Hold the chimichurri!

In the last two weeks, lots of readers have invaded HispanicAd.com with responses to our running the Advertising Age article reporting of an ad agency for the Latino Market opening its doors in Buenos Aires.

One letter said: “Few things in the world’s gastronomy can topple a sizzling cut of Argentinean meat with chimichurri sauce, paired with a reliable Mendoza red. But there are plenty of meatier aspects to Argentine culture: writers like Borges, Cortázar, Sábato; wonderful musicians from Gardel to Piazzola.

From scientists to actresses, from amazing soccer players to academics, Argentina is definitely much more than the “Evita” we saw on Broadway. “The reader continued: It is also rich in advertising. Some of the good stuff in that profession these days may easily come from Argentina where a solid tradition in the medium has been proven with worldwide recognition.”

Then she added: “This is not to say that good advertising is confined to Argentina which seemed to be the implication that some of us got when we recently read that one highly-respected agency in the US Hispanic Market was opening a shop in Buenos Aires to compensate for the lack of creative talent in this country.”

The small news item sent shockwaves through the industry. Another creative wrote:

“I was stunned by the arrogance of the statement. I am a creative of Mexican background. While it’s wonderful to recognize the creative tradition of Brazil or Argentina or Barcelona no one can pretend to own the patrimony over ideas.”

“The comment was foolish. It showed both ignorance and a total lack of respect for the large number of creative colleagues from Mexico, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia and Spain, to name just a few countries, creatives with work that has earned awards, prestige and plenty of business for the agencies where we work,” said and e-mail from an ad leader in San Antonio.

“Some of my Argentinean friends felt embarrassed with the comments and an art director friend summed it up with typical Argentinean humor: Es una argentinada, es decir una exageración.”

In the responses to our publication some wondered about the unnecessary attack on non-Argentineans. One asked: “Have those people stopped to think how many smart creatives exist out there? Can they put their huge egos aside and understand that half of the argentinismos or Argentinean sensibilities don’t necessarily cut it here in our Market?”

One added an interesting point: “Are they now proposing to outsource the work to Buenos Aires like the new India of advertising for US Latinos who for the most part have no inkling of what a chimichurri is?”

To view artilce we ran CLICK on link https://hispanicad.comcgi-bin/news/newsarticle.cgi?article_id=21073&search_string=Grupo+Gallegos&criteria=Phrase>

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