Streaming has a Hispanic underrepresentation problem.
Hispanic Americans accounted for nearly 20% of the US population in the latest census in 2020, but Latino actors were cast in only 5.5% of the roles in digital programming during the 2019-2020 broadcast season, according to UCLA’s most recent Hollywood Diversity Report.
The representation gap is even wider in streaming TV than it is in broadcast, where Latino actors accounted for 6.3% of all roles.
And those numbers drop even more when you take native Spanish-language networks, such as Telemundo or TelevisaUnivision, out of the mix, said Carlos Santiago, co-founder of marketing consultancy Santiago Solutions Group, on Wednesday at the Hispanic Television Summit in New York City, which is part of NYC TV Week.
Although Hispanic audiences watch streaming TV at an even higher rate than other populations, they don’t see themselves in the content they consume or the ads they see.
“Over 40% of total TV viewing hours among Hispanic audiences are going to streaming,” said Veronica Hernandez, product manager of inclusion analytics at Nielsen. “That’s nine percentage points higher than the general population.”
It’s time for streaming services to “change the conversation of representation into one of authenticity and cultural relevancy,” Santiago said.
Defining ‘authentic’
“Authenticity,” however, is subjective, which can make it difficult to measure.
Santiago Solutions Group developed a tool called Cultural Inclusion and Impact Measurement (CIIM) that uses an algorithm to rank what real audiences think about specific streaming services and to assess the impact and effectiveness of cultural insights in ads.
The company surveys seven different population “segments,” which include “LGBTQ+” and “people with disabilities” in addition to ethnicity segments, to evaluate a streaming service’s representation efforts based on between 600 and 700 individual titles.
Specifically, the organization asks its participants to score content based on cultural “persuasiveness,” because representation alone isn’t enough. That representation has to be positive and convincing, Santiago said.
It’s no surprise that Telemundo and TelevisaUnivision, both native Spanish-language networks, earned higher CIIM marks for representation than the larger streaming platforms.
Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video score the lowest (“culturally indifferent”), and YouTube, HBO and Fox are one step above that (“below average”).
Second place, according to the Santiago Solutions Group, (“above average”) goes to CBS, ABC and NBCUniversal, including its streaming service, Peacock.
Get creative
So, what do these rankings mean for advertisers?
Ad buyers need to address representation earlier in the creative process, Santiago said.
“Cultural relevance is tied to impact – especially purchase intent,” he said. When accurate representation is “encapsulated in storylines,” he added, those advertisers get higher ROI as a result.
It stands to reason that viewers who are receptive to culturally relevant content will also be more receptive to culturally relevant advertising.
Orci, a creative agency, shared a recent spot it produced for its client Acura as an example of what’s possible when brands consider representation at the outset of a campaign.
“We told our creative team to go out there and find real musicians from the community,” said Marina Filippelli, Orci’s CEO.
The spot included original music produced by a Hispanic DJ from Miami. “That DJ wasn’t an actor,” Filippelli said.
Keeping authenticity top of mind is all the more important now because younger generations are digitally native, tech-savvy and attracted to what’s genuine.
“Gen Z can smell bullsh*t from a mile away – they know whether or not creative was produced by somebody like them,” Filippelli said. “Representation needs to take place not just in front of the camera, but behind the scenes.”
