When the Texas Lottery holds state-mandated agency reviews,
agencies can pitch for pieces of the account, or as a group for the
whole business. In the pitch just ended, LatinWorks pitched for the
whole account with the support of small digital and media
agencies.
More traditionally, incumbent TracyLocke is believed to have
teamed up with a Hispanic agency and an African-American shop.
"The other agencies came at it from a general-market angle and
partnered with different multicultural agencies, with
African-American experts and Hispanic experts," said Christian
Filli, LatinWorks' VP of strategic planning. "We took a different
approach. We have a different model, where we own the consumer
insights, and rely on partners for different disciplines."
As the winner, LatinWorks will be the lead agency, and work with
Springbox to grow Texas Lottery's digital presence, and the David
Group to support LatinWorks' in-house media planners.
"In certain markets like Texas where Hispanics are the majority,
it makes sense that an agency with an understanding of that target
across all levels of assimilation will be well positioned," said
Alejandro Ruelas, managing marketing and the agency's CMO.
In Texas, for instance, the shift is accelerating, with more
than 60% of the state's population projected to be multicultural by
2016, Mr. Filli said.
In deciding to go for the whole account, rather than just the
Hispanic portion, "It wasn't from a place of ambition or arrogance,
but understanding that 's where the state is going," said Sergio
Alcocer, LatinWorks' president and chief creative officer.
He said the agency has handled non-Hispanic work before for
clients such as Mars' Skittles candy and Anheuser-Busch, but always
on a project basis rather than as the agency of record.
"Our objective is not to be a general-market agency," Mr.
Alcocer said. "What we want is to bring the multicultural
phenomenom to the mainstream in categories where it makes sense to
lead with multicultural because that 's where the business
opportunity is . It's a formula of the past that only the general
market can lead."