Univision’s Upfront Story: ‘Building on its Continued Transformation’

Author: Adam jacobson. Source: Radio + TV Business Report

Virtually delivered Upfront presentations are in full swing, in lieu of the annual cocktail-fueled prance and dance across midtown Manhattan.

Among the media companies making their pitch to media buyers and CMOs on Tuesday was Univision Communications, with an entirely new C-Suite continuing a theme shared earlier this year in a “get to know you” session for the ad-buying community: Grow with Us.

Univision’s 2021-2022 programming lineup was unveiled ahead of the company’s “Grow With Us” themed Upfront presentation to advertisers.

Typical of Upfront literature from the networks, Univision promised that its new slate “includes even more of what its audience loves — big, live tentpole events, entertainment, trusted news, and the best soccer from around the world — across more platforms.”

The multiplatform pitch may be the biggest takeaway for marketers, as Univision is gaining attention — and fast — from its recently launched PrendeTV streaming service. Just how big is PrendeTV already? Univision shares that it has 1 million active users spending two hours a week, on the average, streaming and is on pace for 5 million users by the start of 2022.

Univision also took a moment to educate the ad buying public of the continued benefits of marketing to U.S. Hispanics on Spanish-language media such as theirs, using population trends to illustrate its point.

Taking the lead in its presentation: Donna Speciale, who succeeded Steve Mandala as Univision’s President of Advertising Sales and Marketing following the ForgeLight/Searchlight acquisition of a majority stake in Univision.

“Univision is the gateway to U.S. Hispanics and represents an untapped opportunity for brands to deliver current and future growth,” Speciale said. “According to Nielsen, brands not active in Spanish-language are leaving an incredible 39% of ad spend return on the table and are missing out on a key opportunity to speak to the consumers that are the main growth driver in these major categories. Nobody understands this audience like Univision. We have the research, data, and insights to help brands engage in-culture and in-language, and are committed to developing new solutions to optimize performance across our portfolio for our partners.”

To assist brands in developing campaigns to “authentically reach the Hispanic consumer,” Univision is launching its first Brand Studio.

Univision says this will “combine the best in original brand journalism with industry-leading insights to deliver powerful storytelling across the Univision portfolio and social media.”

This will see Univision create “the industry’s first Hispanic audience data graph, to optimize client campaigns and help solve for underrepresentation of Hispanic consumers in the advanced data sets increasingly used across the industry.”

These new capabilities will begin rolling out in Q4 2021.

What about the Univision programming slate for 2021-2022?

At the heart of Univision’s strategy remains its big, live event programming, it says. Reality competition shows will be seen on Sunday evenings — with a Spanish-language adaptation of The Masked Singer on the slate.

There’s also a focus on TUDN, the Sports brand that replaced Univision Deportes well ahead of the Univision-Televisa merger.

But, the final big takeaway from Univision is the launch of a new direct-to-consumer 24-hour live news service, via PrendeTV. This follows a similar move by Estrella Media.

The new channel will offer live news and breaking stories “in digital-friendly formats and snackable storytelling content across platforms,” Univision says.