Chiqui Cartagena
Yesterday I spoke at the International Council of Shopping Centers annual convention in Las Vegas on a panel called "Hispanic Markets: The Next Gold Rush." If you have been to La Gran Plaza Mall in Fort Worth or the Dessert Sky Mall in Phoenix or the newly inaugurated Plaza Mayor at the Crossroads in Oklahoma City, you have experienced one of the newest phenomena in the world of shopping centers -- Hispanic malls.
]]>At Univision Communications' upfront presentation, President-CEO Randy Falco posed the question "What's better, more or less?" Mr. Falco was playing the role of the deadpan moderator in a commercial spoofing AT&T's ubiquitous TV campaign in which four small children debate why it's better to have more, or be faster.
In the Univision version, Mr. Falco horrifies the kids with a scenario in which they go into a donut shop but get only half a donut. The kids rant charmingly about ridiculous, mean people who would steal their money by giving them less than they paid for.
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Hispanic consumers will soon say 'hola' to a new family: the Rojos, courtesy of Wendy's.
Hispanic marketers frequently latch on to the idea of family. According to Technomic, a family-friendly atmosphere and authentic and healthful menu offerings are particularly important for Hispanic consumers compared to the general U.S. population.
Most of the spots throughout the campaign will be in Spanish, although Mr. Bahner said that Wendy's will air an ad later this summer "that you will understand whether you speak English or Spanish."
]]>The U.S. Hispanic market will have a judge after all this year at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as LatinWorks' Sergio Alcocer was named this week to the film jury.
Mr. Alcocer, president and chief creative officer of the Austin-based U.S. Hispanic shop, was a Cannes judge in 2011 on the print jury.
]]>Walmart was named the first Marketer of the Year by AHAA: The Voice of Hispanic Marketing at the Hispanic group's annual conference on Wednesday in Miami.
Tony Rogers, Walmart's senior VP-brand marketing and advertising, and Greg Warren, VP-creative marketing, accepted the award by Skype after being stranded in Chicago on their way to Miami.
In its announcement of the new honor, AHAA cited Ad Age's coverage of a Walmart presentation from the October 2012 Association of National Advertisers' multicultural marketing conference, where the two Walmart execs pledged that the company would double its 2013 multicultural ad spending. The move was part of a sweeping initiative to move the company from a silo-like approach and ensure everyone takes full responsibility for multicultural marketing.
]]>The top five U.S. Hispanic ideas, chosen this week in awards organized by the Hispanic creatives' group Circulo Creativo, include the first abs-building yogurt for men and an environmentally-friendly tent that doubled as a Glad trash bag at Austin's SXSW festival.
If these ideas don't seem particularly Hispanic -- although a Hispanic agency is behind each one -- it's just another sign of how integrated Hispanics have become in what WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell, speaking at this week's Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) conference, called the "new mainstream."
In an advance look at Hispanic work that might do well next month at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, here are the U.S.H. Ideas awards' top five:
]]>The final deadline to enter the Wave Festival for Latin America has been extended to April 8. This year agencies from the U.S. Hispanic market and Puerto Rico are participating for the first time in the Wave, a leading ad festival for Latin America.
Advertising Age is partnering with the Wave to help introduce the awards, held April 15-17 in Rio de Janeiro, to Hispanic agencies in the U.S. The regional Wave Festival is organized by Meio & Mensagem, Brazil's top advertising and marketing publication and events organizer, and Ad Age's longtime editorial partner in Brazil.
All judging is done onsite during the festival, by 70 judges from 12 countries. The U.S. will be represented at the Wave next month by Luis Miguel Messianu, president and chief creative officer of Miami-based Alma, who will chair the direct category jury. The other U.S. Hispanic judges on three other juries are Sergio Alcocer, president-chief creative officer of LatinWorks in Austin, Texas; Pablo Buffagni, chief creative officer at Los Angeles-based Grupo Gallegos; and Aldo Quevedo, who joined Richards/Lerma as principal and creative director in December and takes over in April as chairman of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA).
]]>Target has tapped Rick Gomez, an alum of MillerCoors and PepsiCo, as its senior VP-brand and category marketing.
Mr. Gomez will lead marketing for all merchandise categories and brand initiatives, such as exclusive artists and licensing, as well as creative collaborations. He will also oversee multicultural marketing and Target's owned brands, which include Archer Farms and Up & Up. He fills the role vacated by Will Setliff last year.
