TelevisaUnivision used its upfront stage on Tuesday to remind agencies and advertisers that Hispanic audiences drive business results.
The broadcaster shared ways buyers can work directly with it for targeting and measurement using first-party data about Hispanic audiences.
The company also told ad buyers they can access its media using two new video currencies: VideoAmp and Nielsen’s new product that uses panels and larger data sets.
Although Hispanic people represent 20% of the US population (and a quarter of Gen Z), third-party data providers struggle to represent them, in part because the Hispanic population is growing so quickly while data privacy regulations only become more stringent.
As a result, diverse-owned publishers find it difficult to access bigger ad budgets, according to Dan Aversano, TelevisaUnivision’s SVP of data, analytics and advanced audiences.
The representation problem at hand
Data validation company Truthset’s latest study on Hispanic representation in third-party data sets suggests this problem is getting worse, Aversano told AdExchanger.
Truthset regularly monitors the state of third-party data providers to track multicultural advertising benchmarks. The broadcaster uses those insights to support its own household ID graph, which was first released in 2022.
Currently, more than half of Hispanic individuals in the US are excluded in major third-party data providers, according to Truthset. Less than two years ago, that number was 1 in 4.
“It’s scary, but it’s not that surprising,” said Aversano, noting poor audience representation leads to poor media planning and less effective campaigns.
For those who are even buying in at all, that is.
There are still many brands not spending to reach Hispanic audiences, mostly because those audiences are undercounted or misrepresented by the largest data brokers, Aversano said.
This underrepresentation is getting worse for two reasons, he said.
First and foremost, privacy laws are creating more restrictions on what data third-party providers can collect, including sensitive information such as ethnicity.
Instead, these providers continue to rely on information that’s often not predictive of ethnicity, such as surname and general location, Aversano said.
Second, the Hispanic population in the US is growing quickly. There are more people to measure and fewer ways to measure them, so data providers are having a hard time keeping up, he said.
But this population growth is a positive indicator of this audience’s rising purchase power, which should be a green light for advertisers, Aversano added.
It starts with an identity graph
TelevisaUnivision believes its first-party data can help advertisers accurately reach Hispanic viewers.
Its household graph includes IDs based on account logins, IP addresses and purchase data. It also uses viewership data (such as automatic content recognition) to group these IDs by household.
Currently, the company says its audience graph reaches 85% more US Hispanic households on average compared to major data providers.
But behind TelevisaUnivision’s promotional pitch is actually some bad news, Aversano said, because it indicates how much advertisers are still missing this audience.
Which is why it also used its upfronts presentation to talk about how agencies can use its graph to drive business results by, in part, reducing ad waste, such as when Spanish-language ads are targeted to non-Hispanic households.
For example, TelevisaUnivision uses its IDs to create audience segments based on interests and behaviors, such as, say, salty snack lovers. Media buyers can match an advertiser’s first-party data to these segments in a clean room environment. (TelevisaUnivision has clean room integrations with Snowflake, Blockgraph and Google, among others.)
Based on the matches, TelevisaUnivision helps buyers adjust their spend mid-flight to make sure they’re reaching as much of their target audience as possible. It also helps buyers determine when to serve an English- versus Spanish-language ad.
Omnicom Media Group was the first agency to include the graph in its campaign targeting and measurement in 2022. Now, Aversano said TelevisaUnivision has similar integrations with most of the major holding companies.
TelevisaUnivision also offers reach extension through a product called Household Extension, which is its ad network integrated with supply from other publishers that have similar audiences.
Different kinds of currency
But precise targeting calls for precise measurement.
Nielsen made headway this year, adding larger viewing data sets to its measurement dashboard. Now, TelevisaUnivision is using Nielsen’s currency product with both panels and bigger data sets (as opposed to just panels), so advertisers can buy personified impressions against its media.
But legacy panels like Nielsen’s are “very challenged with minority audiences,” Aversano said, because they’re too small to accurately model viewing habits that represent the wider population. When you add larger data sets to the mix – Nielsen has viewing data from Vizio, Roku, DirecTV and others – “it’s still not perfect,” he said, “but it’s a lot better.”
Still, most buyers continue to plan campaigns at the household level and, for them, VideoAmp is another option.
TelevisaUnivision will sell supply based on VideoAmp data at the household level using either demos or advanced audiences. But the broadcaster isn’t going all in on alt currencies just yet.
“We’re not confident right now in the personified data” from VideoAmp, Aversano said, because one-to-one measurement for TV ads requires an audience panel like Nielsen’s. Otherwise, “you’re measuring devices, not people,” he said.
If there’s anything that can entice advertisers to eventually spend more on marketing to Hispanic audiences, Aversano said, it’s data demonstrating that doing so is a benefit to the business.
