Online Hispanic Trends

Unum Insurance Takes an Original Approach to Reaching Spanish-Dominant Latinos

Elena del Valle posted a very interesting blog on Unum's efforts to reach the Spanish-dominant segment of the U.S. Hispanic population. 

Instead of taking their English materials and translating them into Spanish, they developed original materials designed specifically to inform and educate Latinos who, as Pew data shows, will more than double to 31 percent of the American workforce within the next two decades.

Read the full post at HispanicMPR.com

Univision Launches New Vertical Site "Cocina"

Univision Communications just launched a new vertical called Cocina in response to the fact that the U.S. Hispanic audience spends a significant part of its budget on groceries and is interested in cooking and trying new recipes.

Per the Portada article, "...more than 11 million U.S. Hispanics report that they really enjoy cooking and trying new recipes."  And "Nearly 12 million U.S. Hispanics live in a household that spends $100+ on groceries in a week, that's 54 percent of all online Hispanics ages 18 and older."

The site will feature recipes, cooking tips from experts, videos, personalized content, user-generated content, a searchable database of recipes, and the Cocina widget that users can embed on their blogs and websites.  

General Mills is an exclusive sponsor of the Cocina widget and has category exclusivity in a number of its key areas - baking, snacks, and cereals to name a few.

Source: Portada

YouTube, Univision and Google Strike a Deal to Reach the Online Hispanic Market

Univsion and YouTube sign an agreement to make Univision's content available on Google's GOOG video site. This is the first time that Univision has published its content on non-Univision sites, but probably won't be the last because the deal is non-exclusive.

Chris Maxcy, who is head of Content Partnerships at YouTube, said that they've seen 6.5 million Hispanic adults visit YouTube in the past year, an increase of 80 percent.  He also said that the Hispanic audience has been overlooked, but that it is one of the fastest growing online communities.

Source: Digitaldaily.com

Catholic Relief Services takes an innovative and culturally-relevant approach to reaching the U.S. Hispanic audience

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), an international development organization based in Baltimore has launched an innovative Spanish-language site to promote their work with the U.S. Hispanic audience.

The site was developed to meet the needs of the Spanish-preferring segment of the U.S. online Hispanic market and recognizes that direct translation is not the best approach. As Lydia Dibos, senior advisor for Hispanic Outreach at CRS said, “Doing word-for-word translation isn't what you want to do for US Hispanics."

In addition to developing a culturally-relevant website with original content in Spanish, CRS has developed a strategy that includes the use of new media, including PSAs on YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Change.org and video to make the site an interactive experience.

CRS is working with Balsera Communications for media outreach, Directo Hispano for advertising, and Captura Group provided guidance for the new Web site.

Source: PRWeek

Saberhacer.com - New Bilingual Video on Demand Site Launches

Saberhacer.com, a new website offering Spanish and English content has launched by former NBC journalist Michele Ruiz. The site, which offers on demand how-to video clips, seeks to capitalize on Hispanic's increasing access to the Internet and interest in finding high-quality content of interest. The videos cover a range of topics of interest to the online Hispanic audience, including...

• Personal finance tips
• Parenting
• Health information
• Attaining citizenship,
• Computer and Internet usage tips
• Education-related content

Saberhacer's videos are often the same for both languages, but the experts interviewed vary and, most importantly, they don't just dub the English videos with Spanish. They offer content that is originally developed in-language, a best practice for developing content for the online Hispanic Market.

Source: Portada-Online

Sorpresa! Network invites Hispanic kids to enter videos

It's not enough to just target kids with tv shows anymore. To keep them interested, you have to have interactive tv and online cross overs to make them feel like they are part of the media that they are consuming says Toni Fitzgerald on Media Life Magazine.

Toni talks about Nikelodeon's iCarly program that allows viewers to submit online videos, Hannah Montana's YouTube channel, Cartoon Network's Facebook fan group, and a new campaign recently launched by the Sorpresa Network.

Sorpresa Network is a Spanish-language, kid-focused network. In collaboration with Major League Soccer (MLS), Sorpresa is promoting its "Reporterito" contest, where kids can submit videos showing their sideline reporting skills to be voted on by site visitors. The winner will be flown to July’s MLS All-Star Game and the MLS Cup, the league championship, in November, where he or she will serve as a sideline reporter.