WPP-owned media agency Mindshare is reaffirming its support for U.S. Hispanic audiences and publishers alike, forming its third diversity-minded private marketplace in the past two years in a bid to drive media investment dollars toward Latinx artists, creators and journalism projects.

Campari Group alcohol brand Espolòn Tequila signed onto Mindshare’s latest “Inclusion PMP” as its launch partner, committing to direct a share of its advertising dollars “more purposefully to the communities that mean a lot to us and who would benefit from our support,” said Bernadette Knight, Espolòn’s senior category marketing director.

The new Latinx marketplace debuts with 20 publishers across both English- and Spanish-language channels including Estrella Media, Canela Media and Mundo Hispánico, with a wide focus across content that speaks to the different generations, cultures and national origins that make up U.S. Hispanic communities.

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“When Mindshare told us they were developing a new Latinx-focused PMP, we immediately asked to launch this with them,” said Knight, who added that Espolòn has been actively looking for ways to “authentically support” Hispanic Americans—who now make up nearly 20% of the national population.

“I’m really proud of the work Espolòn Tequila and Mindshare are doing with the creation of this PMP, and I hope we can continue to find ways to use our advertising dollars to amplify marginalized voices in the communities that are important to our consumers,” she said.

The new PMP is a key part of Espolòn’s media plan for its new “Feel It In Your Bones” campaign.

“The goal of the ‘Inclusion PMPs’ is very focused on driving dollars to publishers,” said Rachel Lowenstein, Mindshare’s global managing director of inclusive innovation.

In her view, much of the marketing world’s push for equitable representation and diversity “has been hyper-focused on the creative side of things” while somewhat ignoring media players, which she hopes to change with Mindshare’s three PMPs, driving “good growth” for its clients in minority-focused media spaces.

Mindshare’s new Latinx venture won't be the last of the agency’s “Inclusion PMPs,” Lowenstein said, confirming that there are others in the works but declining to give specifics on what marginalized group or groups they may address.

Overcoming keyword exclusion

"We have been very vocal about the need for the advertising industry to fund Latinx and Hispanic media in a way that reflects the importance of Latino communities in this country,” said Iván Adaime, CEO of ImpreMedia, which publishes titles like La Opinión and El Diario, and is one of the Latinx PMP’s 20 publishing partners.

The Latinx PMP, live this month, follows inclusive private marketplaces in support of LGBTQ+ and Black audiences, brands and publishers that launched in February and July of 2020, respectively.

The first of the trio, which saw pieces of creative run across LGBTQ+ news sites like The Advocate and Out, was supported in its beginning stages by Skyy Vodka, another Campari-owned brand, which harnessed the marketplace as a springboard to promote its “Proudly American” campaign.

That PMP was also developed to counter ongoing setbacks that some publishers have faced amid the rise of keyword exclusion lists—a feature of programmatic buying that allows marketers to avoid placing their ads alongside potentially harmful content, but that also can be overly broad and filter out words such as “gay,” regardless of context.

Programmatic keyword exclusion lists have resulted in as much as 73% of neutral or positive LGBTQ+ online content being incorrectly flagged as harmful, according to a study by the University of Baltimore and cybersecurity firm Cheq conducted prior to the LGBTQ+ PMP’s launch.

Circumventing keyword exclusion lists is also a partial goal of Mindshare’s Latinx PMP, Lowenstein said, highlighting some “politicized” words and phrases relevant to U.S. Hispanic communities, such as “immigration.”

In the summer of 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police and the renaissance of the Black Lives Matter movement, Mindshare followed that PMP’s success up with one dedicated to Black communities, engaging Kimberly-Clark feminine hygiene brand U by Kotex as its launch partner. That initiative was designed to remedy harm caused to Black-owned publishers and creators largely by keyword exclusion lists, which last year faced a new wave of no-go phrases related to the Black experience.

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