Astroturfing. So you thought grassroots is always greener on social media, huh? Think again.
By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc. / LMMiami.com
- Would you accept it if, say, your advertising or PR agency offered you an astroturfing campaign?
- I’m sure you’ve heard the pitch.
- It goes somewhat along these lines: “… we have a team of influencers ready to open the floodgates and plug your product, service or brand. Just say the word, write the check and we’ll pull the trigger.”
- According to the British daily The Guardian* “astroturfing is the attempt to create an impression of widespread grassroots support for a policy, individual, or product, where little such support exists. Multiple online identities and fake pressure groups are used to mislead the public into believing that the position of the astroturfer is the commonly held view…”
McCann Worldgroup announced that Casanova Pendrill is today being rebranded as Casanova//McCann. 
Attention is the allocation of mental resources, visual or cognitive, to visible or conceptual objects. Before consumers can be affected by advertising messages, they first need to be paying attention. As Thales S. Teixeira writes in this paper, the quality of consumer attention has been falling for decades. Consumers have lost interest in the information content of ads because they can access more and better information on‐demand on the Web.
People tune out messages that do not connect with them emotionally, according to Dr. Thomas Trautmann, certified neuromarketing instructor and business partner at SalesBrain, a San Francisco-based marketing agency that uses psychology to figure out the best way for brands to convey their message. eMarketer’s Sean Creamer spoke with Trautmann about how brands are leveraging mobile to elicit emotional responses from their audience.
Some content is so flat and boring that it can be hard to read. No one wants to be faced with an article that is corporate, uninspiring, and feels like it has been written by a robot. Behind every brand is a human being that is passionate about the industry they work in and is driven by their area of expertise. But how do we make the human side of a brand come across? Being authentic in your content marketing efforts is key.
So if brands started out as labels for ‘stuff’ and now it’s becoming apparent that we’re generally into less ‘stuff’, what do brands need to do to keep thriving? Are they now redundant or do they have a new role to play? We went about finding out with a five phase study: Creating Cultural Value.
Every brand has a generalized framework for approaching consumers or customers. It usually goes something like this: First, assess the landscape, then define the prospect (“Who”); figure out what we want to say (“What”), and determine the best ways and means to communicate that message (“How”). ATL, Who, What, How. Pretty standard. This framework is so pervasive, so robust, and so fundamental that no one ever questions it. It has worked for a long time. You might ask, if it’s so great, why is brand advertising having so much trouble?
U.S. Hispanics are more prone to smartphone distracted driving than the general population, according to AT&T* It Can Wait research. 83% of Hispanics admit to using their smartphones behind the wheel. That compares with 71% of Americans as a whole. 
igital expertise in security, as well as web and mobile development, were most in demand for executives in the US and Europe during Q4 2015, according to research. Within a few years, competency in analytics and big data will be a more crucial skill needed.
U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President Javier Palomarez once described Hispanic entrepreneurs as “America’s business future.” Mark his words because it’s looking as if he’s right. Not only is the Hispanic and Latino community expected to make up a third of the entire U.S. population by 2050, but this demographic is also creating businesses at 15 times the national rate today, according to a report from analytics firm Geoscape and the USHCC.
Telemundo announced sponsors of the 2016 “Billboard Latin Music Awards,” including DishLATINO, Domino’s, Ford, Garnier Fructis, TWIX®, Pepsi, Samsung Electronics America, Sprint, State Farm, Target, Toyota and Victoria.
When it comes to technology, sometimes there is a world of difference between wanting something and actually needing something. In the case of smartphones, the devices’ ubiquity in terms of U.S. penetration of 82% and cross-platform functionality definitely put them in the latter category.
Nearly 75% of global respondents, on average, say a brand’s country of origin is as important as or more important than nine other purchasing drivers, including selection/choice, price, function and quality, according to findings from the Nielsen Global Brand-Origin Survey releasedy.
As influential decision makers in household spending, Latinas are rapidly becoming a key driver of the U.S. economy, staking their claim in major family financial decisions like vehicle purchases. 
It was the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death this weekend. It’s quite an achievement to be remembered for what you wrote over 400 years later. The British bard was obviously an enormously gifted wordsmith. I was reminded of the importance of wordsmithing as I was working with a client on process, architecture and organizational structure. We jointly creating a new approach to allocating budgets, defining target audiences and creating integrated marketing plans. But we soon realized that language stood in the way of clarity.
The hype around artificial intelligence (AI) is ramping up, especially as big tech companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft attempt to commercialize its use. Agencies are also starting to figure out how they can leverage AI to make their clients’ marketing and advertising efforts more effective. eMarketer’s Bryan Yeager spoke with Josh Sutton, global head of the artificial intelligence practice at Publicis.Sapient, to demystify how AI is used for marketing and what its future may hold.
The National Geographic Society announced that Emma Carrasco will take on the newly created position of chief marketing and communications officer and senior vice president of global strategy.
Over the past decade, U.S. Multicultural consumers drove over 100% of total economic expenditure growth, and now comprise ~50% of the Millennial and youth populations. If these are priority segments, you will find our new eBook very useful. It helps marketers evolve their strategies to succeed in an increasingly Multicultural marketplace.
By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMIAMI.COM
More than 1 million households in North America started camping last year. Of these new campers, 18 percent are African-American, 11 percent are Hispanic, and 44 percent are millennials, according to the 2016 North American Camping Report, an annual independent study supported by Kampgrounds of America, Inc. (KOA).
