• by Wayne Friedman , April 6, 2010

Kicking up its campaign to encourage Hispanics to participate in the U.S. Census, Univision will be airing a cross-platform "roadblock" message across all its platforms in prime time this week.

On Thursday April 8, Univision will run a 60-second editorial message from Univision Networks President Cesar Conde, built around its existing campaign called "Ya Es Hora, Hágase Contar" (It's Time, Make Yourself Count).

Univision says its 360 approach will run the message on all its platforms, including Univision, TeleFutura, Galavisión Networks, Univision Móvil, Univision.com, and Univision Radio, as well as its associated social media platforms.

Univision has been airing a wide-ranging campaign with a number of public service announcements to encourage viewers to complete the survey. Univision news anchor Maria Elena Salinas has been its primary spokesperson. In addition to the PSAs, Univision has run a number of vignette stories.

Many minorities, including Latinos, tend to avoid such surveys for fear of confidentiality breaches, possibly for immigration transgressions.

Census results are crucial to local governments, schools and agencies, which rely on federal dollars. But the stats are also important for media companies that target ethnic audiences.

Bigger estimates of U.S. Latino TV viewers mean higher sales to TV advertisers. Latino growth has soared nearly 60% from 1990 to 2000 -- to more than 35 million people, or 13% of the total U.S. population.