AT&T Advertising Solutions has announced a partnership with Hispanic publisher Seccion Amarilla to sell Hispanic advertising into select Seccion Amarilla directories.

“AT&T is always focused on enhancing our directories to best serve our business and residential customers in the diverse communities we serve,” Carlos Salinas, executive director of strategy and business development at AT&T Advertising Solutions, said in the release. “This is one more way AT&T strives to connect people everywhere they live and work and do it better than anyone else.”

The agreement allows Seccion Amarilla to carry the AT&T logo on the directory covers in recognition of the partnership.

Earlier this month, The Kelsey Group release an Advisory (“Hispanic Directories a Small but Mighty Growth Segment for Print”) on the growth of the Hispanic directory segment, demonstrating the opportunities within the market. While many local media segments have suffered from decline, the Hispanic segment continues to show strong growth. TKG projects the Hispanic segment will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.9 percent to US$218.4 million in 2012 from US$163.7 million in 2007.

The move by AT&T combines two strong brands within the Hispanic community and allows more focused Hispanic revenue development for both parties. The combined effort by AT&T and Seccion Amarilla will continue the trend of more focused sales and strategic efforts in the Hispanic market and may spur additional segment growth.

Hispanic Yellow Pages of America has ceased operations, according to a notice distributed on Monday via ELINC, a Yellow Pages Association’s electronic newsletter providing updates on the directory industry to the CMR community. 

Chicago-based  HYPA had grown primarily through acquisitions since its inception in 2004. According to The Kelsey Group’s Global Yellow Pages 2007 report, HYPA had 22 directory titles in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin with estimated revenues of US$2.7 million, and until recently it employed 100 people. HYPA had aspirations of growing a national network of Hispanic directories with plans to expand the operations into California and Texas. 

According to a spokesman from High Ridge Partners, the Chicago investment firm that is now managing HYPA operations, the assets of the organization are to be liquidated and sold to settle the company’s debt. It is not clear if the current directories sold but not published will be produced and distributed. The company’s Web sites have also been taken down and are no longer accessible.  What we do not yet know is why HYPA has apparently failed. TKG believes the Hispanic Yellow Pages market is more vulnerable to weak economic conditions, when SMBs make tough decisions on where to invest their advertising dollar. We will follow up on this development in greater detailing in an upcoming Advisory from The Kelsey Report.