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Sunday, January 9, 2000

City gets southern exposure

Mayor joins Mexico's top TV stars at gala

 

It's crass to view a situation in terms of money first, even on the business page, but even so, it's worth noting that Mayor Loyd Neal got about $3.9 million worth of airtime on Spanish-language television last week.
   That's only a rough estimate, to be explained in more detail later. First, let's look at how our Spanish-deficient mayor ended up with all that airtime.
   Neal went to Mexico City with City Manager David Garcia and Char Beltran, chief executive officer of the Corpus Christi Convention and Visitors Bureau, to attend a two-hour news conference Wednesday introducing Televisa's new novela, "Amigos X Siempre." Televisa invited the Corpus Christi contingent because scenes for 20 episodes of the novela were filmed in the city late last year.
   Novelas are similar to our soap operas, except they're aired during prime time and are the biggest thing on Spanish television. Televisa, which broadcasts in 110 countries, describes itself as the world's second-largest production and broadcast network. "Amigos X Siempre" will premiere to this international audience Monday.
   TELEVISA SPENT TWO HOURS INTRODUCING ITS FIRST NOVELA OF THE MILLENNIUM VIA SIMULTANEOUS SATELLITE FEEDS FROM MEXICO CITY, GUADALAJARA AND MONTERREY. THIS WAS A STAR-STUDDED AFFAIR WITH MUSIC, DANCERS AND CONFETTI. ABOUT 80 MEDIA OUTLETS COVERED IT, SAYS THE NOVELA'S PRODUCER, ROSIE OCAMPO. TELEVISA AFFILIATES IN SOME OF THE LARGEST CITIES PLANNED TO AIR THE WHOLE TWO HOURS, SHE SAID.
   TAKING ON SOCIAL ISSUES
   AND IN THE MIDST OF IT ALL, OUR MAYOR GOT FOUR MINUTES, WITH AN INTERPRETER WORKING SIMULTANEOUSLY AT HIS SIDE.
   "THE FOUR MINUTES GAVE ME A CHANCE TO REALLY THANK THEM AND TELL THEM HOW IMPORTANT IT WAS TO OUR CITY," NEAL SAYS.
   NEAL AND BELTRAN SAY THEY WERE PARTICULARLY INTERESTED NOT ONLY IN CORPUS CHRISTI RECEIVING UMPTEEN EXPOSURE AND A TOURISM BONANZA THROUGHOUT TELEVISA'S AUDIENCE, BUT ALSO IN THE CITY BEING ASSOCIATED WITH A SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS PROGRAM THAT WILL EMPHASIZE CHILDREN'S RIGHTS AND FAMILY VALUES.
   WHILE ENTERTAINMENT IS THE FIRST GOAL OF NOVELAS, THIS ONE WILL TAKE ON SOCIAL ISSUES, ESPECIALLY CHILDREN'S ISSUES, OCAMPO SAYS. IT WILL FEATURE A CHILD WITH DOWN SYNDROME, WHICH SHE SAYS HAS NEVER BEEN DONE ON SPANISH-LANGUAGE TELEVISION. THIS ASPECT OF THE SHOW DREW A CONTINGENT OF GOVERNMENT MINISTERS AND HEADS OF CHARITY ORGANIZATIONS TO THE FESTIVITIES.
   "Even though it is an entertainment product," Ocampo says, "we are promoting a lot of positive values through drama." The focus on children's issues got the mayor's attention, she says, and the mayor and other city officials got Televisa's attention by scouting out sites and taking good care of the production crews.
   "From Televisa's point of view it is important to have a lot of scenery different from what we can see every day in Mexico.
   "Personally, I didn't know that Corpus Christi was such a beautiful city. Many people in Mexico didn't know about your city until now."
   That's how 300 million viewers will see Corpus Christi, Neal and Beltran say.
   Those viewers also saw Neal for four minutes, plus about two and a half more minutes toward the end when the star, Ernesto Laguardia, brought him back onstage, Beltran says. Laguardia is like the George Clooney of Mexico, give or take a Pitt or DiCaprio.
   "Ernesto was so proud that we had made him an honorary citizen of Corpus Christi," Neal says. A small gesture of respect repaid by another small gesture of respect.
   "You couldn't buy this kind of advertising," Beltran says. But if you did, she and Neal were told, it would cost $200,000 for a 20-second segment.
   Let's see, that's $600,000 a minute, multiplied by Neal's four minutes plus the estimated two and a half minutes of glad-handing with the big star, which equals $3.9 million.
   And that doesn't count the scenes from Corpus Christi that were shown during the news conference.
   Nor does it take into account that Neal - if Beltran is to be believed - went over with the Mexicans like Jerry Lewis with the French. The sunny relations could lead to more episodes being filmed in Corpus Christi, she says.
   City gets free advertising
   A pretty good haul, all in all, considering that the visitors bureau's annual budget is $2.2 million.
   And there's more to reap, says Michael Reyes of Morehead, Dotts y Reyes, which specializes in Hispanic marketing.
   "The potential payoff for Corpus Christi is that Mexican nationals love to consume American products. There's a mindset that if it's from the U.S.A., it's better. So when they are watching the program and they see that it's filmed in the U.S.A. and it's Mexican nationals involved in the U.S.A., it raises the level of desire."
   The grass is greener
   He compares the Mexican view of U.S. products to U.S. consumers' view toward German cars, Swiss chocolate and Japanese electronics.
   He compares the potential impact of the television show to what he observed when he lived in Dallas during the heyday of the television show "Dallas."
   "We did work for the owners of the (South Fork) ranch and people flocked to it and I thought, 'It's a pasture. Why are you coming to see a pasture?'"
   In Corpus Christi, the pastures could become greener with the next tourist season.
  

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Tom Whitehurst

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