NGL Collective Is Here for the Growing Latinx Audience

The identities that make up a community, like Latinx, are nuanced. But that's a truth that marketers, trained to think in targetable cohorts, haven't always adhered to. Here to help marketers make smarter choices in reaching Latinx audiences is NGL Collective, a group that has a number of owned and operated media channels like Hispanicize, Hispanic Kitchen and recently-added mitú, which the collective works with brands to create content for. The collective also functions as an ad sales house for advertisers to access NGL’s Latinx digital scale through both direct and programmatic relationships. According to NGL, its owned and operated outlets and hundreds of publisher partners makes the company the number one Latinx digital entity, per Comscore. Originally formed in the early 2000s, the NGL Consortium sought to advocate for a new generation of Latinx audiences across media marketing and entertainment by carrying out research studies and hosting TED talks. In 2012, Colombian actor John Leguizamo and other partners repurposed the company to start creating content and running ads, swapping the name Consortium for Collective. [Latinx] "is a difficult market to define … and therefore, it's a difficult audience to understand and effectively connect with," founder and chief executive officer David Chitel told Adweek. How the NFL Can Get Hispanic and Latino Outreach Right The company's total revenue has grown by 155% year over year from 2020 to 2021, it wouldn't share specific financial numbers. Video advertising is its main revenue stream, a mix of branded content and ads run on videos on platforms, social and connected TV. Total revenue is expected to grow by over 60% by the end of 2022, in part thanks to media company Go Digital's acquisition of NGL Collective this year, and merger with Go Digital's English-Latinx media company mitú, according to Chitel. The merger valued the newly created company, which retained the NGL Collective name, at $60 million. A growing market One of the advertisers biggest challenges is understanding and recognizing "the breadth of diversity within the Latinx category," according to Comscore chief marketing officer and executive vice president, digital Tania Yuki. What's considered when segmenting the audience is based on where someone was born, their country of origin and whether they are Spanish language or English language dominant, according to Yuki. "A Latina who was born in Miami would have a very different experience than a Latina who was born in Los Angeles," Chitel told Adweek. That complex market is expanding. In 2021 the U.S. Hispanic population reached 62.5 million, making up one in five people in the U.S., per Pew Research. Chitel told Adweek the buying power within that population goes well into the trillions. NGL Collective's media arm runs titles such as Hispanicize and newsletters Latina Moms and Hispanic Kitchen, platforms where the collective works with brands to publish branded content. Hispanicize's video content includes series like Hispanicize Hangout featuring actress Jessica Marie Garcia talking about empowering Latina filmmakers in a branded partnership with McDonald's. Another series, Sound Sessions, spotlights emerging Latinx music artists and is presented by Cadillac. Advertisers can work with lifestyle and cooking content brands under NGL like Latina Moms, which has an email list of over 20,000, or Hispanic Kitchen, which has an email list of over 60,000 and 1.7 million followers across social platforms, according to the company. So far NGL has worked with brands like Fanta and Jim Beam to create Latinx-focused video campaigns. In a recent campaign with Cadillac promoting its LYRIQ model, NGL created a campaign with up-and-coming Afro-Latinx music artist Goyo for Women's History Month. Now, NGL's total number of ad partners has grown by over 25% year over year. Brands such as Google, Chase and McDonald's run programmatic ads on NGL's channels, Chitel told Adweek. Programmatic advertising revenue makes up 20% of the company's ad revenue, according to Chitel. Content on issues like colorism and mental health NGL Collective announced its merge with Go Digital media brand mitú in August, a media company that generates content for younger Latin-American audiences, such as Latinos Talk, where hosts talk about issues affecting today's younger generation, like colorism and mental health struggles, as well as Instagram memes. Currently, mitú has 13 million social media followers across platforms, according to NGL, with 4 million followers on Facebook and 2.74 million on Snapchat. Mitú's pre-merger content on YouTube includes shows like mitú meets and Fierce!, interviewing celebrities such as music artist Camila Cabello and Eternals actress Salma Hayek to talk about the experience of being a Latina in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the first Latina to play Cinderella. The YouTube channel has nearly 390,000 subscribers. Hispanic Heritage Month Series: Celebrating Culture and Calling for Representation Both mitú and NGL are 10 years old, according to Chitel, the latter will celebrate 10 years on Oct. 14 during Hispanic Heritage Month. "We're excited about the future, given the positioning that each of the companies had and the fact that the market is only growing," Chitel told Adweek. “Between Covid and past recessions, we've sort of weathered the storm quite well," he added.

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How NGL Collective Taps Into the Growing Latinx Audience

The company's revenue has grown 155% YoY between 2020 and 2021

Meseret Ambachew

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Meseret Ambachew