News from AHAA conference in NYC … Day 2.

After a night of food and fun at Madame Tussauds House of Wax museum, AHAA conference attendees gathered back at the Crowne Plaza Times Square Ballroom to dispel the myth that Hispanic advertising is dead. Gustavo de Mello and Aldo Quevedo, conference co-chairs, opened the conference today with a recap of the highlights from yesterday’s amazing sessions.

Jackie Bird, AHAA chairwoman quickly took the stage to get the day underway with an incisive question and answer session with Joe Uva, CEO of Univision and Isaac Mizrahi, director multi-cultural marketing for Sprint. Bird’s questions were designed to give agencies a better understanding of the dynamics occurring in media and the C-suite.

Q: What are some of the most significant changes occurring within our marketplace from the media and corporate marketing perspectives?

A: It’s amazing that young people in the 16-34 year old age group continue to seek out Spanish-language media. Their desire for information on mobile platforms, online, on radio…their appetite is insatiable. Mizrahi said he saw several trends in the adoption and use of technology and marketing that must be focused on acculturation levels. The trends are not being embrace by enough people, fast enough, commented Uva. Marketers are still not investing proportionate to the Hispanic population. The consumer is willing to by, takes pride in their purchase, yet is being ignored by many advertisers.

Q: What can Hispanic agencies do to take the lead in educating advertisers to the potential of marketing to Latinos?

A: Hispanic agencies are the experts on the marketplace, Uva said. They have a unique understanding of the consumer by living in the culture. Investing in research not to describe the audience but to get underneath the relationship they have with media, and really understand their behaviors is critical. The structural relationships between clients and agencies today sometimes prohibit clients from seeing the full value that Hispanics are contributing to the growth of sales. Mizrahi encouraged agencies to work as business consultants helping clients to set up the strategy and infrastructure within their organization first before selling the campaign. Corporate marketers have to compete for voice internally every day and if the agencies can help them sell the idea of Hispanic marketing through with the right infrastructure to support it internally, that’s half the battle.

Uva noted that additionally, agencies need to help clients keep on strategy. Too often he sees marketers place ad buys a year or two out and when it comes to placing the ads the spending gets misaligned and the dollars are scattered. Agencies today need to make sure the annual plan doesn’t get destroyed in the execution.

Mizrahi added agencies need to do a better job of going deeper to demonstrate to clients the value and return on their investments because the marketplace is very competitive. As long as you deliver business results and show me how we’re doing, I can justify spending.

Q: How important are multi-channel solutions?

A: Very important but it’s not about translating an advertising idea into another medium. It starts with a strong idea and then you explode that idea in different mediums. There has to be a DNA that connects the thoughts across multi-media. We want to maximize our reach by using mass medium but the challenge is turning that mass message into personal, more intimate communication. It starts with understanding the ultimate client challenge, Uva added. Univision is bringing on professionals with account planning backgrounds to sit with clients and agencies in the ideation sessions to become part of the solution.

Q: The reality is we are a bi-cultural population and we live a lot of our lives in English. Where do you stand on the subject?

A: Univision is 110 percent Hispanic. It is true, Hispanics, mostly young Hispanics are consuming more bi-language media but we feel like we still fill a very important part of consumers’ hearts and preferences. Mizrahi added that bi-culturalism is not about the language. It’s about the emotional connection and content preferences. Language doesn’t define segmentation. He said he understands why some people use it but acculturation levels should be the concern. In the future, he said we should approach campaigns language agnostic because it’s much more about what’s right for the consumer, what are their motivators, how they use your product/service. Language will be less relevant in defining consumers in the future.

The panel agreed the Hispanic marketing industry has an opportunity and a responsibility to dispel myths about the Hispanic market and share truths about this powerful market segment. Following questions from the audience, Bird asked the panelists if they believed Hispanic advertising is dead. Uva said as dollars continue to flow to the industry it will become more and more relevant and Mizrahi admitted the old way of advertising may be dead but there is a bright future for the new way of Hispanic advertising.

As the session broke, snippets of horror movies flashed on the screen and account planners and creatives separated for sessions specifically focused on their disciplines.

