The strength of ‘weak signals’ [INSIGHT]
As information thunders through the digital economy, it’s easy to miss valuable “weak signals” often hidden amid the noise. Arising primarily from social media, they represent snippets—not streams—of information and can help companies to figure out what customers want and to spot looming industry and market disruptions before competitors do. Sometimes, companies notice them during data-analytics number-crunching exercises.

For the very first time, brands, rather than direct-response advertisers, are driving innovation in the digital marketing category.
For the first time in U.S. Hispanic media history, Univision, UniMás and Galavisión will unite to simulcast the world premiere of the new dramatic series “La Viuda Negra” (The Black Widow) on Sunday, February 23, 2014, at 10 p.m. ET/PT (9 p.m. Central) before settling in to its regular 10pm Monday through Friday time slot on UniMás.
On February 1, 2014 the Hispanic business and marketing community lost an advocate as Hector Galvan from Sprint passed away.
Latinos are an important segment for businesses related to the movies. To illustrate the latest on Hispanic movie habits, Tr3s took a look in a recent report, “Hispanics at the Movies.”
According to Walden University’s 2013 Social Change Impact Report, nearly all adults (93%, on average) agree it is important that schools provide opportunities for young people to be involved in positive social change activities. Findings also reveal that if social change engagement is modeled to and started at a young age, it may lead to more involvement in adulthood as 89% of adults, on average, agree that being involved in positive social change as a child or teenager inspires people to be involved as adults.
Despite ongoing market uncertainty, retail chief financial officers are feeling more confident about the state of the consumer. According to a new BDO USA, LLP survey, retail CFOs forecast a 5.1 percent increase in total sales and a 4.8 percent increase in comparable store sales this year, marking a significant increase from the number expressing similar sentiments last year. A majority of CFOs (63 percent) indicate that they include online sales in their comparable sales projections, suggesting that some of this expected growth and optimism may be linked to the exploding popularity of e-commerce.
The front page headline in the January 15, 2014, Los Angeles Times caught my attention: “Futsal: Soccer Small and Fleet.” The article described the exploding popularity of the sport of futsal, a mini-soccer game with five-person teams played on small concrete or turf (sometimes artificial) courts. By Dr. Carlos E. Cortés / Univision Insights
Univision Communications Inc. announced an agreement with Centerstage Brands International, LLC to license an array of consumers products, services and promotions branded with the name and image of Pedro Infante, the late Latin American idol from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.
Sabor Latino, a food industry trade show, will showcase products and services from this growing food and beverage sector on May 13 and 14, 2014, at the Pasadena Convention Center in the Los Angeles market. The trade show and symposium will provide a marketplace for grocers, restaurateurs, schools, hotels, hospitals, foodservice, and food and beverage professionals to engage with suppliers and manufacturers of Latino food products and services. From what’s trending to the authentic and healthy, the show will feature an exhibit floor, workshops, cooking demonstrations, and a symposium.
The last year has been filled with talk about the virtues and the issues with the concept of total market advertising. In a recent article I posited that there are essentially three different models for multicultural marketing. Although the terms are being used interchangeably, the result is a great deal of confusion in the multicultural marketing world. This evolving lexicon has made its way into the agency side of the business. More and more Hispanic, African-American and Asian advertising agencies are adopting monikers like “cross-cultural agency” to describe themselves and have gone out of their way to label new ethnic assignments as “total market” AOR assignments. by Jose Villa / Sensis
The New York Times (article), Fox News, MSNBC and others have made an inter-ethnic family the cause de jour (MSN’s take). Some marketers are continuing to push the envelope on ethnic norm shifts in the U.S. and what that means to their brand. by Stephen Palacios, Executive Vice President, Added Value US

























