Endeavor wants to take the Latino market seriously.
Internal data insights company Endeavor Analytics presented a report on recent U.S. Hispanic and Latino entertainment consumer trends Thursday during a Hispanic Heritage Month-themed Endeavor Impact session. The report, titled ‘Movers of Culture’, makes the case for why brands and marketers should be aware of this demographic group, which, if it were its own country, would be the fifth largest economy in the world (ahead of Britain and India). and France) and the third fastest growing, after China and India.
One in five Americans is Hispanic – one in four when it comes to Generation Z – and the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” categorize people with ties to more than two dozen Latin American countries with different cultural identities and language preferences. For example, those from Central America showed the strongest preference for Spanish, while just under half of Mexican Americans — by far the largest of the U.S. Latino populations — said they tend to pay more attention to Spanish-language ads and Puerto Rico ads. Ricans responded more strongly to advertisements in English.
“Despite these nuances, reaching this consumer segment is actually not difficult or complicated,” said Cristina Andrade, director of Endeavor Analytics, who presented the report. The majority of Hispanics surveyed say they are more likely to consume content and interact with ads that feature someone from their identity group. all ethnicities.”
Latinos continue to overindex at the domestic box office. Although they represent one in five of the U.S. population, they buy one in four movie tickets – and one in three on opening weekend. Given their proven rise, “what is the need for targeted marketing or more representation?” Albert Acosta, vice president of Endeavor Analytics, asked WME head of customer marketing in the film Anu Bhatia rhetorically during the Q&A talkback following Andrade’s presentation.
“When you see the translation of targeted efforts where certain projects have even greater returns – when you look at genre films that typically lean into that space – you see higher returns and higher indexation. If you look at content consumption on streaming and SVOD services, it’s the same. When you actually focus on representation and storytelling of a specific audience, you see a greater return for that audience,” replied Bhatia. “While they are certainly a prominent force in the market now, this does not mean that this is the limit of their impact or the value they can add to the business.”
As Bhatia mentioned, the Latino market is also growing on streaming. Compared to the national average, more Latin American households subscribe to most SVOD services – a statistic that US streaming platforms are clearly aware of as they commission more and more Latin American productions each year. The number of such projects grew from 3,370 in 2021 to 4,801 in 2022, an increase of 42%. And in the first six months of this year alone, 5,040 different titles have already been released.
Latin music is the fifth most popular genre in the United States and is growing at what Endeavor Analytics calls “an unprecedented pace.” According to data from Luminate, on-demand streams of Latin music have increased from 48.7 billion in 2018 to 70.3 billion so far this year – a jump of 44 percent over five years, higher than the growth rate of hip-hop, according to the report. This increase in popularity is driven by an increasingly broad audience: 48 percent of adults who chose Latin as their favorite music genre do not speak Spanish. (In fact, 64 percent of non-Hispanic millennials and Gen Z listeners enjoy music in languages they don’t speak.) And the major subgenres of music within Latin are each experiencing growth, with Regional Mexican since 49.4 percent in has catapulted the US audio streams. last summer, driven primarily by millennial listeners.
“Subgenres that exist within Regional Mexican have existed for decades or centuries, and have rarely appeared in the overall American pop rankings until now,” says Andrade, who has produced recent crossover collaborations such as those between Fuerza Regida and Snoop Dogg, Fuerza Regida and Shakira credits. and Bizarrap and Peso Pluma with building momentum.
Of particular interest to Endeavor, which recently merged UFC and WWE into TKO Group, is Latino enthusiasm in live events. More Hispanics (75 percent) than non-Hispanics (68 percent) said they were willing to pay full freight for concert tickets, despite recent price increases. And when it comes to Endeavor brands, 29 percent of UFC fans, 28 percent of WWE fans (Monday evening Raw is the No. 1 show among Hispanics on all of NBCUniversal’s English-language cable networks) and 19 percent of PBR fans in the U.S. identify as Hispanic – again proportional to or over-indexing their share of the population. Endeavor has already begun to leverage this knowledge, with WWE’s partnership with Bad Bunny (a UTA client) selling lines of merchandise to both Puerto Rican and non-Puerto Rican fans, and the Noche UFC event becoming ESPN+’s most-watched fight night of the past becomes years. always.
“Endeavor Analytics has been studying the U.S. Hispanic consumer segment for years and recognizes the importance of understanding their behavior,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “As this consumer segment continues to grow in the U.S., these findings help our colleagues at WME and at Endeavor to engage audiences more effectively.”
