Hispanic Audiences Are Too Big to Ignore and Too Often Missed: TelevisaUnivision’s Cara Lewis
Marketers spend endless hours debating audience targeting, measurement and attribution. According to Cara Lewis, evp and U.S. head of agency at TelevisaUnivision, many of them may be missing half the room while doing it.
Speaking with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan, Lewis argued that many third-party measurement providers significantly undercount Hispanic audiences, creating a blind spot that becomes harder to justify as the economic influence of Hispanic consumers continues to grow.
“Most of the measurement companies today, third-party companies are missing our audience by 50%,” Lewis said.
That isn’t a rounding error. It is the statistical equivalent of inviting 100 people to a party and only noticing 50 of them showed up.
Lewis said TelevisaUnivision is working to close that gap through first-party data and culturally relevant programming designed specifically for Hispanic audiences.
“We’re making sure that they understand the relevancy and the attention that we can drive for Hispanics because we understand them,” she said.
Sports aren’t just one night
While advertisers often fixate on tentpole events, Lewis wants brands to think bigger than a single championship game.
The company is preparing for the Spanish-language broadcast of the Super Bowl in 2027 while expanding relationships with Major League Baseball and Formula One. Those additions build on TelevisaUnivision’s longstanding strength in soccer.
“Sports are not just one night, it’s 52 weeks a year,” Lewis said.
That message arrives as media companies race to secure live sports rights that remain one of the few reliable ways to attract large audiences that actually watch commercials in real time rather than three days later while folding laundry.
Lewis said Hispanic viewers often seek out TelevisaUnivision first because of the trust the company has built through years of sports coverage.
“They trust us, so they come to us for that reach and relevance,” she said.
Building a Hispanic household map
If data is the favorite buzzword of advertising conferences, Lewis came armed with a new entry.
TelevisaUnivision has developed what it describes as the only U.S. Hispanic household graph, combining first-party signals and outside datasets to improve audience identification across Spanish-speaking and bilingual households.
The goal is to solve what Lewis sees as a persistent industry problem.
“We took signals and third-party data sets and built the only U.S. household Hispanic graph,” she said.
Lewis argued that combining the company’s identity graph with other data assets allows advertisers to reach Hispanic consumers more accurately than conventional targeting methods.
In an industry where every vendor claims to know exactly who is watching, buying and thinking about buying, Lewis’ pitch is that her company actually knows where Hispanic audiences live, watch and engage.
More than a translated commercial
One of the interview’s sharper observations centered on creative strategy.
Many brands, Lewis said, still treat Hispanic marketing as a translation exercise rather than a cultural one.
TelevisaUnivision’s Así Studios unit works with advertisers to adapt campaigns or create entirely new creative designed specifically for Hispanic audiences.
“We can basically take their English language creative and make it authentic, or we can create something that is authentic,” Lewis said.
The distinction matters because consumers generally know the difference between a campaign designed for them and one that was fed through a translation app five minutes before launch.
Lewis said the studio’s team understands the culture because its members live it every day.
“They live and breathe that brand,” she said of the team’s connection to Hispanic audiences.
A $4 trillion audience
Underlying Lewis’ argument is a simple economic reality.
She pointed to estimates that Hispanic consumers represent roughly $4 trillion in economic output, a figure she noted would rank among the world’s largest economies.
“They just moved up above Japan in terms of being the fourth globally recognized GDP,” Lewis said.
For advertisers, the takeaway is less about multicultural marketing as a niche category and more about recognizing a massive consumer segment that increasingly shapes mainstream culture, sports consumption and spending patterns.
Or, as Lewis effectively suggested, if brands want to reach Hispanic audiences authentically, relying on generic targeting and translated creative may be like trying to win a soccer match while staring at the wrong goal.
The audience is already there. The challenge is finally seeing it.
Marketers spend endless hours debating audience targeting, measurement and attribution. According to Cara Lewis, evp and U.S. head of agency at TelevisaUnivision, many of them may be missing half the room while doing it.
Speaking with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan, Lewis argued that many third-party measurement providers significantly undercount Hispanic audiences, creating a blind spot that becomes harder to justify as the economic influence of Hispanic consumers continues to grow.
“Most of the measurement companies today, third-party companies are missing our audience by 50%,” Lewis said.
That isn’t a rounding error. It is the statistical equivalent of inviting 100 people to a party and only noticing 50 of them showed up.
Lewis said TelevisaUnivision is working to close that gap through first-party data and culturally relevant programming designed specifically for Hispanic audiences.
“We’re making sure that they understand the relevancy and the attention that we can drive for Hispanics because we understand them,” she said.
Sports aren’t just one night
While advertisers often fixate on tentpole events, Lewis wants brands to think bigger than a single championship game.
The company is preparing for the Spanish-language broadcast of the Super Bowl in 2027 while expanding relationships with Major League Baseball and Formula One. Those additions build on TelevisaUnivision’s longstanding strength in soccer.
“Sports are not just one night, it’s 52 weeks a year,” Lewis said.
That message arrives as media companies race to secure live sports rights that remain one of the few reliable ways to attract large audiences that actually watch commercials in real time rather than three days later while folding laundry.
Lewis said Hispanic viewers often seek out TelevisaUnivision first because of the trust the company has built through years of sports coverage.
“They trust us, so they come to us for that reach and relevance,” she said.
Building a Hispanic household map
If data is the favorite buzzword of advertising conferences, Lewis came armed with a new entry.
TelevisaUnivision has developed what it describes as the only U.S. Hispanic household graph, combining first-party signals and outside datasets to improve audience identification across Spanish-speaking and bilingual households.
The goal is to solve what Lewis sees as a persistent industry problem.
“We took signals and third-party data sets and built the only U.S. household Hispanic graph,” she said.
Lewis argued that combining the company’s identity graph with other data assets allows advertisers to reach Hispanic consumers more accurately than conventional targeting methods.
In an industry where every vendor claims to know exactly who is watching, buying and thinking about buying, Lewis’ pitch is that her company actually knows where Hispanic audiences live, watch and engage.
More than a translated commercial
One of the interview’s sharper observations centered on creative strategy.
Many brands, Lewis said, still treat Hispanic marketing as a translation exercise rather than a cultural one.
TelevisaUnivision’s Así Studios unit works with advertisers to adapt campaigns or create entirely new creative designed specifically for Hispanic audiences.
“We can basically take their English language creative and make it authentic, or we can create something that is authentic,” Lewis said.
The distinction matters because consumers generally know the difference between a campaign designed for them and one that was fed through a translation app five minutes before launch.
Lewis said the studio’s team understands the culture because its members live it every day.
“They live and breathe that brand,” she said of the team’s connection to Hispanic audiences.
A $4 trillion audience
Underlying Lewis’ argument is a simple economic reality.
She pointed to estimates that Hispanic consumers represent roughly $4 trillion in economic output, a figure she noted would rank among the world’s largest economies.
“They just moved up above Japan in terms of being the fourth globally recognized GDP,” Lewis said.
For advertisers, the takeaway is less about multicultural marketing as a niche category and more about recognizing a massive consumer segment that increasingly shapes mainstream culture, sports consumption and spending patterns.
Or, as Lewis effectively suggested, if brands want to reach Hispanic audiences authentically, relying on generic targeting and translated creative may be like trying to win a soccer match while staring at the wrong goal.
The audience is already there. The challenge is finally seeing it.
