Spanish-Language Ad Spending Up 14.4% in 2006

Nielsen Monitor-Plus: Cable Sector Up 20% vs. 2005

By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 5/3/2007 1:25:00 PM

Total advertising spending for Spanish-language media reached $5.59 billion in 2006, increasing 14.4% over 2005, Nielsen Monitor-Plus reported Thursday.

Every medium reported increased growth, with the greatest dollar increase seen from network TV, with $364 million. Spot radio had the largest increase in terms of percent change, 31%, followed by cable TV rising 20% over the year before.

“Advertising on Spanish-language media continues to show healthy growth across all media, especially in local radio, cable TV and network TV,” said Brian Lane, senior vice president of client strategy and product management for Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

With $264.2 million in spending, Broadcast Media Partners (parent company of Univision, as well as various music and video businesses) is the largest advertiser across all Spanish-language media. Mainstream advertisers make up the remainder of the top 20.

Overall, the top 20 advertisers grew 4.7%. More than one-half of the advertisers experienced increases, ranging from Procter & Gamble adding 5% to its Spanish-language advertising budget to AT&T growing a substantial 69% last year.

Collectively, the four automakers on the list (General Motors, Ford Motor, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. and DaimlerChrysler) spent $348 million targeting the Spanish-language population in 2006. Coca-Cola increased spending 65%, while its main competitor and the only other soft-drink company on the list, PepsiCo, cut back 22%.

Spending for the top 20 product categories reached $3.7 billion in 2006. The automotive category (defined as the sum of factory and dealer-association advertising) had the most spending at $630 million, more than double the dollar amount of the No. 2 category, department stores, spending $269 million. Quick-service restaurants followed closely as the third-largest category, with $258 million.