9275: Univision Comes To Madison Avenue.

From The New York Times…

Univision Steps Up Courtship of Madison Avenue

By Stuart Elliott

The television network watched most by Spanish-speaking Americans is seeking to make every one of its days with advertisers, not just Saturday, “gigante.”

The network is Univision, part of Univision Communications, which is known for programs aimed at Hispanics like its long-running live variety show, “Sábado Gigante” (“Giant Saturday”).

Univision is introducing this week what executives are calling their most ambitious effort to woo marketers and agencies that remain reluctant to run commercials in a language other than English.

The effort includes an advertising campaign, by an agency named Blanco-Lorenz Entertainment Branding, with a budget estimated at more than $1 million.

The campaign describes Univision as “the new American reality,” declaring that the best way to reach the growing market of Hispanic consumers is to run commercials in programs that are culturally relevant to them – that is, created with them in mind and broadcast in Spanish.

That is true, the ads assert, even for Hispanics who speak English as well as Spanish. The ads promote Univision’s soccer coverage, reality shows and its long-form serialized programs known as telenovelas or novelas.

The campaign uses humor to make its case. For instance, novelas are known for their plots and characters that are larger than life. So an ad about advertising on Univision’s novelas carries the headline “It’s time to crack the whip” and shows a woman dressed in Western garb who is wielding a whip.

The ad, in print and online versions, talks about the ability of Univision’s prime-time novelas to deliver to advertisers more bilingual Hispanic viewers, ages 18 to 49, than hit shows on English-language TV networks like “American Idol,” “Dancing With the Stars,” “Modern Family” and “The Voice.”

In a social media element of the campaign, Univision is offering computer users a chance to insert photographs of themselves in scenes from its shows. The choices include a novela wedding, a reality talent competition and a scene in which one novela character slaps another.

The online fun, called “It’s You on Univision,” will be available, beginning on Wednesday, at univision.net/itisyou.

Many marketers “are working up to” increasing the amount of money they spend to advertise on Spanish-language television, said David Lawenda, the president for advertising sales and marketing at Univision. But there are “still some holdouts that haven’t,” he added, and the campaign is aimed at them.

Mr. Lawenda called the campaign “our most robust” such initiative to date, citing the size of it as well as its presence in digital as well as print media.

The campaign will also have live aspects, including a sponsorship of the annual Advertising Week in New York City, scheduled for Oct. 3 to 7; a series of Webinars for marketers and agencies; and a contest with a unique prize: a chance to see a novela in production.

The campaign comes after Univision Communications reported its most successful results ever in the annual “upfront” market for the sale of commercial time. It is called that because it takes place before the season begins.

For the 2011-12 season, Univision sold an estimated $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion worth of commercial time – about on par with a venerable English-language broadcast network, the NBC division of NBCUniversal.

The idea behind the campaign is “to go beyond the cold numbers” that make a case for advertising on Univision, said Pedro Blanco, chief creative officer at Blanco-Lorenz in Miami.

For example, the content of telenovelas may seem “over the top from far away,” Mr. Blanco said, “but what’s really over the top are the results” from buying commercial time on Univision.

“We acknowledge to the uninitiated or the holdout that when you’re approaching a market you can’t relate to” it may seem difficult, he added, and “Univision is building that bridge” to make it easier.

Referring to the ad devoted to Univision’s soccer coverage, which carries the headline “Hard headed,” Mr. Blanco said: “If you can’t relate to the passion people feel over a soccer game that ends with a score of 1-0, you’ll find out that something is going on here. Low scores mean high ratings.”