Most recently, Mr. Gomez was VP-marketing at MillerCoors, reporting directly to CMO Andy England.He was appointed to that role in 2011 and charged with bolstering the brewer's premium light business and putting a new focus on multicultural marketing. Prior to that, Mr. Gomez spent 18 years at PepsiCo and Quaker Oats.
]]>MillerCoors is searching for a new U.S. Hispanic agency for Miller Lite after parting ways with Lopez Negrete Communications, which has handled the brand for seven years.
"This was a decision to mutually part ways," Rudy Rodriguez, the brewer's senior director for multicultural marketing, told Ad Age. "We really at this point are looking for new ways of continuing to drive growth with this consumer segment."
Mr. Rodriguez, who joined the brewer late last year from General Mills, said MillerCoors would consider several agencies, including Publicis Groupe's Bromley, which handles Hispanic advertising for Coors Light. Bromley "has delivered great work for us," he said, noting that Coors Light's Hispanic business has grown for the past eight years. "We have a high level of respect for them."
]]>Ending an unusual experiment, Heineken USA will no longer rely on a Mexican-based agency for all U.S. advertising on Tecate. Instead, the importer has selected Inspire, Dallas, to oversee English-language campaigns for the Mexican brand, Ad Age has learned.
The marketer 14 months agoshifted the entire U.S. account to Olabuenaga Chemistri, which has long handled the brand in Mexico. The consolidation – seen as a cost-cutting move -- included a limited number of English-language ads as the brand ramped up its strategy of reaching out to acculturated Hispanic drinkers.
Olabuenaga will still handle Spanish-language advertising in the U.S. But the brand was not satisfied with the English spots and tapped Inspire after a review, said Tecate VP-Marketing Felix Palau. "We realized that when a Mexican agency tries to develop English creative, it feels translated," Mr. Palau told Ad Age. "So in all honesty, we were not comfortable with the delivery."
]]>The call for entries is open for the Wave Festival, a leading ad festival for Latin America that includes the U.S. Hispanic market and Puerto Rico for the first time this year.
Entries are due by April 1, 2013 for the Wave.
Advertising Age is partnering with the Wave to help introduce the awards, held April 15-17 in Rio de Janeiro, to Hispanic agencies in the U.S. The regional Wave Festival is organized by Meio & Mensagem, Brazil's top advertising and marketing publication and events organizer, and Ad Age's longtime editorial partner in Brazil.
]]>It's never too early to start thinking about the World Cup, just 15 months away.
In a charming new McDonald's spot full of joy and camaraderie, a group of Latino guys are happily playing a hard-fought soccer game at night on a dimly-lit hard dirt court. The only illumination appears to be the tiny, shimmering sparkles of lights from nearby hills that form a breathtaking backdrop to the soccer game.
The court suddenly goes dark, right before the critical game shot is about to be taken, and the men call out for just one more minute. After the light flashes back on and the game finally ends, we see the field has been lit by a McDonald's sign in the adjacent parking lot.
]]>Lionel Richie's famed 1984 ballad is the centerpiece of Taco Bell's current TV ad, but it's sung as "Hola."
"It's surprising that even 20-year-olds know the song," said Taco Bell CMO Brian Niccol. "They might not know Lionel Richie, but they'll recognize the tune."
Though it seems like an odd song for Taco Bell, especially in Spanish, the ad is introducing its new Cool Ranch Doritos Locos taco, which will be available March 7, and is part of Taco Bell's largest marketing campaign to date. Using what Mr. Niccol called an iconic song translated into Spanish is the latest iteration of the chain's larger "Live Mas" campaign, which is meant to convey Taco Bell's food "not just as fuel, but food as an experience," he said.
]]>Last year was a landmark one in Hispanic media. On TV, new and planned broadcast and cable channels from Fox, ESPN and others now battle for the attention of Hispanic viewers against incumbents Univision and Telemundo.
Though not receiving the same national attention as TV, equally dramatic shifts have taken place in the Hispanic radio landscape. Like TV, the radio marketplace has quickly evolved from local broadcast, then satellite, to the emergence of internet radio as a primary destination catering to the changing musical tastes and listening preferences of Hispanic consumers, an increasingly powerful consumer segment of the U.S. population.
