When a Client Asks for Integration, What Does It Mean?

much of the problem here is that clients have a language dependent viewpoint of hispanics, rather than culture/relevancy dependent. digital for hispanics in the US, not other parts of latin america (as many hispanic agency staffers are from) is more often english, so clients lean to their general market digital arm. here is a larger question, are US hispanic agencies the true experts in providing US Hispanic insights when many staffers are not from the US and their main qualification is the Spanish language? Does a culture have to be native to be understood?

I'm not sure that the clients best interest would be served by bringing in another shop to look after digital.

Our agency is full service and looks after the English, Chinese and Punjabi language advertising for various clients in Vancouver, Canada.

By looking at the bigger picture and considering that the media message will need to be delivered at store level...it makes more sense for 'fewer' agencies and decision makers to be involved in the mix.

I'd suggest that it's challenging enough for clients to split their multi-cultural advertising from their mainstream...so why look at breaking down the multi-cultural into other agencies?

Mitch Drew
BECK Agencies
www.beckbc.com
mitch@beckbc.com

The segment "hispanic" is to complex, first of all, which hispanic are you considering: cubans descendants are to way diferent than mexicans o puertorican descendants, the same happens with argentinians or central american people. And you need to consider as well if they are rich or poor people, politicians, musicians, office workers or peaseants. So, if you have to send a integrated campaing, maybe could be better to go with an universal concept. If you take a university student borned in Mexico city, he would have a much more in common with a german or indian university student, rather than with a manufacturer worker from the Tijuana border.

Alberto puts it in a nutshell, "If the answer is that they don't have a Hispanic agency with good digital capabilities, I suggest they change (their) Hispanic agencies. It's the end of 2007, people, and digital marketing is far from niche, even in the Hispanic market. Get with the program!"

There are only a handful of Hispanic agencies with hands on expert digital expertise. And Expert digital expertise is NOT creative expertise – it's the tough ROI stuff that general market i-agencies are good at: lead gen./opt-in collecting, immersive programs that deliver high interaction and brand recall, reaching Hispanics on non-traditional channels.

General market interactive agencies take risk with their planning and their targeting online – because they take risk with their entire brand planning everyday.
Hispanics agencies cant take risk with their interactive planning because it goes again against 10 years+ of advice they have been giving their clients = Hispanic messaging needs to be in Spanish; language is the only proven method for successful reach. Resulting in a large scale interactive program launched in 2007 that looks a lot like a large scale interactive program that ran in 2002.
This ancient strategy crumbles in the face (eyeballs) of millions of Hispanics who prefer to surf in English (English speaking Hispanics happen to be the prime market online; increased growth year after year, Comscore 2004-07).

Hispanic agencies need to get to out of their old school comfort zones ~ an added-value online media plan as part of larger TV buy on Univision does not equal a thoroughly planned out Hispanic program online and is actually a disservice to their clients' goals and their reputation as online marketers.

Many Hispanic agencies involved in any interactive planning are tackling 2001-ish planning issues because they are so late to the game; working hard on branding ideas, when general market I-agencies are trying to crack viral pushes on social networks.

AHAA and its agency's chose to ignore the interactive media as a tool they should master and provide to it's client for so long – many acting as if this 'interactive fad' would go away - that they now are playing catch up very slowly ~ going uphill in the snow with a 300 Lbs. bag full of 1990 Census books on their backs.

The fact that many of these 'Pioneer' agencies are still owned and/or run and directed by the same 1st generation, Spanish preferred marketer – will continue to retard their growth.

Francisco ~ former Hispanic marketer from Miami. NY, NY

Alberto, thanks for raising a topic that is not only timely, but that has a major impact on our clients' abilities to truly do what's best for their brands in the Hispanic space. We have had similar discussions at our agency, d expósito & Partners, arriving at the same conclusions as you and your esteemed colleagues at The Vidal Partnership. Based on many years of experience in crafting communications for this growing consumer segment, we agree whole-heartedly!

I'd like to share a couple of thoughts with the respondents to this piece. While I respect your opinions and am glad you shared them within this forum, I have to say it is probably difficult to fully understand why we Hispanic agencies feel as we do. Here are my thoughts:

1. Analogies to the way clients in Canada handle their multicultural initiatives (ie, Chinese and Punjabi or whatever) really are not relevant to what we do here in the U.S. At 45 million strong, the US Hispanic population's size is far larger than the Canadian population and has been for at least 10-15 years. I think that justifies the existence of our specialized expertise and the need to add a shop to a client roster.

2. Although the online Hispanic population absolutely tends to be more acculturated and English-speaking, this entire online Hispanic population has grown in size and diversity so much that it includes a substantial pool of people that do still prefer to be addressed in Spanish. Additionally, even English-speaking Hispanics have unique lifestyles and insights that differ significantly from non-Hispanics, requiring that they be addressed in a way that is in-culture.

