TelevisaUnivision has closed its 2024-2025 Upfront, and President of U.S. Advertising and Marketing Donna Speciale is pleased — even as Steven Wolfe Pereira has exited as Executive Vice President and Chief Client Officer for the world’s largest Spanish-language content producer.
“We are proud of the historic number of advertisers committing to the Hispanic audience in this year’s Upfront marketplace, underscoring TelevisaUnivision’s distinguished leadership in serving this critical, diverse and dynamic consumer base across all platforms,” Speciale said in a statement released on Tuesday. “From linear and streaming to social and digital, more brands than ever have leaned in to leverage our strengthened capabilities, embracing culture and language as drivers of their future relevance and success.”
TelevisaUnivision says it saw an “historic” number of advertisers participating in this Upfront season – “more accounts than ever before” – driving single digit volume growth across the Hispanic media Goliath’s portfolio of linear, streaming, social and digital properties and delivering CPM growth overall. This, says TelevisaUnivision, includes “a significant number of new clients, which is noteworthy as we continue to execute against the opportunity to close the gap in advertisers who are not investing in Spanish-language advertising.”
Sports continues to be a huge driver for growth, and this Upfront saw TelevisaUnivision secure “the highest sports CPMs in history,” with “strong demand” across Liga MX and UEFA Champions League, as well as for the Gold Cup.
“We continue to see strong demand for ViX, with commitments up double-digits from last year,” Speciale added, as the OTT platform has become the center of attention for TelevisaUnivision, owner of two broadcast TV networks in the U.S. and a collection of radio stations operating under the Uforia brand.
Furthermore, TelevisaUnivision experiential event house Casa Creator, originally intended to launch in 2025, debuted a year early “due to brand demand” with Coca-Cola as an inaugural sponsor at the 2024 Premios Juventud.
“From a category perspective, our growth was fueled by auto, alcohol beverages and finance,” Speciale noted. Automotive has been a challenge for some broadcast media companies of late, based on second quarter 2024 financial reports. “Finance continues to be one of our most underpenetrated category, in addition to pharma, and we made huge inroads this Upfront,” Speciale said.
A NEW CHAPTER FOR PEREIRA
While it was initially believed that Pereira’s dismissal on August 2 from TelevisaUnivision was involuntary, Hispanic Market Overview on Tuesday learned that he is leaving to start what Speciale called in an internal memo “an exciting venture that he’ll share” soon.
“Since joining the team, Steven has been a strong advocate for TelevisaUnivision and made meaningful contributions to advancing progress with many of our most important client partners,” she continued.
With Pereira’s departure, Dan Riess will assume oversight over the Client Partnerships team. “Dan has been the architect of our client-side transformation – driving our strategy and creating our new Client Solutions team, which has already helped elevate our client relationships,” Speciale said. “By unifying the sales and solutions teams, along with our valuable Así Studios capabilities, I’m confident we can drive even greater impact for our partners, and build on the progress we’ve all helped deliver this past year.”
Pereira arrived at TelevisaUnivision since November 2023, but had quickly made himself known at the company, appearing front-and-center with Speciale at the 2024 Hispanic Marketing Council annual conference in New York in mid-April. Prior to his arrival at TelevisaUnivision, Wolfe Pereira was known for his role as co-founder and CEO of Encantos, a global creator platform where kids can learn from the world’s best storyteachers. From 2017-2019 he was Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Quantcast. He’s also worked for Oracle and Publicis Media and from 2008-2010 was Univision Communications’ VP of Marketing and Business Intelligence.
Pereira has also been “a longtime friend” to Speciale, who noted in the company memo distributed on August 8 that she will “miss the spirit and passion he brings to our team. It’s certainly not goodbye, it’s see you later!”
In his own company memo, Pereira shared, “This decision wasn’t taken lightly and is driven in part by the strong passion I have for our Latino community – I recognize that my influence and impact extend beyond the media industry into tech and finance, and one goal for this new venture is to bring visibility to Latinos across every single industry in different ways. Although it was a short period of time, I’m truly proud of the work we’ve accomplished together to elevate La Cultura and make it front and center in the industry – from kicking off the year at CES and Sundance, to Brand Innovators and POSSIBLE and of course the successful launch of Casa Cultura at Cannes Lions! We were loud and proud advocates for Latinos across the country, and I know that will only continue to grow.”
