• The business challenge the client was facing

Most people today see shows on online platforms, whether streaming services or illegally. Thanks to the accessibility of these platforms, the content available (all the Telemundo series are there), access to unlimited data and massive availability of smartphones among the Hispanic population of the USA.

• Interpretation of the client needs and brand values

We had to get people to want to follow La Reina del Sur 2 on Telemundo with a commitment of 5 days a week, and not wait to see it on Netflix next year.

• Industry / target market

Hispanic audience in the US (60m/ 60% Mexicans > mostly from the north of Mexico: workers, submissives, “the unheard”)

Telemundo Primetime audience: Men and women, average age 40, hyperconnected, mostly Mexicans (not necessarily bilingual)

• The desired outcome

To generate a sense of urgency to see this new season of LRDS on Telemundo. To generate the sensation of a “collective moment” or event.

To recaptivate audiences (retaining the originals and capturing new viewers).

Almost 7 in 10 Hispanics have a smartphone, and this powers an outsized proportion of their entertainment activity (eMarketer 2018). Thus, live TV viewing is lowest among Hispanics and the On Demand trend is blossoming. This scenario framed the launching of LRDS 2 as an even tougher challenge for us, since not only do we have to go against the on-demand trend, but also Netflix would be streaming the series within a year. How do we get them committed to watch a primetime TV series? Well, in a time of spoiler terror in which people would go to extremes not to learn anything about their favourite series before they’d seen it themselves, we saw an edge on LRDS 2, a series about a queen of the drug cartels and her ruthless style: if Tereza Mendoza could fight for what she wanted, even if it meant threatening her enemies, so she could get her audiences committed to watching the series on Telemundo. We gave her the power to spoiler-fear the audiences and to tell them “Either you watch it on Telemundo, or we’ll spoil it for you”.

The return of La Reina del Sur 2 had been long awaited, but how could everybody be persuaded to watch it on TV on the same day, at the same time and on the same channel in the On Demand age?

People hate spoilers, but the only way to avoid them was by seeing the series.

We ran a campaign on all the media in which after each chapter we told people what had happened, and even the protagonists themselves joined in to spoil it.

We achieved something that goes against the trend in entertainment consumption: we were able to change audience behaviour by returning to ‘Old School’ TV, at a specific time and on a specific day.

Best premiere in the past two years among total viewers and adults 18-49. TEL more than doubled UNIVISION at 10pm last night.

La Reina Del Sur’s S2 premiere ranked as the #1 program regardless of language for the time slot among A18-49.

La Reina del Sur 2 premiere was the #1 most social drama series regardless of language.

8,100,000 reproductions in total of the trailer: a new record. (Youtube, Facebook and Twitter).

1,300,000 social impressions and over 2.5 million unique viewers on the day of the premiere.

Record audience figures not only in Miami: also in New York, Dallas and Houston.

The Telemundo app was a trend in the ITunes App Store.

We faced 2 cultural challenges that we managed to turn to our advantage.

First, Hispanic consumers today are not the same as Hispanic consumers from years back. They are now the youngest ethnic group in America with the median age being 28 (Pew Research Center 2018) and their entertainment consumption has changed accordingly: “the vast majority of Hispanic consumers -- 90% -- stream video on either a smartphone or tablet, 10% more than non-Hispanics” (Pew Research Center 2018). This is not surprising considering that Hispanics tend to be early adopters of technology and over-index on mobile phone use and video consumption. Thus, live TV viewing is lowest among Hispanics.

Secondly, LRDS is a series about the queen of a drugs cartel, a fearless female leader who rises above a macho-ruled underworld and who fights to get back what is dearest to her: her daughter.