3. And yes, we know, better than anyone, the nuances of the U.S. Hispanic market and that we are not homogeneous. However, there really are many similarities that enable us to effectively communicate and grow our clients' businesses, even with these nuances. Due to the fact that most of us are either immigrants or descendents of immigrants from Latin America, many in our community have similar family histories, experiences and values, despite differences in education and socio-economic status. You would be amazed to learn that the university student from Mexico City that came here to make a living doing Hispanic advertising has more in common with the factory worker from Tijuana or migrant worker from Puebla than one would originally think. Besides, good, experienced Hispanic agencies are able to identify a brand's target profile and have an excellent understanding of how it is similar or different to the rest of the Hispanic population; which is further validation as to why a client should add an extra agency to its roster, rather than assume a universal concept will be effective.

Finally, in today's advertising and communications, there is much talk about the consumer having increasing control of how and where they receive our industry's product. The Hispanic consumer continues to demand relevant, compelling content that is in-tune with their lifestyles. So I ask your readers: who is best equipped to deliver this to a diverse population over 45 million strong? A shop specializing in integrated, Hispanic communications that is the Hispanic consumer champion or one that specializes in a specific discipline and wants to increase its revenue by targeting a growing segment? I think the answer is obvious.

- Louis Maldonado, New York City

Some very valid point here Alberto, and its clear that digital marketing continues to grow as a means to reach Hispanic consumers and clients are taking notice to the effectiveness and results that they have achieved using digital in the General market.
What options are available to clients from their Hispanic agencies that are comparable to what the client receives from their general market Digital Agency? Not just digital creative (Most Hispanic AOR's develop the idea but most, if not all, outsource all development), but have all the means to manage a digital campaign and ongoing digital support for their clients initiatives (Media planning/buying, Search Optimization / Search Marketing, CRM, digital Affiliate programs, etc.)? Do clients trust their Hispanic agency to build their Spanish language digital corporate communications platform (website, internal platforms, etc) or just the promotional, campaign driven work that we see in the market? Many things I hear that are challenging to so many Hispanic agencies are issues that real; digital marketers overcame and understood from back in the late 90's because they are so late to the interactive table. Who suffers then...the client, and their budget, paying for their agency to get much needed, but readily available, digital experience.
When a client chooses a Digital agency specialist as in the scenario you mention, they undoubtedly are looking at the entire spectrum of digital communications with their consumers. It takes dozens of experienced, digital focused staff to manage all of that correctly and then comes the cultural part, which, yes the Hispanic agency is equipped to weigh in on. (Hopefully addressing the more than 65% of Hispanics that are primarily surfing Online in English)
Your article focuses on the clients 2 main options:
Give Hispanic digital marketing management to the Hispanic Agency and have them develop creative, culturally relevant ideas, but in many cases they are not equipped to handle much more than the creative digital ideation, and furthermore many (but not all) plan media by simply using the top 10 (if that) online Hispanic media publishers and still think that building destination sites to show off their creative prowess is what digital marketing is all about.

The second alternative is work with their general market Digital shop and have all the advantages of a digital specialist, very equipped both in experienced digital staff and resources, but may miss the mark in relevancy of the messages they create to communicate effectively with Hispanics online or worse; re-purpose what they have done in the English language general market.

I would add that, much like in the general market in the late 90's with the birth of the Digital specialist Agency (many of which were quickly absorbed by the traditional agencies to add digital capabilities but still run them as digital only shops to keep a focus on there specialization) there is a new breed of agency that has seen the dilemma you propose and has a much more effective approach to answer to your question.
Here is my revision to your answer: "That means trusting Hispanic consumers -- regardless of media channel or language -- to the experts in communicating with that audience: the Hispanic DIGITAL agency.

Thanks
John Santiago
MEDIA 8 DIGITAL MARKETING
www.media8.com

I totally agree with John Santiago that Alberto has made a really good point.

The issue is simple: the client wants a really good and effective digital campaign or platform aimed to the Hispanic market.

Is the solution what is complicated because, as Alberto rightly pointed, very few Hispanic shops have the expertise and the capabilities to create and perform a good digital campaign, much less a whole platform or operation. If you can get both, with a competent, great Hispanic Digital Agency, you are done.

But most specialized shops tend to focus only on their field and loose the big picture, missing the advantages and synergy of integration. Besides, there are very few competent Hispanic Digital Agencies.

The trade off between "digital greatness" and "Hispanicness" that most clients have to face in their digital campaigns is tricky, to say the least.  But for me, the trickiest part is the "either/or" assumption.

Why not ask for the assignment to the client's digital AOR and the Hispanic AOR and see what comes out of it?

For "standard" campaigns, the digital world allows us in most cases to test both very easily (for us coming from the Direct Marketing world, this is best practices and common sense). In 24 hours you can know what one performs better and roll out the winner.

For building the whole Hispanic platform/website, things get more complicated. But I still think that testing and giving the assignment to both shops could be a good idea for the client, to test capabilities and insights, and evaluate both.

Ezequiel Trivinowww.mobiusintegrated.cometrivino@mobiusintegrated.com

Nice attempt at claiming a case Albert. Next time title your post "All Hispanic Digital must be done at Hispanic Agencies (preferably at TVP). You´re basically regurgitating the same boring 20 year old rhetoric that clients must use Hispanic agencies because nobody knows Hispanics like Hispanic agencies, blah, blah, yawn, yawn....

Listen, congratulations