Hispanicize matters.

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc   /   LMMIAMI.COM

• Year after year, Hispanicize gets bigger, better and louder.
• Bloggers are no longer the only raison d’être of it all.
• Technology, marketing, entertainment, music, entrepreneurship, politics, religion, cuisine.
• There’s something for everyone.
• Of course, everyone is selling something.
• Here’s what I bought & what I didn’t, should you care to know:

-Best general interest keynote speaker: Sol Trujillo.

• A true power player.
• Strategic thinking for the ages.
• No unnecessary fireworks, no fluff.
• Authoritative yet accessible.
• Laser sharp, on point.
• With Mr. Trujlllo’s signature suave, effortless charm.
• Needless to say everybody is selling something and Mr. Trujillo is no exception.
• He was indeed introducing an organization he co-founded, some sort of political action committee I think, but he was elegant enough to plug it with subtlety.
• Unfortunately, he spoke to a not-so-full house.
• He took over right after Rosario Dawson’s appearance so many a groupie in the audience had left the room.
• With all due respect: there’s more to learn from a five minute speech by Sol Trujillo than from a forty five minute-long emotional rant by Ms. Dawson.

-Best Hollywood celeb on a mission: Rosario Dawson

• See, Ms. Dawson has the advantage and the disadvantage of being a movie star.
• You pay attention to what she has to say because she’s a movie star.
• But it is hard to take her seriously, well, because she’s a movie star.
• The Sean Penn effect: is it vanity or is it true?
• What if all the political posturing and social activism is just a publicity stunt?
• Sorry for wearing my skepticism on my sleeve.
• Hey, I ain’t sayin’ Ms. Dawson isn’t highly articulate and charismatic.
• By no means.
• I can see why she’s a great actress sought after by the best directors.
• She has a magnetic, commanding stage presence.
• She’s gritty yet classy.
• She’s sexy yet elegant.
• Not easy to pull off.
• We know how Latinas tend to overdo it with the surgery and the makeup.
• Ms. Dawson is, literally and figuratively, a natural.
• I have my reservations about her political views though.
• I find them well-intentioned but naïve and rife with contradictions.
• She cries wolf about “corporations” being a massive threat to the little people and, in the same sentence, she proceeds to sing praises to Facebook & Twitter for giving the little people a voice in places such as disparate as the US, Tunisia or Egypt.
• Someone please tell Ms. Dawson that Facebook and Twitter are themselves mega massive corporations built upon intricate tax-dodging structures, long lists of shell companies in Delaware, Dublin, Liechtenstein and the like, and lobbying fiercely to open immigration laws to allow the influx of cheap, foreign engineering talent.
• Someone please tell Ms. Dawson too that most of the movies she stars in are produced, financed and distributed by big corporations.
• She’s too sold on the old white haired man that came from the cold (Bernie Sanders, not Santa Claus).
• Me thinks the whole Bern thing is an illusion with little root in reality and zero viability.
• In any case, the Hispanic community needs more people like Ms. Dawson.
• Talented, opinionated, vocal, committed and ready to put up a fight.
• Willing to become popular outside of the Hispanic realm and not afraid to use their fame.
• She just has to be careful not to overdo it and end up being pigeonholed with that very pejorative of terms: a Hollywood liberal.
• She might also want to thicken her skin a bit, to judge by how alienated she was about some criticism she received.
• Get over it, Rosario.
• Whatever you do or say, someone will always criticize you.
• Ignore them.
• Don’t dignify them with your response.

-Best keynote speaker from a marketing & advertising POV:

• César Melgoza of Geoscape made a killer, eye-opening presentation with a wealth of sound intel for marketers and advertisers.
• Mr Melgoza touched on topics that can sometimes be a bit dry yet he did it with simplicity and eloquence.
• He certainly knows what he’s talking about.
• I’m amazed that he would give all that info away for free: I walked out of there with a binder full of charts, readily available to whomever wanted it.
• This binder alone should be sold for no less than 2 grand.
• Aplauso para Mr. Melgoza.