According to the Selig Center for Economic Growth, Hispanic spending power will rise to $1.5 trillion by 2015, or nearly 11% of total U.S. buying power. U.S. Census projections offer a similar view on the growing importance of Hispanic consumers. Hispanics presently make up 16.3% of the total U.S. population, or just over 52 million people. By 2050 this figure is projected to reach 133 million, or nearly one-third of the entire U.S. population.
]]>At NBC Universal, oversight of cable, digital properties and Spanish-language broadcasting has recently involved a complex chain of command. Now the company's CEO, Steve Burke, is attempting to simplify the three operations.
In a sweeping maneuver announced Monday, Mr. Burke handed responsibility of the company's cable networks to Bonnie Hammer, the popular programmer who built such assets as USA and SyFy into cable powerhouses, and whose current project is building up E!.
Lauren Zalaznick, who had been running cable networks including Bravo and Oxygen while also overseeing Spanish-language network Telemundo, a slew of web properties and some broad marketing programs, will now focus on digital properties as well as general innovation and emerging technology at the company.
]]>La Comunidad's Miami headquarters is composed of two separate offices: one for the left brain -- a color-saturated building in the trendy Design District, where family photos are plastered on the ceiling -- and another for the right brain, housed in a waterfront villa with a swimming pool for staff to cool off after brainstorming ideas and rehearsing pitches.
A third office is more than 4,000 miles away, in Buenos Aires.
At the independent shop owned and run by the Molla brothers from Argentina, La Comunidad's quirky approach to office space spills over into its portfolio of multicultural, international and digital content.
]]>When General Motors' Chevrolet brand slashed its U.S. Hispanic spending by more than two-thirds in early 2012 as part of a global consolidation of the Chevy business, it looked like LatinWorks wouldn't have its usual stellar year.
But through a combination of new-business wins and additional brands from existing clients such as Pepsi, Heinz and Mars, LatinWorks managed to end 2012 with revenue up 7%. How? As marketers ponder whether it makes sense to have both a general-market and a Hispanic agency, LatinWorks is at the forefront of making the case that multicultural is the new mainstream.
Based in Austin, the hippest of cities in the heavily Hispanic state of Texas, LatinWorks has a knack for convincing clients that in an increasingly multicultural world, the agency is the best choice to handle the total market. Both the Texas Lottery and Stripes, a small regional convenience store chain, gave the agency their entire ad accounts last year.
]]>"If the [U.S.] Hispanic market were a nation, it would soon be the 11th largest economy in the world," global CEO Sol Trujillo told the Wall Street Summit of 2010. That would place it on the list right near Russia, Canada and Australia. At that size, and with tremendous growth potential -- the Hispanic market grew 43% in the last 10 years -- how can this market still seem invisible so much of the time, failing to get the investment share and business priority it ought to have?
The answer lies in a seriously flawed system for gathering multicultural sales data. What multicultural market researcher experts call the "sales data undercount" is estimated at between 40% to 60% of the true volume of multicultural consumer sales, depending on the brand or product category.
How does this occur? Most consumer product and service companies gather all sorts of multicultural demographic, psychographic and behavioral data and have made great strides in marketing and advertising to these customers. However, tracking sales remains poor: What percentage of corporate sales and growth is generated by purchases of each of the different consumer groups: Hispanic, African-American, Asian-American and Asians?
]]>Target is awarding its U.S. Hispanic account to LatinWorks after a three-month review that also included sibling Omnicom Group shop Dieste.
"LatinWorks has been selected and will be our primary strategic partner for Hispanic marketing," said Katie Boylan, senior group manager of public relations at Target .
Target doesn't make specific agency of record assignments, she said. The account does not include media planning and buying. Grupo Gallegos, an independent U.S. Hispanic shop, previously handled much of Target 's Hispanic work, often on a project basis. LatinWorks referred calls to Target .
]]>Zumba is giving itself the MTV treatment.
The company behind the popular dance-workout classes last week released a music video on Vevo for a song called "Zumba." It's part of a strategy that the company's CEO Alberto Perlman says he hopes will see Zumba transform from a fitness brand into a broader entertainment and media platform.
While Zumba has previously made dance videos for songs used in its classes, the new video uses a track released this past April by Latin pop artist Don Omar that doubles as a promotional tool, dropping the name of the brand several times throughout. It ties into Zumba's video fitness game on Xbox and Nintendo Wii as well.
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