With negotiations already well underway following a busy upfront week, Adweek is continuing its traditional postmortem sitdowns with the presenting ad sales chiefs.
NBCUniversal’s Mark Marshall and Fox’s Marianne Gambelli got things started, and next up is Donna Speciale, TelevisaUnivision’s president of U.S. advertising sales and marketing.
Unlike most other presenters this week, TelevisaUnivision’s event featured a full roster of on-stage talent, as the company is not affected by the ongoing Writer’s Guild of America strike. Speciale opened up about the new venue and her trip to Mexico City to learn the art of fútbol—and why she became the star of the show to help educate marketers about the Hispanic audience.
The exec also explained why the marketplace might move slowly this year and revealed if she actually scored a goal against the Mexican soccer legends she faced off against in that upfront video.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Adweek: It’s been a few days since the presentation. Looking back now, what are you proudest of?
Speciale: I think we did a phenomenal job really bringing the Hispanic community and experience and passion and culture of the Hispanic audience to life. Many of the clients felt the passion and energy of our company, but also really brought to life what the Hispanic audience is all about. It was a lot of education. People understood how Hispanic audiences can grow their business. I believe we showed that in a really—obviously entertaining—but succinct way.
Going into the upfront, what were your top priorities this year for the presentation?
One, the importance of the Hispanic audience and the growth potential for clients’ businesses. Two, the growth trajectory of Vix and the huge momentum that we have had just in this past year. Hearing from clients that have obviously been leaning into our audience, and hearing from clients themselves on how much impact it has shown in their business and having clients hear from other clients. And just a lot of the new announcements with all of our sports properties across the board with fútbol and football, which is really exciting. We have gotten tremendous feedback that everybody was excited about all of the soccer announcements that we made and the fact that we also have the Super Bowl this year.