-Second best keynote speakers (also from a marketing & advertising POV):

• Martha Insúa and Jackie Zima from ALMA made a great presentation.
• Full of insightful data about being a Hispanic teen in America today.
• The so-called Generation Z.
• Those little urchins that are gonna pick up the tab after Millennials start losing their hair and their underpaid jobs.

-Best Panel: State of the US Hispanic Digital Industry Town Hall:

• Deftly moderated by Salvo Group’s Paul Suskey.
• It essentially consisted of an amusing, thinly veiled showdown between Christian Martínez, Head of US Multicultural at Facebook, and Twitter’s Lead of US Latino Media Partnerships Luciano Ibias.
• Too bad for the rest of the panelists who were pretty much relegated to the role of supporting actors and quiet witnesses of the exchange of subtle barbs between the two Silicon Valley behemoths.
• Neverthless, in my humble opinion, Telemundo’s Borja Pérez was the only one who spoke his mind and said truly interesting, unscripted things.

-Big winner #1:

• Manny Ruiz, founder, CEO, etc etc etc of Hispanicize.
• Our own Latino Mark Zuckerberg & Jeff Bezos rolled into one.
• He did it again.
• He hit it out of the park.
• Golazo.
• He’s obviously contemplating a career in politics.
• Wanna bet?
• He certainly has the vision, the skill set and the drive to run for office, locally and even nationally.
• He’s got the connections too.
• I wonder if he has the patience to operate in Washington DC circles.
• He seems to be an inveterate hustler, in the best sense of the word.
• He wouldn’t be the first successful, self-made businessman to try his hand at politics.
• I’d vote for you, Manny.
• Go for it.
• Let the baby kissing begin.
• If I had to give you a little piece of advice: try to undergo a little coaching to master the high art of speaking to crowds &/or in front of the cameras.

-Big winner # 2: Telemundo’s Borja Pérez.

• Mr Pérez seems to be doing great things for his employer, devising and rolling out innovative ideas to combine broadcast TV programming with mobile apps and devices.
• It’s minds like Mr. Pérez’s who will save broadcast TV from oblivion &/or irrelevance.
• I foresee a long and successful career for Mr. Pérez in the multicultural & mainstream media business
• -Big winner #3: author & inspirational speaker Lizzie Velázquez.
• That girl has a pair of cojones the size of bowling balls.
• Plus perfect comedic timing.
• She is witty, funny, clever, sweet.
• Someone give her a TV or radio talk show now.
• Too bad she never learned to speak Spanish.

-Killer idea: awarding the Latino Influencer award of the year to Pope Francis.

• A brilliant PR stunt. His Holiness will be forced to accept the photo op.

-Killer idea # 2: re-enacting a Shark Tank-style business pitch competition for Hispanic entrepreneurs.

• Enlightening and inspiring.
• One male and to females explained their business ventures to a jury of notables: a grocery store-friendly cocktail mixer containing fresh juices and a quite clever industrial design solution for better distribution; a pretty high end yet earthy crunchy fair trade line of clothing manufactured in Guatemala, and a Spanish-speaking cartoon character with an educational purpose.
• The cocktail mixer won and walked away with five grand.
• Unfortunately, it played out to a half empty house.
• Maybe attendees were lining up for free pastelitos some place else.

-Wrong choice: the venue of the Tecla Awards.

• A seedy, stinky, deficiently air conditioned nightclub on South Beach’s Washington Avenue.
• A cavernous yet labyrinthine establishment formerly known as Mansion (been there, done that)
• An old classic of the dance scene that happens to be in a calamitous present state.
• Horrible, tortuous acoustics.
• An OK hangout if you are a sunburned, clueless tourist from Utah or the Ukraine in search of noise, sweaty bodies and recreational drugs.
• Not good for a prestigious award ceremony.
• Not good at all.
• Next time, please find a better venue.

-Big elephant nowhere to be found in the room: Univision.

• Do I smell beef between UVN and Hispanicize’s organizers?
• Who knows.