Meredith Hispanic Ventures–publisher of Ser Padres Espera, Ser Padres Bebé, Ser Padres, and Siempre Mujer–reaches over 1 in 4 Hispanic women in the U.S. at every critical life stage. So, who better to help Kmart develop an online content play?
Working with Meredith Video Studios, Kmart is introducing Madres y Comadres, an eight-part original Spanish-language miniseries focused on two Hispanic mothers and the unique challenges they face raising a family in America while also remaining true to their Hispanic identity.
The scripted series is accompanied by twelve video interviews with real Hispanic moms from Mexico, Peru, Guatemala and Colombia coping with the nuances of raising American children in a traditional Hispanic household.
“Women are forced to play so many roles – mothers, housewives and professionals,” said writer and director Alberto Ferreras best known for his long-running “Habla” series on HBO Latino. “When you are a Latina, you have to be all that and bilingual and bicultural. These segments are a tribute to all mothers working so hard and learning from and supporting each other.”
You wrote: “Meredith Hispanic Ventures–publisher of Ser Padres Espera, Ser Padres Bebé, Ser Padres, and Siempre Mujer–reaches over 1 in 4 Hispanic women in the U.S. at every critical life stage. So, who better to help Kmart develop an online content play?”
Were you being facetious? Why would a magazine publisher be qualified to produce online videos. I don’t speak Spanish, so I have no idea what is being said on the video, but I can tell it’s an awful piece of shit.
Meredith is a lot more than a magazine publisher. They’re a marketing services force to be reckoned with. I take it you have yet to compete with them? But let’s pretend for our purposes here that Meredith is just a magazine publisher. A publisher like Meredith can argue that they know their readership better than any agency ever will. It’s an argument that brand managers are more and more open to hearing.
Really? Do you also believe that, say, ESPN – which
publishes a magazine and is a major media source that understands its audience
– is better suited to create its own advertising and digital marketing than its
agency, W+K? Knowing your audience, and producing media and content that
appeals to them, does not necessarily translate to being an expert at marketing
to them. (And let’s be clear, this awful video series is a marketing effort – a
glorified commercial.) There are plenty of agencies that would do a far better
job than Meredith – LatinWorks, Grupo Gallegos, The Vidal Partnership, etc.
Look at the video again and try using your eyes and advertising expertise. If you
really believe it is breakthrough vs. contrived, well, I guess we’ll have to
agree to disagree.
I don’t believe I made any claims about the quality of the video. I’m just responding to your reaction to Meredith’s role in this. Meredith is a media company that I’ve written about many times in this space, because they’re a shining example of the convergence going on in our industry.
When every company is a media company (EC=MC) today, it makes sense for a brand to cozy up to someone who actually knows what that means. Is Meredith making Wieden-quality advertainent? No, but that’s not a ding on Meredith, as much as it is a mark of Wieden’s excellence.
I see. I guess I was responding to the fact (or really, my
opinion) that a company like Meredith really has no qualifications to be
producing what it’s produced here. I have similar reactions when viewing a
company such as, say, Edelman, trying to do likewise. I don’t think this is a
matter of W+K being outstanding; rather, it’s about everyone suddenly thinking
they’re qualified to do anything. Just because you have the tools and resources
to produce something doesn’t mean you’re qualified. And just because you’ve
conned a client into believing you’re qualified doesn’t make it so. I would
have thought that someone like you – who has ranted about the importance of
being qualified to create content – would see that Meredith is simply
leveraging its expertise in some areas (e.g., knowing the Hispanic market via
its mags and other media sources) to pretend it’s qualified in areas that it is
simply not. The digital space has allowed for a lot of DIY enthusiasts to
create content that occasionally goes viral. But the overwhelming majority of
stuff on the Internet is garbage. Let’s not encourage entities like Meredith to
add more refuse to the World Wide Web wasteland.
Okay, how about we encourage Meredith and every other content marketing provider in the world–and every maker of advertising too–to go crapless today and forevermore?
Wishful thinking isn’t all that productive. I wish it was. At any rate, I do think we are using this one topic to discuss different points. I keep pointing to Meredith here because it’s important for ad peeps to see what they’re up against, not just competitive agencies, but anyone with access and influence.
Well, I would only wish for Meredith and companies like them to go “crapless” for a single day.
Regarding your point, which I admittedly did not catch, others have recognized the new competitive set. And I even recognized it by pointing to companies like Edelman trying to reach beyond their core competency. But here’s one semi-recent recognition:
http://adage.com/article/small-agency-diary/agency-competes-corner-coffee-shop/227726/
Uno more comment. David, you recently said, “I want bad advertising eradicated from our culture.” So how does promoting pap from Meredith help you achieve the goal?
“Promoting” is the wrong word. I’m sharing all sorts of items here–some good, some bad–so you can comment and form your own opinions about the work, and about my motivations for sharing it.
its funny, after reading Ay Caramba, I’m sure that Mr. Ay is not the target audience, are you a Latina woman with kids? If so, then, sure you saying the content is ‘crap’ could be relevant, if you’re not, then I’d go back to your cubicle with your Starbucks Latte, skinny jeans and cool Converse shoes and push out another storyboard that is meaningless to only you trying to win an Effie