Connecting With The Consumer No Matter What
JWT Dominicana

Creative directors filled the dark room to listen to awarding-winning creative director Mike Alfonseca, recognized the world over for developing nontraditional campaigns. The panel discussion, presented in Spanish, shared how people are at the heart of what they do. Alfonseca told the audience to follow their hearts because that’s what people do. Creativity is about giving people what they are not expecting and that’s what makes it good. It doesn’t matter what the medium, you have to get people to react.

After numerous examples of what strikes a chord with consumers, the discussion jumped to message. Samples of the Energizer battery commercials reiterated the importance of consistency in message – still finding the shock factor yet creating analogies with the product features and repeating the message in unique ways.

They said as creative agencies, we only give the Hispanic market what they’re ready for and while they may not be prepared for some things we need to challenge them a bit more. The panel concluded with a discussion about production companies and the importance of including them in the DNA of an idea.

As creatives filed out of the hall for lunch, groups continued to discuss the ideas presented with excitement and renewed energy.

Is Opening The Black Box The Ultimate Solution

Techniques in neuroscience have been introduced as a new way to study consumer behavior. It’s a hot topic and Esteban Ribero, senior strategic planner from Lapiz led account planners in a discussion of the implications on the industry. Neuromarketing has been met with lots of controversy – sticking electrodes on consumers’ heads while they watch commercials and asking them questions about concepts. It may be one way to identify consumer behavior but Ribero wanted to make sure account planners had the information they needed to recognize the pros and cons of these techniques.

Ribero led consumers through a presentation of how neurosciences is being position to open up the black box – consumers brain – and provide the ultimate solution to identifying consumer insights. Ribero says its just not true and while the techniques may have value in the overall strategic process, they should never replace traditional consumer study, reading and observation to get to know our target better.

Planners broke into teams to work creative briefs for a product and came back together to present them with lively discussion and interesting perspectives. Leaving the session one planner said, “This was incredible. Sometimes you come to these workshops and never get anything out of it. This was fun, packed with lots of great information…it was awesome.” Another attendee said it was the best session he’s attended at a conference.

AHAA wanted to inspire the industry and get people thinking outside of the box. It seems this was a great example of how the two-day conference did just that.

During the luncheon, winners of the Young Creative Competition were announced and the dynamic team will be headed to Cannes – literally and maybe someday showcasing their work.

Closing Session – How Latino Youth Are Leading the Way

Wow! This incredible panel discussion left some in tears. To hear Latino youth of today talk about the importance of their heritage and their desire to keep their Latino culture alive was touching and enlightening. Members of the new hit band the DEY, took the stage with conference co-chairs Quevedo and de Mello, AHAA Chairwoman Jackie Bird and Jose Luis Villa, president of Circulo Creativo. Karli Henriquez, MTV Tr3s VJ “Karlifornia” moderated the discussion that was often surprising, entertaining and most of all informative.

The overwhelming message? Culture is cool. It’s what makes Latinos Latino. While we are different, our culture is what bonds us together. And make no doubt about it, we are different, especially Latino youth. One objective of the session was to show just how rich with culture this segment of the population is and while there is no one solution to reaching and connecting with this audience, there are lots and lots of possibilities if you are open to them.

The dynamic group talked about the need to unlabel and unbox Hispanics. Latinos today are a fusion of many different lifestyles and many different backgrounds but they have roots in the same culture. One of the band members talked about the responsibility of Latinos particularly youth today to teach Latino children what it means to be Latino. With the fusion that exists all agreed it is important for them to understand and celebrate where they came from so that they can keep the culture alive in their own way just as youth today are doing.

Breaking stereotypes and breaking out of the boxes Latinos and non-Latinos have created is the most important thing panelists agreed marketers need to accomplish. It’s a new day for Latino youth and it was the new DEY that brought that to life for AHAA conference attendees today.

The Dey performed live on stage at the conference to clapping, dancing and cheering. Four new songs with Latin beats, Indian flavor, Rap and more brought the crowd to their feet. What a great ending to a great conference.

So….Is Hispanic Advertising Dead? No way. Maybe the old way of thinking is dead after this energizing conference but Hispanic advertising is more alive than ever. Just ask the people who attended AHAA’s 23rd Semi-Annual Conference this week.