June 25, 2008

By By John Consoli, Mediaweek

In what could be the largest one-time, cross-platform upfront deal ever between a Hispanic media agency and a Hispanic TV network, Zubi Advertising of Miami and Univision have completed an all-encompassing media advertising deal approaching $80 million.

The pact includes advertising on all three Univision TV networks -- Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision -- as well as 64 Univision owned-and-operated TV stations, Univision radio stations and the online units of all those properties (plus mobile). It was hammered out by the sales team at Zubi, Univision executive VP network sales Peter Lazarus and senior VP network sales Carlos Deschapelles.

Talks began with a meeting among Zubi president and CEO Joe Zubi, Univision CEO Joe Uva and David Lawenda, Univision's president of ad sales and marketing.

The deal involves all the clients of Zubi Advertising who advertise on Univision -- Ford, American Airlines, SC Johnson and Washington Mutual, among others -- about eight or nine in all.

The scope of the pact is a testament to the new philosophy that Univision adopted when Uva took over last year as CEO: that silos would be broken down and advertisers are able to make one-stop purchases of national and local TV, radio and the Internet without having to negotiate deals with each segment separately.

"It has always been a problem in the past to buy national TV and Univision stations at the same time," Zubi said. "But with the new Univision philosophy and after meeting with Joe and David, and working with Peter and Carlos, the deal became easy to do."

Zubi and the Univision executives said the deal was about two months in the works.

The deals vary in scope by advertiser, with some beginning in the fall and others in 2009.

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