TelevisaUnivision’s John Kozack is ready.
Recently, ADWEEK had the exclusive on Kozack taking over as TelevisaUnivision’s ad sales leader following the surprise exit of Tim Natividad, mere weeks ahead of the company’s upfront event. Though annual TV upfront events for advertisers typically take months to put together, Kozack—who’s spent more than two decades at TelevisaUnivision before taking the role as the ads president—says he’s unfazed.
“I’m energized to lead this team, so that is very helpful,” Kozack said. “But being two decades here, it’s not really three weeks for me.”
Though Kozack is making his debut as the ads leader onstage, he’s been running the upfront on the business side of TelevisaUnivision for years, he said. That experience, along with the company’s priorities this year, is making the transition smoother.
TelevisaUnivision—which is currently showcasing that it knows its audience through its “We Get Hispanics” marketing campaign—has three areas of focus heading into the upfront: sports, streaming, and culture through music and live events. And Kozack said those areas are rich with content to build an upfront event around.
Speaking with ADWEEK, Kozack previewed the company’s upfront plans, revealed his strategy to win over advertisers, and didn’t dance around questions. (But will he actually dance at the upfront like his predecessor Donna Speciale? Find out below.)
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
ADWEEK: You’ve had two decades at TelevisaUnivision. What’s it like taking on the ads leader role?
It’s wonderful. I’m energized. I think the team is energized. And again, we’re in growth mode, which a lot of companies can’t say that. So that makes it really nice, and we’ll see with some of the announcements we’re going to make.
One of your focuses is sports. What’s your strategy there?
This is a real priority for our clients, and, quite frankly, it does really well. It’s live, mass reach. So our strategy is always going to be always-on for sports in soccer. We’re passionate about it for 52 weeks out of the year. So we have that, and it’s live. We have unduplicated sports audience. English-language sports are amazing. People should be buying it, but 50% of our sports viewers don’t watch those, so you’re getting incrementality.
How are you showcasing ViX and streaming?
We have momentum with ViX. It’s still the fastest-growing streaming service in the U.S., regardless of language, and we’re proud of that. It’s doing well. Marketers are asking for scale and precision. So you take both of those, and that’s where our ViX 360 offering comes in, and we’re trying to create a unified streaming marketplace with the largest footprint for U.S. Hispanics. We’re doing that with partner deals, like we just announced with Roku. We’ll probably do a couple of other ones as well, but all woven through our audience graph.
