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The Hispanic consumer is now recognized as a cornerstone of any growth initiative for virtually all U.S. industries, with an estimated 58 million Hispanics in the United States at present representing 18 percent of the country’s population. Hispanic spending reached a reported $1.5 trillion in the retail and consumer packaged goods market in 2017 — up from $1.0 trillion just five years earlier. And the projection is more growth in the future, both in population and spending. By 2060, the Hispanic U.S. population is projected to be 28.6 percent.
Ana Ceppi, NBCUniversal’s SVP, Hispanic strategy and client experience, recently joined the company with a vision to bring marketers together with content creators. She acts as an advisor and liaison to clients and agencies to help grow NBCU’s Telemundo brand. Consumer spending among the Hispanic community is at record levels. And, in her words, it is all about business.
Ceppi was featured in a session at the Multicultural TV Summit in New York City on Tuesday representing the Hispanic consumer.
”I love the emotional connection and I love the sentiment I heard earlier today about this issue of diversity,” she said. “And the reality here is a rapidly growing business where the buying power of Hispanic consumers is not a small marketplace. If a marketer is not also targeting Hispanics now they have to really question their buying plans.”
According to Ceppi, 71 percent of bilinguals choose to watch Spanish-language TV. And the top six networks in this country—numbers five and six, respectively—are Spanish- language networks.
“That marketplace is alive and well,” she said. “We find to reach a target you have to have good content, regardless of the language. In the case of Telemundo, all of our content is really created for this U.S. Hispanic audience, so it really resonates with them.”
“More importantly, as a marketer I really want to make sure that purchase intent is advertised for the Spanish consumer,” she added. “This consumer offers an enormous opportunity. If any marketer asks their data provider they will see the confirmation of what this marketplace is doing, and that marketplace has more room to grow.”
Challenges That Lie Ahead
”I think the biggest challenge right now is the marketers that see their sales data from a bundle and they don’t see the contributions that are happening from one marketplace,” said Ceppi. “So, they might see that their sales have flattened out, which is a factor of other consumer spending. And they simply get nervous. If there is one thing I would like to bring them now is the data to support the growth of the Hispanic market.”
Touting targeted content as the incentive, Ceppi sees reaching the Hispanic millennial consumer as the biggest opportunity in the future.
“I do think there is a big opportunity for marketers to leverage themselves into this community, lean into this diversity, and realize the benefits that can come from it,” she said. “I learned that when people are running to the left, I run to the right. And when people are running to the right, I run to the left. It gives me a different perspective of what diversity is all about.”
[Cube image of Multichannel News/Broadcasting & Cable Editorial Director Mark Robichaux and Ceppi courtesy of Marc Berman; content image of Master Chef Latino courtesy of NBCUniversal Telemundo]
Tags: ana ceppi multicultural tv summit nbcuniversal telemundo