and Spanish speakers as it naturally occurs in today’s American demographic.
“Tapar el cielo con la mano”, a popular Spanish saying that means covering the sky with one hand, or sticking your head in the ground like an ostrich, doesn’t mean reality will cease to exist. And reality is that Spanish is a way to “speak American”, that has deep socio-historical roots in American society.
About the author: Suzanne Irizarry de López is board member of the Hispanic Marketing and Communication Association and Director of Business Development for Eastern Research Services. Questions to suzanne@easternresearch.com
Posted by at 02:06 PM
February 14, 2005
Nuevas Voces de America
Verizon Wireless announced it is teaming up with Telemundo to offer customers an exclusive chance to participate in Telemundo's new performance based reality series, "Nuevas Voces de America." Beginning February 13 and running for 15 weeks, "Nuevas Voces de America" will ask Verizon Wireless customers to play a key role in choosing the contestant most deserving of being crowned the "New Voice of America." Nueva Seccion: La Musica Latina
The winner of the competition will receive a grand prize that includes $50,000 and an exclusive recording contract with Sony Music worth $200,000.
With hot and trendy South Beach as a backdrop, "Nuevas Voces de America" contestants will undergo intense coaching and image transformations that will prepare them for weekly music challenges. Following each musical challenge, the three judges will score each participant's performance on a 1-10 point scale and the viewing public will be asked to vote on the two contestants that have the lowest averages to determine which one should stay for another week and which one goes home. The season culminates in a two-hour grand finale on May 21, 2005 from Universal Studios Hollywood, where famous musical guests will perform and the "New Voice of America" will be crowned.
Verizon Wireless customers with TXT Messaging-capable phones can participate by tuning in to "Nuevas Voces de America" at 8:00 p.m. every Sunday and assisting the show's host, Latin music mogul Emilio Estefan and other celebrity judges, in choosing the most gifted contender. Customers can cast their votes by simply sending a text message with the name of their favorite contestant to "VOTA" (8682). Viewers who are unfamiliar with TXT Messaging can log on to Telemundo.com and check out the Verizon Wireless animated TXT voting tutorial for step-by-step help on how to send a TXT Message and the opportunity to practice sending TXT Messages.
Nueva Seccion: La Musica Latina
Posted by at 11:00 PM