General Mills’ Que Rica Vida, Bisquick, Launch Sweepstakes for a Mother’s Day Brunch with Univision Star Karla Martinez

Five winners will be flown to Miami to share a Sobremesa with the Co-Host of the network’s popular show, Despierta América

Five lucky winners and their companions will get to celebrate an early Mother’s Day brunch in Miami, Florida, this May, with Karla Martinez, co-host of Univision Network’s popular morning show, Despierta América (Wake Up America). Martinez is also the new spokesperson of General Mills Inc.’s highly successful Hispanic marketing platform, Que Rica Vida. Its Spanish-language lifestyle magazine and web site of the same name, along with Bisquick, are sponsoring the sweepstakes, which recently kicked off and runs through March, 20, 2009.

The sweepstakes is the result of an innovative partnership with Univision Communications Inc., the nation’s leading Spanish-language media company, and General Mills Inc., a leading global manufacturer and marketer of consumer food products. General Mills is working with Univision to significantly increase their Hispanic marketing efforts with numerous brands across their portfolio.

“We are thrilled to partner with General Mills to help them build brand loyalty and drive sales with Hispanic moms,” said David Lawenda, president of Advertising Sales & Marketing, Univision Communications Inc. “This agreement reflects Univision’s mission to be an integral resource to marketers that have identified the U.S. Hispanic consumer as a key growth engine. We appreciated the opportunity to amplify and scale General Mills’ Que Rica Vida platform using the proven power of Univision media and talent.”

As part of the partnership, Martínez is starring in a series of 30-second vignettes that will air coast-to-coast over the next 12 months, providing viewers with cooking and nutrition-related tips, each featuring one of 15 participating General Mills brands.

“We thought it would be fun to introduce Karla as our new spokesperson by giving consumers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel to Miami and share a sobremesa with her around Mother’s Day,” said Ursula Mejia-Melgar, Editor of Que Rica Vida magazine. “Thanks to Bisquick, the winners will be able to do so, while sharing mothering tips and experiences with Karla, who only last week gave birth to her second beautiful daughter, Michaella. Karla is also mother to one-and-a-half-year-old Antonella.”

A sobremesa – which literally means, “over the table” – refers to the Hispanic tradition of sharing stories with family and friends around the dinner table, after the meal. To Latinos, sobremesas are similar in tone to the water-cooler conversation that takes place in the general market, in which personal events and stories of the day are exchanged in a chatty way.

Entry forms and rules can be downloaded at www.QueRicaVida.com. To enter by mail, participants should print their name, address, zip code and daytime phone number on a 3” x 5” piece of paper and send to: Mother’s Day Brunch with Karla Martinez Sweepstakes, P.O. Box 72970, Rockford, MN 55572. There is no purchase necessary, and all entries must be received by March 20, 2009. Only winners will be notified. A limit of one entry per person or e-mail address, regardless of method of entry, is mandatory.

A unique aspect of this sweepstakes will be the four grassroots registration drives Que Rica Vida and Bisquick will sponsor in community centers throughout the Los Angeles, Northern California, Houston and Chicago areas. Noting that not everyone is computer-literate nor has a computer at home, Mejia-Melgar said “the idea is to give as many people as possible a chance to enter by taking the sweepstakes beyond the typical channels, and directly into the community.”

Translated, Qué Rica Vida means, “What a Good Life.” The magazine, along with its website (www.QueRicaVida.com), is the cornerstone of General Mills’ two-and-a-half-year-old, multi-brand, Hispanic marketing initiative of the same name. Together, they constitute an important resource both for Hispanic moms, who seek lifestyle tips, culturally relevant recipes, and solutions that preserve their heritage and traditions.

With an overall quarterly circulation of 350,000, Qué Rica Vida is distributed free of charge via direct mail, as well as at stores and community-based venues. Starting in 2009, a condensed version will also be distributed to more than 600,000 households as a free standing insert in various newspapers around the country.