Consorte Media, San Francisco, today introduced an online advertising platform targeting the 20 million Hispanic consumers who regularly use the Internet. Consorte offers advertisers such as Best Buy
a media network that spans all verticals--news, entertainment, sports, autos, job search and e-commerce.
Consorte's network includes both high-profile sites, as well as smaller
"long tail" publishers.
"We're definitely filling the hole [in the marketing mix targeting Hispanics], which is online," says Alicia Morga, founder and CEO. "Online, Hispanics do not all go to one
place. They are not all on Univision."
"Hispanics were thought to be the ugly stepchild of online users, but Hispanics are definitely online," she continues. Whether they favor Spanish-language
content and advertising, English-language publications and marketing messages or are language-agnostic, Hispanics are not only the fastest-growing population in the U.S.; they are the fastest-growing
population online.
Consorte's extensive research to confirm or obliterate stereotypes of Hispanic consumers now offers advertisers a more intimate agency relationship and increased sales.
"We are able to go out to advertisers with a huge niche inventory and optimize" ad placement for the metrics that matter to individual marketers--whether click-throughs or conversions, Morga says.
"This is not an ad network in the traditional sense. This came out of inventory. It is premium placement," she says. "Verticals are the next evolution of ad networks. We see more and more of these
verticalized networks," like Glam.com and similar ones for athletes and Muslims. "This is just a way to aggregate publishers to get your message across. It really resonates with marketers."
For
its participation in the broader trend, Consorte auto-serves ads to the appropriate sites in its network through proprietary targeting based on research of Hispanic cultures and optimization
technology.
"Advertisers definitely are getting smarter," says Morga. They are putting stereotypes to the side, and creating and placing ads that generate the best response--even if they do not
include a picture of a "big brown family," she says, or a direct translation into Spanish.
Best Buy is working with Consorte to attract tech-savvy, bilingual employees in the Arizona market to
work as part of the retailer's Geek Squad. Consorte took these granular requirements and developed a lead generation campaign that included online advertising on sites such as Mac en Espanol.
The
campaign achieved high click-through rates and generated more than 30 highly qualified leads per day for each new store opening. Best Buy has become a regular customer of Consorte's services as a
result, Morga says.