ContextWeb Hires Time Warner Exec To Lead Effort Targeting Spanish-Speaking Audience

Joe KutcheraContextWeb, which operates the Adsdaq ad exchange, has added the ability for marketers to target the Spanish-speaking audience online by category and keyword. The new capability is the first time the company has offered targeting through its exchange in a language other than English.

To lead the effort spanning the U.S. and Latin America, ContextWeb has hired Time Warner veteran Joe Kutchera as director of Spanish-language markets.

Previously, Kutchera helped develop Time Web properties including Warner Bros. Online, Fortune.com, CNNMoney.com and CNN Expansion, a business news portal focusing on Mexico and Latin America.

"With multiple countries of origin and degrees of acculturation, it can be a challenge for marketers to reach the fragmented U.S. Hispanic audience," said Kutchera. "ContextWeb can now provide targeted, brand-safe inventory on a vast scale through page-level contextual placements in Spanish across the Adsdaq Exchange."

EMarketer estimates that 52% of the U.S. Hispanic population--or 23 million people--are online, with that figure projected to hit 29 million by 2012. A separate survey by the Pew Internet and Life Project last year found that 56% of U.S. Latinos were online, compared to 71% of non-Hispanic whites and 60% of non-Hispanic blacks. It also found only one in three Latinos who speak only Spanish go online.

Through its new service, ContextWeb will offer Hispanic marketers in the U.S. Spanish-language contextual banners, Spanish keyword targeting, and behaviorally targeted banners to Spanish readers on English-language pages across Adsdaq.

In Mexico, it will also offer English-language contextual and keyword banner placements that target bilingual, college-educated audiences there. ContextWeb CEO Anand Subramanian said that after the U.S. and Mexico, the company would roll out Spanish-language ad placements throughout Latin America.

The Adsdaq Exchange reached 113 million unique visitors in October, according to comScore's Ad Focus ranking. ContextWeb in July raised $26 million in a fourth-round funding led by Investor Growth Capital.

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